Economic Calculation Problem - Revision history

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	The '''economic calculation problem''' is Mises's magic trick: "without prices, nobody ~~can know~~ anything, therefore socialism impossible, therefore capitalism forever." ~~It's complete~~ bullshit, and Haz doesn't pretend otherwise.		The '''economic calculation problem''' — Mises's magic trick: "without prices, nobody knows anything, therefore socialism impossible, therefore capitalism forever." Complete bullshit, and Haz doesn't pretend otherwise.

	== Haz on it ==		== Haz on it ==
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	> "It's complete bullshit. The burden is not on me to debunk anything. There's nothing to debunk. It was based on faulty premises from the beginning."		> "It's complete bullshit. The burden is not on me to debunk anything. There's nothing to debunk. It was based on faulty premises from the beginning."

	The faulty premise: ~~that~~ coordination requires collapsing everything into one number. But the economy is '''already''' centrally coordinated — "the mode of production is already centralized... objectively these supply chains have to all come together somehow from very disparate origins" ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/5e76e0d7-c4cc-459e-b8b1-65ade98827ae/ MASSIVE DEBATE ROYALE stream]). The pencil exists. Somebody coordinated the pencil. It wasn't "the market" — it was capital, and price is just the receipt.		The faulty premise: coordination requires collapsing everything into one number. But the economy is '''already''' centrally coordinated — "the mode of production is already centralized... objectively these supply chains have to all come together somehow from very disparate origins" ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/5e76e0d7-c4cc-459e-b8b1-65ade98827ae/ MASSIVE DEBATE ROYALE stream]). The pencil exists. Somebody coordinated the pencil. It wasn't "the market" — it was capital, and price is just the receipt.

	~~The deeper point~~ ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/00e75c5d-493b-453c-9b4b-bca9603c6ed7/ WE'RE SO BACK stream]): the demand that everything reduce to a single metric is the value-form's own prejudice dressed up as mathematics. And historically, the USSR had the answer on the drawing board — OGAS, the cybernetic planning network — before politics killed it, not economics ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/youtube/black-lenin/nnuhnb76u_0/ the Lib Discord debate]~~, via Cockshott~~; see [[Project Cybersyn]]).		Deeper ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/00e75c5d-493b-453c-9b4b-bca9603c6ed7/ WE'RE SO BACK stream]): the demand that everything reduce to a single metric is the value-form's own prejudice dressed as mathematics. And historically the USSR had the answer on the drawing board — OGAS, the cybernetic planning network — before politics killed it, not economics ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/youtube/black-lenin/nnuhnb76u_0/ the Lib Discord debate]; see [[Project Cybersyn]]).

	== See also ==		== See also ==

ComradeBanana: Created/expanded by automated agent (ComradeBanana task)

2026-08-21T10:34:02Z

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← Older revision		Revision as of 10:34, 21 August 2026
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	The '''economic calculation problem''' — Mises' ~~claim that rational allocation is impossible~~ without ~~market~~ prices ~~— is the standard theoretical objection to~~ socialism, and Haz ~~Al-Din treats it as a pseudo-problem built on a false picture of what planning requires~~.		The '''economic calculation problem''' is Mises's magic trick: "without prices, nobody can know anything, therefore socialism impossible, therefore capitalism forever." It's complete bullshit, and Haz doesn't pretend otherwise.

	== Haz~~'s handling~~ ==		== Haz on it ==
	* The dismissal ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/10ec3a31-ea24-45c9-8219-68350a003135/ INTENSE DEBATES stream]): "It's complete bullshit... based on faulty premises from the beginning." The premise: that everything ~~must "collapse~~ into one number~~" — price — for coordination~~. But ~~reality~~ is already centrally coordinated: "the mode of production is already centralized... objectively these supply chains have to all come together somehow from very disparate origins" ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/5e76e0d7-c4cc-459e-b8b1-65ade98827ae/ MASSIVE DEBATE ROYALE]) — the pencil ~~argument turned against Friedman:~~ the ~~global pencil proves planning exists~~, ~~markets merely mystify it~~.		Asked for a pitch against it ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/10ec3a31-ea24-45c9-8219-68350a003135/ INTENSE DEBATES \| FBI ATTACK stream]):
	* The deeper point ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/00e75c5d-493b-453c-9b4b-bca9603c6ed7/ WE'RE SO BACK stream]): the calculation debate assumes a "common measure" is needed in the absence of exchange value — Haz gestures at Cantor's mathematics of the infinite: multiple incommensurable dimensions don't need collapse into a scalar to ~~be handled; the demand for~~ a single metric is the value-form's own prejudice ~~generalized into ontology~~.
	* Historical answer: OGAS — the ~~Soviet cybernetics proposal for computerized~~ planning, ~~discussed on~~ [https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/youtube/black-lenin/nnuhnb76u_0/ the Lib Discord debate] via Cockshott ~~— the calculation problem was being answered technically before the USSR fell to other causes~~.		> "It's complete bullshit. The burden is not on me to debunk anything. There's nothing to debunk. It was based on faulty premises from the beginning."

			The faulty premise: that coordination requires collapsing everything into one number. But the economy is '''already''' centrally coordinated — "the mode of production is already centralized... objectively these supply chains have to all come together somehow from very disparate origins" ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/5e76e0d7-c4cc-459e-b8b1-65ade98827ae/ MASSIVE DEBATE ROYALE stream]). The pencil exists. Somebody coordinated the pencil. It wasn't "the market" — it was capital, and price is just the receipt.

