The economic calculation problem is a criticism of using economic planning as a substitute for market-based allocation of the factors of production. It was first proposed by Ludwig von Mises in his 1920 article "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth" and later expanded upon by Friedrich Hayek.
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics is a work by the Austrian economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises. Widely considered Mises' magnum opus, it presents the case for laissez-faire capitalism based on praxeology, his method to understand the structure of human decision-making. Mises rejected positivism within economics, and defended an a priori foundation for praxeology, as well as methodological individualism and laws of self-evident certainty. Mises argues that the free-market economy not only outdistances any government-planned system, but ultimately serves as the foundation of civilization itself.
An economic system, or economic order, is a system of production, resource allocation and distribution of goods and services within a society. It includes the combination of the various institutions, agencies, entities, decision-making processes, and patterns of consumption that comprise the economic structure of a given community.
A theory of value is any economic theory that attempts to explain the exchange value or price of goods and services. Key questions in economic theory include why goods and services are priced as they are, how the value of goods and services comes about, and—for normative value theories—how to calculate the correct price of goods and services.
In economics, a price system is a system through which the valuations of any forms of property are determined. All societies use price systems in the allocation and exchange of resources as a consequence of scarcity. Even in a barter system with no money, price systems are still utilized in the determination of exchange ratios between the properties being exchanged.
Criticism of socialism is any critique of socialist economics and socialist models of organization and their feasibility, as well as the political and social implications of adopting such a system. Some critiques are not necessarily directed toward socialism as a system but rather toward the socialist movement, parties, or existing states. Some critics consider socialism to be a purely theoretical concept that should be criticized on theoretical grounds, such as in the economic calculation problem and the socialist calculation debate, while others hold that certain historical examples exist and that they can be criticized on practical grounds. Because there are many types of socialism, most critiques are focused on a specific type of socialism, that of the command economy and the experience of Soviet-type economies that may not apply to all forms of socialism as different models of socialism conflict with each other over questions of property ownership, economic coordination and how socialism is to be achieved. Critics of specific models of socialism might be advocates of a different type of socialism.
The law of the value of commodities, known simply as the law of value, is a central concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy first expounded in his polemic The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) against Pierre-Joseph Proudhon with reference to David Ricardo's economics. Most generally, it refers to a regulative principle of the economic exchange of the products of human work, namely that the relative exchange-values of those products in trade, usually expressed by money-prices, are proportional to the average amounts of human labor-time which are currently socially necessary to produce them within the capitalist mode of production.
Economic planning is a resource allocation mechanism based on a computational procedure for solving a constrained maximization problem with an iterative process for obtaining its solution. Planning is a mechanism for the allocation of resources between and within organizations contrasted with the market mechanism. As an allocation mechanism for socialism, economic planning replaces factor markets with a procedure for direct allocations of resources within an interconnected group of socially owned organizations which together comprise the productive apparatus of the economy.
Labour vouchers are a device proposed to govern demand for goods in some models of socialism and to replace some of the tasks performed by currency under capitalism.
Criticisms of the labor theory of value affect the historical concept of labor theory of value (LTV) which spans classical economics, liberal economics, Marxian economics, neo-Marxian economics, and anarchist economics. As an economic theory of value, LTV is widely attributed to Marx and Marxian economics despite Marx himself pointing out the contradictions of the theory, because Marx drew ideas from LTV and related them to the concepts of labour exploitation and surplus value; the theory itself was developed by Adam Smith and David Ricardo. LTV criticisms therefore often appear in the context of economic criticism, not only for the microeconomic theory of Marx but also for Marxism, according to which the working class is exploited under capitalism, while little to no focus is placed on those responsible for developing the theory.
Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth is an article by Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Its critique against economic calculation in a planned economy triggered the decades-long economic calculation debate.
Production for use is a phrase referring to the principle of economic organization and production taken as a defining criterion for a socialist economy. It is held in contrast to production for profit. This criterion is used to distinguish communism from capitalism, and is one of the fundamental defining characteristics of communism.
Socially necessary labour time in Marx's critique of political economy is what regulates the exchange value of commodities in trade and consequently constrains producers in their attempt to economise on labour. It does not 'guide' them, as it can only be determined after the event and is thus inaccessible to forward planning.
The socialist mode of production, sometimes referred to as the communist mode of production, or simply (Marxian) socialism or communism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms communism and socialism interchangeably, is a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that emerge from capitalism in the schema of historical materialism within Marxist theory. The Marxist definition of socialism is that of production for use-value, therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Marxist production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning. According to Marx, distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his needs"; Soviet models often distributed products based on the principle of "to each according to his contribution". The social relations of socialism are characterized by the proletariat effectively controlling the means of production, either through cooperative enterprises or by public ownership or private artisanal tools and self-management. Surplus value goes to the working class and hence society as a whole.
Social ownership is the appropriation of the surplus product, produced by the means of production, or the wealth that comes from it, to society as a whole. It is the defining characteristic of a socialist economic system. It can take the form of community ownership, state ownership, common ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, and citizen ownership of equity. Traditionally, social ownership implied that capital and factor markets would cease to exist under the assumption that market exchanges within the production process would be made redundant if capital goods were owned and integrated by a single entity or network of entities representing society. However, the articulation of models of market socialism where factor markets are utilized for allocating capital goods between socially owned enterprises broadened the definition to include autonomous entities within a market economy. Social ownership of the means of production is the common defining characteristic of all the various forms of socialism.
Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.
The socialist calculation debate, sometimes known as the economic calculation debate, was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation given the absence of the law of value, money, financial prices for capital goods and private ownership of the means of production. More specifically, the debate was centered on the application of economic planning for the allocation of the means of production as a substitute for capital markets and whether or not such an arrangement would be superior to capitalism in terms of efficiency and productivity.
Labor-time calculation is a method of economic calculation that uses labor time as the basic unit of accounting and valuation. This method of calculation was advocated by the economists Otto Bauer, Helene Bauer and Otto Leichter as an alternative to calculation in kind for a socialist economy. Otto Leichter criticized in-kind calculation on the basis that rational accounting required a general unit for comparing costs of heterogeneous goods.
There are five main lines of scholarly criticism of Marx's idea of the form of value.
Towards a New Socialism is a 1993 non-fiction book written by Scottish computer scientist Paul Cockshott, co-authored by Scottish economics professor Allin F. Cottrell. The book outlines in detail a proposal for a complex planned socialist economy, taking inspiration from cybernetics, the works of Karl Marx, and British operations research scientist Stafford Beer's 1973 model of a distributed decision support system dubbed Project Cybersyn. Aspects of a socialist society such as direct democracy, foreign trade and property relations are also explored. The book is, in the authors' words, "our attempt to answer the idea that socialism is dead and buried after the demise of the Soviet Union."
