Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth

"Economic Calculation In The Socialist Commonwealth" is an article by Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Its critique against economic calculation in a planned economy triggered the decades-long economic calculation debate.

The article was first published 1920 in German under the title "Die Wirtschaftsrechnung im sozialistischen Gemeinwesen"! It is based on a lecture Mises gave in 1919 as a response to a book by Otto Neurath arguing for the feasibility of central planning. Mises argued that no prices for capital goods could be obtained in a socialist economy if the government owned the means of production, since all exchanges would merely be internal transfers rather than "objects of exchange", setting the price mechanism out of order.

Two years later, the essay was incorporated into Mises's Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.