Socialism can't Calculate...

Economic Calculation In The Socialist Commonwealth
By Ludwig von Mises

(translated from the German by S. Adler)

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Ludwig von Mises's seminal essay, originally published in 1920 *, appears here in the 1990 edition published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" advances a devastating critique against economic calculation in a socialist economy, inspiring a decades-long debate. For more information, sources, and materials concerning the calculation debate, visit The Calculation Debate in the Austrian Study Guide.

*[This article appeared originally under the title "Die Wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen Gemeinwesen" in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften, vol. 47 (1920). The present translation was first published in F.A. Hayek, ed.,Collectivist Economic Planning (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1935; reprint, Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1975), pp. 87-130. Some annotations appear in this edition and they are set aside in brackets.]