Socialist calculation debate
QUESTION OF WHETHER CENTRAL PLANNERS CAN ACHIEVE RATIONAL, EFFICIENT ALLOCATIONS OF ECONOMIC RESOURCES FOR SOCIETY
Socialist Calculation Debate; Economic Calculation Debate; Economic calculation debate; Economic calculation argument; Socialist calculation controversy
The socialist calculation debate, sometimes known as the economic calculation debate, was a discourse on the subject of how a socialist economy would perform economic calculation given the absence of the law of value, money, financial prices for capital goods and private ownership of the means of production. More specifically, the debate was centered on the application of economic planning for the allocation of the means of production as a substitute for capital markets and whether or not such an arrangement would be superior to capitalism in terms of efficiency and productivity.