In Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You (2012)
What von Mises has proven logically in 1920 (and the practical experience has confirmed it later over the course of 20th century - repeatedly, dozens of times, in different countries, with different cultures) is that a centrally planned (i.e. socialist) economy ALWAYS SELF-DESTRUCTS.<p>It has nothing to do with computers and collection of information and planning algorithms.  The issue (completely misunderstood by the author of the article discussed) is that the very fact of coercing people destroys information about their subjective utility functions which could only be gleaned by observing FREE exchange.  No amount of fancy software or social engineering will fix it. Garbage in - garbage out.<p>Socialism is a very bad idea.  No ifs and no buts about it. And, yes, Marx was a kook. His entire economic and social theory is a humongous monument to the principle of logical explosion: if you start with nonsense (labor theory of value), you end up being able to derive anything from it. (The fact that labor theory of value is nonsense is easily established by observing &quot;value&quot; created by someone digging a hole and filling it in - any number of times, so as to put in arbitrarily large amount of labor).