In a word, no. While the "calculation argument" is often used by right-libertarian's as the "scientific" basis for the argument that communism (a moneyless society) is impossible, it is based on certain false ideas of what money does and how an anarchist society would function without it. This is hardly surprising, as Mises based his theory on the "subjective" theory of value and the Marxist social-democratic (and so Leninist) ideas of what a "socialist" economy would look like. As Libertarian Marxist Paul Mattick correctly argued:
"However divided the old [social-democratic] labour movement may be by disagreements on various topics, on the question of socialism it stands united. Hilferding's abstract 'General-Cartel', Lenin's admiration for the German war socialism and the German postal service. Kautsky's eternalisation of the value-price-money economy (desiring to do consciously what in capitalism is performed by blind market forces). Trotsky's war communism equipped with supply and demand features, and Stalin's institutional economics — all these concepts have at their base the continuation of the existing conditions of production. As a matter of fact, they are mere reflections of what is actually going on in capitalist society. Indeed, such 'socialism' is discussed today by famous bourgeois economists like Pigou, Hayek, Robbins, Keynes, to mention only a few, and has created a considerable literature to which the socialists now turn for their material." [Anti-Bolshevik Communism, pp. 80-1]
Therefore, there has been little discussion of what a true (i.e. libertarian) communist society would be like, one that utterly transformed the existing conditions of production by workers' self-management and the abolition of both the wages system and money. However, it is useful here to indicate exactly why a moneyless (i.e. truly communist) "economy" would work and why the "calculation argument" is flawed as an objection to it.
Mises argued that without money there was no way a socialist economy would make "rational" production decisions. Not even von Mises denied that a moneyless society could estimate what is likely to be needed over a given period of time (as expressed as physical quantities of definite types and sorts of objects). As he argued, "calculation in natura in an economy without exchange can embrace consumption-goods only." [Collectivist Economic Planning, F.A. Von Hayek (ed.), p. 104] Mises' argument is that the next step, working out which productive methods to employ, would not be possible, or at least would not be able to be done "rationally," i.e. avoiding waste and inefficiency. As he argues, the evaluation of producer goods "can only be done with some kind of economic calculation. The human mind cannot orient itself properly among the bewildering mass of intermediate products and potentialities without such aid. It would simply stand perplexed before the problems of management and location." [Op. Cit., p. 103] Mises' claimed that monetary calculation based on market prices is the only solution.
This argument is not without its force. How can a producer be expected to know if tin is a better use of resources than iron when creating a product if all they know is that iron and tin are available and suitable for their purpose? Or, if we have a consumer good which can be made with A + 2B or 2A + B (where A and B are both input factors such as steel, oil electricity, etc.) how can we tell which method is more efficient (i.e. which one used least resources and so left the most over for other uses)? With market prices, Mises' argued, it is simple. If the iron cost $5 and tin $4, then tin should be used. Similarly, if A cost $10 and B $5, then clearly method one would be the most efficient ($20 versus $25). Without the market, von Mises argued, such a decision would be impossible and so every decision would be a "leap in the dark."
However, Mises' argument is based on a number of flawed assumptions.
Firstly, he assumes a centralised, planned economy. While this was a common idea in Marxian social democracy (and the Leninism that came from it), it is rejected by anarchism. No small body of people can be expected to know what happens in society ("No single brain nor any bureau of brains can see to this organisation," in the words of Issac Puente [Libertarian Communism, p. 29]). As Bakunin argued, it would lead in practice to "an extremely complex government. This government will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically . . . it will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State [all economic and social activity] . . . All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads 'overflowing with brains' in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy . . . Such a regime will not fail to arouse very considerable discontent in the masses of the people, and in order to keep them in check . . .[a] considerable armed force [would be required]." [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 319] Hence anarchists can agree with Mises: central planning cannot work in practice. However, socialist ideas are not limited to Marxian Social Democracy, and so von Mises ignores far more socialistic ideas than he attacks.
