ECP - DEBUNKED

Ludwig von Mises’ anti-socialist Economic Calculations Problem shoots itself in the foot. It’s not exactly a devastating criticism of socialism, and can, in fact, be used to justify it.

The basic argument brought forth by the ECP is that only markets can correctly allocate products and price them most efficiently, while a planned economy can’t deal with the supply and demands of the economy because it has no price pressure feedback.

First off, markets are incredibly inefficient because the goal of these markets is not to efficiently and correctly allocate resources, but instead to generate profit.

It’s easy to see that the market doesn’t allocate goods appropriately (if we are describing ‘appropriately’ as allocating resources where they are needed most) simply by looking at the billions of people in poverty in the capitalist world. Hundreds of millions starve, are homeless, can’t get access to food and water, etc. Capitalism has had 200 years to solve these problems, and has failed.

Mises does not consider socialist economies setting internal prices - not as an expression of market value, but as an expression of alternative options in order to move resources between enterprises.

Central planning does not mean everything revolves around one point of planning, but rather that different institutions have a centralized source of planning out what they need or will distribute and so on.

Basically, socialism does a much better job at providing a better quality of life than capitalism because it (most of the time) uses central planning, which distributes resources according to human need, unlike capitalism, where resources go to wherever it is most profitable.

Got enough food for the tens of million starving under capitalism?

It’s Not worth saving them if it’s not profitable.

The ECP is not a good argument against Socialism. The people who use it have a completely different idea of ‘efficiency.’

Screw markets.