Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics

Cantor’s Diagonal Argument: An Extension to the Socialist Calculation Debate — A Comment

The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
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Volume 11, No. 2 (2008)

 

In a recent article Robert P. Murphy (2006) uses Cantor’s diagonal argument to prove that market socialism could not function, since it would be impossible for the Central Planning Board to complete a list containing all conceivable goods (or prices for them). In the present paper we argue that Murphy is not only wrong in claiming that the number of goods included in the list should be uncountable, but also that the number of equations/prices is irrelevant from the point of view of market socialism.

CITE THIS ARTICLE

Jablecki, Juliusz, and Mateusz Machaj. “Cantor’s Diagonal Argument: An Extension to the Socialist Calculation Debate — A Comment.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 11, No. 2 (2008): 123–131.

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