Socialism: Still Impossible After All These Years
by Peter J. Boettke & Peter T. Leeson
"If socialism could not achieve the intermediate objective of advanced material production, then it could not attain its ultimate objective - social harmony".
The particular ends of socialism are the following:
1. No exploitation
2. No alienation
3. Freedom and social harmony.
However, there is a problem at the core of this system, which is the inability of socialist central planners to engage in rational economic calculation.
Mises' argument: "Socialism is impossible"
Without a mechanism for allocating means of production, it would be impossible for socialism to advance material abundance; therefore if it could not achieve the end of scarcity, it would not be able to propel social harmony (which was the mail goal).
"Collective ownership cannot possibly prepare the ground for the leap into the kingdom of freedom by creating the hoped-for advancement of material production".
In real-world socialism, we have also experienced that socialism doesn't really work because black markets always emerge, individuals know better how allocate market prices; they know what they want.
"In striving "to make all men wealthy, the Soviet state had made it impossible for any man to be otherwise than poor".
* "Mises was "one of the most learned critics of communism" and that the economic catastrophe that was evident in 1921 did resemble the picture "predicted" by Mises".
1. No exploitation
2. No alienation
3. Freedom and social harmony.
However, there is a problem at the core of this system, which is the inability of socialist central planners to engage in rational economic calculation.
Mises' argument: "Socialism is impossible"
- Socialism requires complete abolition of private goods.
- Without private ownership there cannot be exchange.
- Without the exchange of them, there can emerge no market prices.
- Without market prices, socialism cannot rationally allocate them.
Without a mechanism for allocating means of production, it would be impossible for socialism to advance material abundance; therefore if it could not achieve the end of scarcity, it would not be able to propel social harmony (which was the mail goal).
"Collective ownership cannot possibly prepare the ground for the leap into the kingdom of freedom by creating the hoped-for advancement of material production".
In real-world socialism, we have also experienced that socialism doesn't really work because black markets always emerge, individuals know better how allocate market prices; they know what they want.
"In striving "to make all men wealthy, the Soviet state had made it impossible for any man to be otherwise than poor".
* "Mises was "one of the most learned critics of communism" and that the economic catastrophe that was evident in 1921 did resemble the picture "predicted" by Mises".