Volume 6, No. 2 (Summer 2003)
In light of the argument presented in the present paper, it is difficult to avoid the speculation that the main argument that Hayek either half accepted or regarded as exaggerated and one-sided—at least until 1945—was, in fact, the argument that economic calculation is not possible under socialism because, either theoretically or practically, socialism has no means for placing values on higher order goods. If so, then Hayek’s emphasis on the knowledge problem of socialist planning reflected his conviction that it, not calculation, was the dominant obstacle to rational economic choices under socialism.
