Without private ownership in the means of production, there will not be a market in the means of production. Without a market for the means of production, there will not be monetary prices established on the market (which reflect the exchange ratios, or relative trade-offs people are wiling to make). And, without monetary prices, reflecting the relative scarcities of different goods and services, there will be no way for economic decision-makers to engage in rational economic calculation. Rational economic calculation is impossible in a world without private-property rights and the monetary prices that emerge within the competitive market process. By definition, socialism eliminates the basis of the market economy, i.e., private property in the means of production; the system must find some other mechanism to serve the role that economic calculation plays in the market process. Without the ability to engage in rational economic calculation, economic decision-makers will be stumbling and bumbling in the dark. As Mises puts it, without economic calculation, "all production by lengthy and roundabout processes would be so many steps in the dark”
This is from Professor Peter Boettke’s wonderful book review of Professor Ludwig von Mises’ classic Socialism at the Laissez Faire Books
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