The economic calculation problem is not about how much to charge the consumer. The problem is about throwing resources down the drain.
If the govt owns all the means of production, how does it know how to allocate the resources? How much steel should go into making luxiury cars, how much into cheap quality cars, how much into ipods, how much into new factories, how much into space exploration etc.? There are thousands of uses for steel.
So what are you going to do? Send out a shopping list to all consumers in the country.
"Please fill out from the thousands and thousands of consumer goods that use steel which ones you want, in order of preference. Don’t worry about the price we’ll figure that out later.
“Don’t forget to fill out the accompanying few hundred papers featuring the possible uses for wood, rubber, lead, gold, tungsten, nickel, electrical energy, and so forth.”
When the reports all come in [a practical impossiblity in itself, for 350 million people to fill out hundreds of pages of forms], expect the follwoing dialogue:
“Well, Comrade Serf, have you collated all the ingredients and figured out what we should be producing?”
“Yes, Comrade Obama, we need 350 million personal helicopters, and equal amount of yachts, spaceships, luxury cars, 50 room mansions with solid gold roofs, and so forth.”
“There is not enough raw material on the face of the Earth to meet these ridiculous demands, Comrade Serf.”
“I will send out new lists with a price for each item, and a maximum amount each comrade can spend.”
“And how will you know what price to attach to things?”
“Based on the cost of production, of course.”
“What cost of production? We do not pay anything to produce them, Comrade Serf. We own everything in the country. We get it all for free. Our production cost is zero.”