 So far we have considered the consequentialist case for private property over common property. The consequentialist case for private property over collective property has more to do with markets than with the need for responsibility and self-restraint in resource use. The argument for markets is that in a complex society there are innumerable decisions to be made about the allocation of particular resources to particular production processes. Is a given ton of coal better used to generate electricity which will in turn be used to refine aluminum for manufacturing cooking pots or aircraft, or to produce steel which can be used to build railway trucks, which may in turn be used to transport either cattle feed or bauxite from one place to another? In most economies there are hundreds of thousands of distinct factors of production, and it has proved impossible for efficient decisions about their allocation to be made by central agencies acting in the name of the community and charged with overseeing the economy as a whole. In actually existing socialist societies, central planning turned out to be a way of ensuring economic paralysis, inefficiency and waste (Mises 1951). In market economies, decisions like these are made on a decentralized basis by thousands of individuals and firms responding to price signals, each seeking to maximize profits from the use of the productive resources under its control, and such a system often works efficiently. Some have speculated that there could be markets without private property (Rawls, 1971, p. 273), but this seems hopeless. Unless individual managers in a market economy are motivated directly or indirectly by considerations of personal profit in their investment and allocation decisions, they cannot be expected to respond efficiently to prices. Such motivation will occur only if the resources are privately owned, so that the loss is theirs (or their employer’s) when a market signal is missed and the gain is theirs (or their employer’s) when a profitable allocation is secured.