CALculate! CALculate! Dance to the MUsic!

Jeff,

Your proposed comments are excellent, as are Bruce’s and Alex’s. In the same vein, from page 21 of “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth” Mises states: “Without economic calculation there can be no economy.”

My one reservation, and I admit this is a fine point, with the calculator proposal is that it may be taken as focusing on the strict computational aspect of economic calculation, and not on the more fundamental fact that in a socialist economy it is impossible to establish money prices for the factors of production that reflect the economic data, and this is absolutely necessary for economic calculation to occur. The interrelated issues of private property, the use of a (cardinal) common denominator medium of exchange, i.e. money, the ability to freely trade the factors of production, and the concept of entrepreneurial appraisement may be downplayed. As Bruce noted in his comment, all the calculators and for that matter computers in the world will not in the least solve the problem of socialism’s inability to calculate, and hence, rationally allocate the factors of production.

With this said I also fully realize that for the purposes of a brief statement on a calculator the above proposals do make an important point and are likely the best that can be done. I hope I have not wasted anyone’s time with my comments.

I was reading from MES out loud to the kids and as i read this i wondered if any of the kids would laugh, so i held my laugh back and waited to see if they would react:

“The inference is that the argument of Mises
has been disposed of and that all socialism needs is a few practical devices (perhaps calculating machines) or economic advisers to permit calculation and the “counting of the equations.”

One of my kids started to laugh pretty hard, so i’m pretty sure Rothbard was trying to be funny.

Anyways, I thought it would be cool if the quote integrated such subtle inside austrian humour, but i admit the right line isn’t coming to me.

A bad example might be:

“A practical calculating machine: good for counting equations”.

Actually, this one makes me laugh as well so maybe it’s pretty good. Or maybe i’m just too off the wall.

How about you put a sliding switch so the user can choose between Keynesian, Socialist, and standard modes.

The Keynesian mode will automatically multiply everything by a factor of a thousand, and then subtract a random number which represents the reduced consumption, and the socialist mode will occasionally insert question marks in place of numbers, or give you an Asimovian “INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER“.

Praxeologists don’t trust quantitative analysis. A calculator seems inappropriate for a Mises quote.

A calculator that has some of the basic business/financial functions involving the time value of money would be extremely appropriate.

economic “calculation” isn’t about calculation, really. It’s more about inequalities. The trouble with a marketless economy is that you cannot say which is of greater value: more steel plants or more food. It is prices which enable you to do the comparison.

Since some people seem to think that Austrians are anachronistic with their zeal of the gold standard as well as other old ways, perhaps it would be better to have a quote on a slide rule?

I personally own both a linear and slide rules – this discussion has inspired me to label them both. Now I just have to pick two.

How about this from Section 1, “The Characteristics of the Market Economy,” in Chapter XV “The Market” of HUMAN ACTION: “monetary economic calculation is the intellectual basis of the market economy.”