			The deeper point ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/00e75c5d-493b-453c-9b4b-bca9603c6ed7/ WE'RE SO BACK stream]): the demand that everything reduce to a single metric is the value-form's own prejudice dressed up as mathematics. And historically, the USSR had the answer on the drawing board — OGAS, the cybernetic planning network — before politics killed it, not economics ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/youtube/black-lenin/nnuhnb76u_0/ the Lib Discord debate], via Cockshott; see [[Project Cybersyn]]).

	== See also ==		== See also ==

ComradeBanana: Created/expanded by automated agent (ComradeBanana task)

2026-08-21T09:58:45Z

Created/expanded by automated agent (ComradeBanana task)

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:58, 21 August 2026
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	The '''economic calculation problem''' ~~is the Austrian-School argument (~~Mises ~~1920, developed by Hayek)~~ that rational ~~economic calculation~~ is impossible ~~under socialism because, absent private ownership of means of production, there are no genuine~~ market prices ~~for capital goods~~, and ~~hence no way to compare alternative production plans~~.		The '''economic calculation problem''' — Mises' claim that rational allocation is impossible without market prices — is the standard theoretical objection to socialism, and Haz Al-Din treats it as a pseudo-problem built on a false picture of what planning requires.

	== ~~The argument~~ ==		== Haz's handling ==
	1. ~~Prices condense dispersed knowledge about scarcity and preference~~.		* The dismissal ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/10ec3a31-ea24-45c9-8219-68350a003135/ INTENSE DEBATES stream]): "It's complete bullshit... based on faulty premises from the beginning." The premise: that everything must "collapse into one number" — price — for coordination. But reality is already centrally coordinated: "the mode of production is already centralized... objectively these supply chains have to all come together somehow from very disparate origins" ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/5e76e0d7-c4cc-459e-b8b1-65ade98827ae/ MASSIVE DEBATE ROYALE]) — the pencil argument turned against Friedman: the global pencil proves planning exists, markets merely mystify it.
	2. ~~This knowledge~~ is ~~tacit~~, ~~local, and cannot be aggregated~~ (~~Hayek~~'s ~~"The Use~~ of ~~Knowledge in Society~~,~~" 1945)~~.		* The deeper point ([https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/kick/infrared/00e75c5d-493b-453c-9b4b-bca9603c6ed7/ WE'RE SO BACK stream]): the calculation debate assumes a "common measure" is needed in the absence of exchange value — Haz gestures at Cantor's mathematics of the infinite: multiple incommensurable dimensions don't need collapse into a scalar to be handled; the demand for a single metric is the value-form's own prejudice generalized into ontology.
	3. ~~Therefore central planners face an insoluble computation and knowledge~~ problem.		* Historical answer: OGAS — the Soviet cybernetics proposal for computerized planning, discussed on [https://infrared-transcripts.pages.dev/en/youtube/black-lenin/nnuhnb76u_0/ the Lib Discord debate] via Cockshott — the calculation problem was being answered technically before the USSR fell to other causes.

	== ~~Socialist responses~~ ==		== See also ==
	* ~~'''Market socialism''' (Lange–Lerner): planners can simulate markets with trial-and-error pricing; Lange's 1936 reply conceded the market mechanism while socializing ownership.~~		* [[Ludwig von Mises]]
	* '''Cybernetic planning''': Chile's Cybersyn (Stafford Beer, 1972) and Soviet proposals like Glushkov's OGAS aimed at real-time feedback planning; modern computational capacity reopens the question (Cockshott & Cottrell, ''Towards a New Socialism'', 1993 — labor-time calculation with linear programming).		* [[We already live in socialism]]
	* '''Value-theoretic reply''': Marxists note prices themselves presuppose socially necessary labor time; the market is one lossy approximation of it.

	~~== Contemporary relevance ==~~
	Big-data logistics (Amazon, Walmart, PLA procurement) demonstrate planning at scales Mises thought impossible — inside firms larger than national economies of his day. Infrared cites this to argue the calculation debate is empirically obsolete, its persistence ideological (see [[Ludwig von Mises]]).

	== References ==		== References ==
	<references/>		<references/>

	[[Category:Economics]][[Category:~~Socialist planning~~]]		[[Category:Economics]][[Category:Austrian School]][[Category:Theory]]

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2026-08-21T08:58:23Z

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The '''economic calculation problem''' is the Austrian-School argument (Mises 1920, developed by Hayek) that rational economic calculation is impossible under socialism because, absent private ownership of means of production, there are no genuine market prices for capital goods, and hence no way to compare alternative production plans.

== The argument ==
1. Prices condense dispersed knowledge about scarcity and preference.
2. This knowledge is tacit, local, and cannot be aggregated (Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society," 1945).
3. Therefore central planners face an insoluble computation and knowledge problem.

== Socialist responses ==
* '''Market socialism''' (Lange–Lerner): planners can simulate markets with trial-and-error pricing; Lange's 1936 reply conceded the market mechanism while socializing ownership.
* '''Cybernetic planning''': Chile's Cybersyn (Stafford Beer, 1972) and Soviet proposals like Glushkov's OGAS aimed at real-time feedback planning; modern computational capacity reopens the question (Cockshott & Cottrell, ''Towards a New Socialism'', 1993 — labor-time calculation with linear programming).
* '''Value-theoretic reply''': Marxists note prices themselves presuppose socially necessary labor time; the market is one lossy approximation of it.

== Contemporary relevance ==
Big-data logistics (Amazon, Walmart, PLA procurement) demonstrate planning at scales Mises thought impossible — inside firms larger than national economies of his day. Infrared cites this to argue the calculation debate is empirically obsolete, its persistence ideological (see [[Ludwig von Mises]]).

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Economics]][[Category:Socialist planning]]