Abstract
Innset provides a reading of the socialist calculation controversy, including both the German language debates centred in Vienna and the English language debates between Hayek and the market socialists. The calculation debates were the touchstone for the political and intellectual project of neoliberalism, and this shows that neoliberalism was based on a rejection of socialism grounded in arguments concerning the functioning of a modern economy. Innset argues that since socialism was a theory of modernity , neoliberals had to provide their own counter project for how a modern society could function. In Hayek’s “knowledge argument ” lay the foundations for a theory of markets as mediators of modernity.
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Notes
- 1.
As we will see, the early neoliberals themselves seldom differentiated between different forms of socialism, and even argued that social liberalism led to socialism, and furthermore that socialism, like fascism, was a form of collectivism.
- 2.
It is still debated what Mises really meant by “rational” and also the word “impossible”, which appears at other points in his texts. Günther Chaloupek notes that “The impossibility of a socialist economy does not imply the impossibility of goods production as such under socialism; but it does imply the impossibility of economically rational production…” (Chaloupek 1990, 661).
- 3.
Hayek’s lecturing style in these days was famously rather difficult, with a heavy use of mathematical equations and a thick Austrian accent that did little to further his communication. See, for instance, Wapshott (2011, 65–81).
- 4.
In his 1936 article, Lange famously wrote:” Socialists have certainly good reason to be grateful to Professor Mises, the great advocatus diaboli of their cause. For it was his powerful challenge that forced the socialists to recognize the importance of an adequate system of economic accounting (…) the merit of having caused the socialists to approach this problem systematically belongs entirely to Professor Mises. Both as an expression of recognition for the great service rendered by him and as a memento of the prime importance of sound economic accounting, a statue of Professor Mises ought to occupy an honourable place in the great hall of the Ministry of Socialization or of the Central Planning Board of the socialist state”.
- 5.
Interview with Mrs. Dorothy Hahn, 22.12.2015.
- 6.
Although perhaps not essential, it should be noted that the focus on knowledge was at least present also in Mises:” The naive assumption that the behaviour of the Absolute Good is quite arbitrary. We have no standard on which to base a valid decision between what is good and what is evil in this context” (Mises 1932, 351).
- 7.
For a more thorough analysis of the “perversity-thesis” in reactionary rhetoric, see Hirschman (1991).
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Innset, O. (2020). The Socialist Calculation Debates. In: Reinventing Liberalism. Springer Studies in the History of Economic Thought. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38885-0_2
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