His next assumption is equally flawed. This is that without the market, no information is passed between producers beyond the final outcome of production. In other words, he assumes that the final product is all that counts in evaluating its use. Needless to say, it is true that without more information than the name of a given product, it is impossible to determine whether using it would be an efficient utilisation of resources. But von Mises misunderstands the basic concept of use-value, namely the utility of a good to the consumer of it. As Adam Buick and John Crump point out, "at the level of the individual production unit or industry, the only calculations that would be necessary in socialism would be calculations in kind. On the one side would be recorded the resources (materials, energy, equipment, labour) used up in production and on the other the amount of good produced, together with any by-products. . . . Socialist production is simply the production of use values from use values, and nothing more." [State Capitalism: The Wages System Under New Management, p. 137]
The generation and communication of such information implies a decentralised, horizontal network between producers and consumers. This is because what counts as a use-value can only be determined by those directly using it. Thus the production of use-values from use-values cannot be achieved via central planning, as the central planners have no notion of the use-value of the goods being used or produced. Such knowledge lies in many hands, dispersed throughout society, and so socialist production implies decentralisation. Capitalist ideologues claim that the market allows the utilisation of such dispersed knowledge, but as John O'Neil notes, "the market may be one way in which dispersed knowledge can be put to good effect. It is not . . . the only way." [Ecology, Policy and Politics, p. 118]
So, in order to determine if a specific good is useful to a person, that person needs to know its "cost." Under capitalism, the notion of cost has been so associated with price that we have to put the word "cost" in quotation marks. However, the real cost of, say, writing a book, is not a sum of money but so much paper, so much energy, so much ink, so much human labour. In order to make a rational decision on whether a given good is better for meeting a given need than another, the would-be consumer requires this information. However, under capitalism this information is hidden by the price.
Moreover, a purely market-based system leaves out information on which to base rational resource allocations (or, at the very least, hides it). The reason for this is that a market system measures, at best, preferences of individual buyers among the available options. This assumes that all the pertinent use-values that are to be outcomes of production are things that are to be consumed by the individual, rather than use-values that are collectively enjoyed (like clean air). Prices in the market do not measure social costs or externalities, meaning that such costs are not reflected in the price and so you cannot have a rational price system. Similarly, if the market measures only preferences amongst things that can be monopolised and sold to individuals, as distinguished from values that are enjoyed collectively, then it follows that information necessary for rational decision-making in production is not provided by the market.
In other words, prices hide the actual costs that production involved for the individual, society, and the environment, and instead boils everything down into one factor, namely price. There is a lack of dialogue and information between producer and consumer. As John O'Neil argues, "the market distributes a little information and . . . blocks the distribution of a great deal [more]. . . The educative dialogue exists not through the market, but alongside of it." [Ecology, Policy and Politics, p. 143]
In the words of Joan Robinson:
"In what industry, in what line of business, are the true social costs of the activity registered in its accounts? Where is the pricing system that offers the consumer a fair choice between air to breath and motor cars to drive about in?" [Contribution to Modern Economics, p. 10]
Indeed, prices often mis-value goods as companies can gain a competitive advantage by passing costs onto society (in the form of pollution, for example, or de-skilling workers, increasing job insecurity, and so on). This externalisation of costs is actually rewarded in the market as consumers seek the lowest prices, unaware of the reasons why it is lower (such information cannot be gathered from looking at the price). Even if we assume that such activity is penalised by fines later, the damage is still done and cannot be undone. Indeed, the company may be able to weather the fines due to the profits it originally made by externalising costs.
And do prices actually reflect costs, even assuming that they accurately reflect social costs and externalities? The question of profit, the reward for owning capital and allowing others to use it, is hardly a cost in the same way as labour, resources and so on (attempts to explain profits as an equivalent sacrifice as labour have always been ridiculous and quickly dropped). When looking at prices to evaluate efficient use for goods, you cannot actually tell by the price if this is so. Two goods may have the same price, but profit levels (perhaps under the influence of market power) may be such that one has a higher cost price than another. The price mechanism fails to indicate which uses least resources as it is influenced by market power. Indeed, as Takis Fotopoulos notes, "[i]f . . . both central planning and the market economy inevitably lead to concentrations of power, then neither the former nor the latter can produce the sort of information flows and incentives which are necessary for the best functioning of any economic system." [Towards an Inclusive Democracy, p. 252] Moreover, a good produced under a authoritarian state which represses its workforce would have a lower price than one produced in a country which allowed unions to organise and had basic human rights. The repression would force down the cost of labour, so making the good in question appear as a more "efficient" use of resources. In other words, the market can mask inhumanity as "efficiency" and actually reward that behaviour by market share.
