Rivalry and Central Planning
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Rivalry and Central Planning
| Full title | Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered |
|---|---|
| Author | Don Lavoie |
| Published | 1985 |
| Pages | 208 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Don Lavoie’s reconstruction of the interwar socialist calculation debate, arguing that the Austrian objection was never about computational difficulty but about knowledge: prices are the output of rivalrous competition, so a planner cannot be handed the data because the data does not exist until the rivalry generates it. |
Rivalry and Central Planning
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List (March 2026), as the technical core of the Marxism and Collective Psychology section — the argument for why the planning project fails on its own terms rather than through bad luck or bad men. The full list is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
Lavoie’s target is the standard account — that Lange and Lerner answered Mises and Hayek, and the planners won on the mathematics — which he argues misreads what the objection actually was.
Connections
- Socialism — the planning project under examination.
- Economics — the calculation debate it reconstructs.
- Knowledge — the Austrian objection restated as a knowledge problem.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.