A superb and a must-read paper on virtues, failures & quantifiability of 'alternative' ideological structures: Capitalism, Socialism and Calculations, by Brent Butgereit and Art Carden.
The paper is now published in the Economic Affairs, Vol. 31, Issue 3, pp. 41-45, 2011 but you can get a working paper version of it free here.
Per authors: "The merits and demerits of what we call ―capitalism have been sources of much attention since Adam Smith... We consider the criticisms of the Smithian capitalist system as stated most prominently by Karl Marx, and we evaluate Marx‘s proposed solution to the evils of capitalism—specifically, socialism. We also explore the contributions of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek to the debate about whether Marx‘s proposed alternative was really an alternative.
Mises and Hayek provide powerful critiques of Marx‘s socialist vision by addressing the problem of economic calculation and the inability of central authorities to acquire knowledge diffused and distributed across an entire society. We question whether Marx offered a solution and then consider more recent attacks on capitalism and its alleged destruction of cultural capital.
The theoretical contributions of Mises and Hayek are supported by recent empirical contributions suggesting that liberal political economy is robust."
Worth a read!
