Reviving the Socialist Calculation Debate: A Defense of Hayek Against Lange

1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Market Socialism ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Socialist Calculation Debate

The socialist calculation debate is a debate about whether rational economic decisions can be made without markets, or without markets in production goods. Though this debate has been simmering in economics for over 65 years, most philosophers have ignored it. This may be because they are unaware of the debate, or perhaps it is because they have absorbed the conventional view that one side decisively won. This is the side represented by economists such as Oskar Lange and Fred Taylor who, in opposition to free-market economists like Fredrich Hayek, allegedly showed that their version of market socialism is, in principle, as efficient as capitalism.

scholarly journals Third-Century Inflation Reassessed

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
State Action ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Roman Egypt ◽  
Quantitative Treatment

The conventional view of inflation in the Roman world, based on evidence from Roman Egypt, is that prices were steady from the middle of the first century AD until around AD 274, other than a doubling of prices between AD 160 and 190. By a quantitative treatment of the data for all available prices, and indicators of prices, this paper shows that this picture is broadly correct for wheat, but that prices for other goods increased throughout the period from AD 160 to 270. This pattern suggests that there were two co-existing market sectors. One for wheat, where prices appear to have been impacted by state action, and another where other commodities were left to find their own market level within a relatively free market.

Economics of Market Socialism and the Issue of Public Enterprise Reform in Developing Countries (The Distinguishedl Lecture)

1992 ◽  
Vol 31 (4I) ◽  
pp. 565-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pranab Bardhan
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Enterprise ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Health Campaigns ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Market Socialism ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Basic Capital ◽  
Public Health Campaigns

Historically state socialism has had dramatic initial success in creating a basic capital goods base in early stages of industrialisation and in its spectacular feats of mass literacy and public health campaigns made possible by mass-based organisations and forces of human mobilisation unleashed by socialist revolutions in poor countries like China, Vietnam or Cuba. But from the post-mortem reports of the collapse of the command economy in different parts of the world it is now clear that centralised state socialism is largely incapable of coping with the technological demands of the increasing sophistication in product quality and diversity and the needs of quick flexibility in decision-making and risk-taking in a whole range of economic activities spanning the technological spectrum from agriculture to semiconductors. There is no doubt that a more decentralised market-mediated allocation of resources and greater competition can correct much of the wastage and dynamic efficiency of the bureaucratic command system and introduce more agility and flexibility in economic decisions. But the big question is how effective the stimulus of competition and markets can be without large-scale private ownership.

Market Failure and Government Failure

1990 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mrinal Datta-Chaudhuri
Keyword(s):  
Market Failure ◽  
Free Market ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Sufficient Information ◽  
Government Failure ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Threat Of Entry

For several decades a debate has been raging in development economics on the relative virtues of the free market as opposed to state intervention, with neither side convincing the other. While this sterile debate continues, experiences accumulated from research and action in the real world during the last 40 years have led to important new thinking on the roles of market and nonmarket institutions in the process of economic growth. The planned economies of the socialist world have learned that market institutions are not exclusive to the capitalist mode of production, and that the threat of entry and the fear of exit remain irreplaceable stimuli for cost and quality consciousness in production. Researchers in market economies have learned that price quotations on marketed commodities do not always carry sufficient information for economic decisions, and that institutions matter. This paper pieces together some lessons from the development experiences of the last four decades to enrich our understanding of the role of the state in the process of economic development.

scholarly journals Research and Extension Issues in Production Economics

1982 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald D. Lacewell ◽  
James M. McGrann
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Production Economics ◽  
Market Prices ◽  
Cropping Patterns ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
History Of Agriculture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
Agricultural Input

The role of the economist in agriculture has increased in significance in the 1970s and 80s. A review of the recent history of agriculture begins with the period of stability and relative certainty of agricultural input and product prices in the 1950s. But by the 1970s, the economic impacts of the oil crisis, inflation, and orientation to free market prices of agricultural products necessitated a transition in the role and importance of the agricultural economist. Economists became vital to farmers who had to make economic decisions on appropriate cropping patterns, when and how to market products, and how to invest wisely.

scholarly journals Talking to Walls: The Socialist Calculation Debate that Never Really Was One

2018 ◽  
pp. 339-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brecht L. Arnaert
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Central Planning ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Calculation ◽  
Socialist Calculation Debate ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Socialist Economist ◽  
Straw Men

In his book «Socialism, Economic calculation and Entrepreneur-ship» Dr. Jesus Huerta de Soto (2010) gives an account of the his-tory of the socialist calculation debate, in which he shows very clearly why the political left today still believes a socialist econ-omy is possible. The popular wisdom in those circles, namely, is that in 1936, Oskar Lange (Lange, October 1936: 53–71 & February 1937) succeeded in refuting Mises’ claim that central planning could not work because the information that is needed to draw up such plans can only be generated in a free market. This paper wants to show that nothing could be further from the truth: Lange never answered Mises’ fundamental challenge, nor was there any other socialist economist that has been able to refute his central argument. A lot of straw men died, but Mises’ funda-mental argument lives.  

Economic Development in 2006 and the Future of the Russian Economy: The Non-Resource-Based Sector Potential (The Economic Report of All-Russia Business Union “Delovaya Rossiya”)

2007 ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
B. Titov ◽  
I. Pilipenko ◽  
A. Danilov-Danilyan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Report ◽  
Russian Economy ◽  
The Social ◽  
National Economic ◽  
Investment Capital ◽  
Export Industries ◽  
Sustainable Economic Growth

The report considers how the state economic policy contributes to the national economic development in the midterm perspective. It analyzes main current economic problems of the Russian economy, i.e. low effectiveness of the social system, high dependence on export industries and natural resources, high monopolization and underdeveloped free market, as well as barriers that hinder non-recourse-based business development including high tax burden, skilled labor deficit and lack of investment capital. We propose a social-oriented market economy as the Russian economic model to achieve a sustainable economic growth in the long-term perspective. This model is based on people’s prosperity and therefore expanding domestic demand that stimulates the growth of domestic non-resource-based sector which in turn can accelerate annual GDP growth rates to 10-12%. To realize this model "Delovaya Rossiya" proposes a program that consists of a number of directions and key groups of measures covering priority national projects, tax, fiscal, monetary, innovative-industrial, trade and social policies.

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