Simply put, prices cannot be taken to reflect real costs any more that they can reflect the social expression of the valuation of goods. They are the result of a conflict waged over these goods and those that acted as their inputs (including, of course, labour). Market and social power, much more than need or resource usage, decides the issue. The inequality in the means of purchasers, in the market power of firms and in the bargaining position of labour and capital all play their part, so distorting any relationship a price may have to its costs in terms of resource use. Prices are misshapen. Little wonder Kropotkin asked whether "are we not yet bound to analyse that compound result we call price rather than to accept it as a supreme and blind ruler of our actions?" [Fields, Factories and Workshops Tomorrow, p. 71]
Von Mises argued that anyone "who wished to make calculations in regard to a complicated process of production will immediately notice whether he has worked more economically than others or not; if he finds, from reference to the exchange values obtaining in the market, that he will not be able to produce profitably, this shows that others understand how to make better use of the higher-order goods in question." [Op. Cit., pp. 97-8] However, this only shows whether someone has worked more profitably that others, not whether it is more economical. Market power automatically muddles this issue, as does the possibility of reducing the monetary cost of production by recklessly exploiting natural resources and labour, polluting, or otherwise passing costs onto others. Similarly, the issue of wealth inequality is important, for if the production of luxury goods proves more profitable than basic essentials for the poor does this show that producing the former is a better use of resources? And, of course, the key issue of the relative strength of market power between workers and capitalists plays a key role in determining "profitably."
Therefore, the claim that prices reflect real costs and so efficiency can be faulted on two levels. Moreover, without using another means of cost accounting instead of prices how can supporters of capitalism know there is a correlation between actual and price costs? One can determine whether such a correlation exists by measuring one against the other. If this cannot be done, then the claim that prices measure costs is a tautology (in that a price represents a cost and we know that it is a cost because it has a price). If it can be done, then we can calculate costs in some other sense than in market prices and so that argument that only market prices represent costs falls.
Similarly, von Mises assumes that capitalism can accurately estimate the costs of investing. Using the example of a new railroad, he asks "[s]hould it be built at all, and if so, which out of the number of conceivable roads should be built? In a competitive and monetary economy, this question would be answered by monetary calculation. The new road will render less expensive the transport of some goods, and it may be possible to calculate whether this reduction of expense transcends that involved in the building and upkeep of the new line." [Op. Cit., pp. 108-9] However, this is not the case. An investment decision is made based on estimating possible future events. The new line may reduce transportation costs but the expected reduction may be relatively less that predicted, so causing the investment to fail. Moreover, an investment may fail while it meets a social need simply because people may need the product but cannot afford to pay for it. In other words, von Mises example hardly shows the superiority of monetary calculation as the decision to invest under capitalism is as much a leap in the dark as it would be an a socialist system (the future is uncertain, in other words).
Lastly, Mises assumes that the market is a rational system. As O'Neil points out, "Von Mises' earlier arguments against socialist planning turned on an assumption about commensurability. His central argument was that rational economic decision-making required a single measure on the basis of which the worth of alternative states of affairs could be calculated and compared." [Op. Cit., p. 115] This central assumption was unchallenged by Taylor and Lange in their defence of "socialism", meaning that from the start the debate against von Mises was defensive and based on the argument that socialist planning could mimic the market and produce results which were efficient from a capitalist point of view. Thus, no one challenged Mises' assumptions either about the centrally planned nature of socialism or about the market being a rational system. Little wonder that the debate put the state socialists on the defensive. As their system was little more than state capitalism, it is unlikely they would attack the fundamentals of capitalism (namely wage labour and centralisation).
