Socialism, Economic Calculation, and Entrepreneurship
* Book: Socialism, Economic Calculation, and Entrepreneurship. By Jesús Huerta de Soto.
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takes the pro-market side in critiquing planning economics, focusing on the advantages of the market; a review of the Socialist Calculation Debate, and a critique of socialism in all its forms.
Description
"Throughout this book, we propound and develop the basic thesis that socialism can and should be analyzed only from the standpoint of a deep and clear understanding of human action and of the dynamic processes of social interaction it sets in motion. For the most part, the economic analysis of socialism carried out so far has failed to satisfactorily incorporate the methodological individualism and the subjectivist viewpoint Hayek considers essential to the advancement of our science. In fact, he states: “It is probably no exaggeration to say that every important advance in economic theory during the last hundred years was a further step in the consistent application of subjectivism. ... Our expressed desire to apply subjectivism with the greatest possible rigor and consistency to the analysis of socialism manifests itself, above all, in our definition of this social system. Indeed, we have already stated our view that the core, or most characteristic feature, of human nature is the ability of all people to act freely and creatively. From this standpoint, we consider that socialism is any system of institutional aggression on the free exercise of human action or entrepreneurship.”
More information
- Don A. Lavoie’s Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985): "has become required reading for all experts on the subject".
- F. A. Hayek. Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, published as volume 1 of the Collected Works of F. A. Hayek (London: Routledge, 1989).