Economic calculation and planning. Evaluation of the debate based on current technical possibilities

Authors

  • Maxi Nieto Universidad Miguel Hernández
  • Juan F. Navarro Universidad de Alicante

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32826/cude.v42i119.71

Keywords:

Economic calculation, Planning, Socialism

Abstract

The criticism to the possibility of economic computation in Socialism has pointed two presumably insoluble problems: one of them related to the scale of the economy to be solved (this should be the the neoclassic economy school objection), and the other related to the availability of information (the Austrian economy school objection). This paper reviews these two objections from the point of view of the new technical developments of the last two decades in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Telecommunications, and claims that the computation of a complex economy involving millions of different products results to be feasible. The existence of market processes is not a necessary condition to generate the information that an means efficient assignment requires. The main conclusion of this article is that, nowadays, the technical development allows, by first time in History, a Socialist planning of the economy, inspired in Marx ideas.

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Published

2018-11-16

Issue

Vol. 42 No. 119 (2019): Pages 81-206 (May-August 2019)

Section

Articles

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