So, is capitalism rational? Well, it does exist, but that does not prove that it is rational. The Catholic Church exists, but that shows nothing about the rationality of the institution. To answer the question, we must return to our earlier point that using prices means basing all decision making on one criterion and ignoring all others. This has seriously irrational effects, because the managers of capitalist enterprises are obliged to choose technical means of production which produce the cheapest results. All other considerations are subordinate, in particular the health and welfare of the producers and the effects on the environment. The harmful effects resulting from "rational" capitalist production methods have long been pointed out. For example, speed-ups, pain, stress, accidents, boredom, overwork, long hours and so on all harm the physical and mental health of those involved, while pollution, the destruction of the environment, and the exhaustion of non-renewable resources all have serious effects on both the planet and those who live on it. As E. F. Schumacher argued:
"But what does it mean when we say that something is uneconomic? . . . [S]omething is uneconomic when it fails to earn an adequate profit in terms of money. The method of economics does not, and cannot, produce any other meaning. . . The judgement of economics . . . is an extremely fragmentary judgement; out of the large number of aspects which in real life have to be seen and judged together before a decision can be taken, economics supplies only one — whether a money profit accrues to those who undertake it or not." [Small is Beautiful, pp. 27-8]
Schumacher stressed that "about the fragmentary nature of the judgements of economics there can be no doubt whatever. Even with the narrow compass of the economic calculus, these judgements are necessarily and methodically narrow. For one thing, they give vastly more weight to the short then to the long term. . . [S]econd, they are based on a definition of cost which excludes all 'free goods' . . . [such as the] environment, except for those parts that have been privately appropriated. This means that an activity can be economic although it plays hell with the environment, and that a competing activity, if at some cost it protects and conserves the environment, will be uneconomic." Moreover, "[d]o not overlook the words 'to those who undertake it.' It is a great error to assume, for instance, that the methodology of economics is normally applied to determine whether an activity carried out by a group within society yields a profit to society as a whole." [Op. Cit., p. 29]
To claim that prices include all these "externalities" is nonsense. If they did, we would not see capital moving to third-world countries with few or no anti-pollution or labour laws. At best, the "cost" of pollution would only be included in a price if the company was sued successfully in court for damages — in other words, once the damage is done. Ultimately, companies have a strong interest in buying inputs with the lowest prices, regardless of how they are produced. As Noam Chomsky points out, "[i]n a true capitalist society, . . . socially responsible behaviour would be penalised quickly in that competitors, lacking such social responsibility, would supplant anyone so misguided as to be concerned with something other than private benefit." [Language and Politics, p. 301] It is reductionist accounting and its accompanying "ethics of mathematics" that produces the "irrationality of rationality" which plagues capitalism's exclusive reliance on prices (i.e. profits) to measure "efficiency." Moreover, the critique we have just sketched ignores the periodic crises that hit capitalist industry and economies to produce massive unemployment and social disruption — crises that are due to subjective and objective pressures on the operation of the price mechanism (see section C.7 for details).
Ironically enough, von Mises also pointed to the irrational nature of the price mechanism. He states (correctly) that there are "extra-economic" elements which "monetary calculation cannot embrace" because of "its very nature." He acknowledges that these "considerations themselves can scarcely be termed irrational" and, as examples, lists "[i]n any place where men regard as significant the beauty of a neighbourhood or a building, the health, happiness and contentment of mankind, the honour of individuals or nations." He states that "they are just as much motive forces of rational conduct as are economic factors" but they "do not enter into exchange relationships." [von Mises, Op. Cit., p. 99] How rational is an economic system which ignores the "health, happiness and contentment" of people? Or the beauty of their surroundings? Which, moreover, penalises those who take these factors into consideration? For anarchists, von Mises comments indicate well the inverted logic of capitalism. That von Mises can support a system which ignores the needs of individuals, their happiness, health, surroundings, environment and so on by "its very nature" says a lot (his suggestion that we assign monetary values to such dimensions [p. 100] begs the question and has plausibility only if it assumes what it is supposed to prove. Indeed, the person who would put a price on friendship simply would have no friends. They simply do not understand what friendship is and are thereby excluded from much which is best in human life. Likewise for other "extra-economic" goods that individual's value, such as beautiful places, happiness, the environment and so on).
Under communist-anarchism, the decision-making system used to determine the best use of resources is not more or less "efficient" than market allocation, because it goes beyond the market-based concept of "efficiency." It does not seek to mimic the market but to do what the market fails to do. This is important, because the market is not the rational system its defenders often claim. While reducing all decisions to one common factor is, without a doubt, an easy method of decision making, it also has serious side-effects because of its reductionistic basis (as discussed further in the next section). As Einstein once pointed out, things should be made as simple as possible but not simplistic. The market makes decision making simplistic and generates a host of irrationalities and dehumanising effects.
Sections I.4.4 and I.4.5 discusses one possible framework for a communist economic decision-making process. Such a framework is necessary because "an appeal to a necessary role for practical judgements in decision making is not to deny any role to general principles. Neither . . . does it deny any place for the use of technical rules and algorithmic procedures . . . Moreover, there is a necessary role for rules of thumb, standard procedures, the default procedures and institutional arrangements that can be followed unreflectively and which reduce the scope for explicit judgements comparing different states of affairs. There are limits in time, efficient use of resources and the dispersal of knowledge which require rules and institutions. Such rules and institutions can fee us for space and time for reflective judgements where they matter most." [John O'Neil, Op. Cit., pp. 117-8]
While these algorithmic procedures and guidelines can, and indeed should be, able to be calculated by hand, it is likely that computers will be extensively used to take input data and process it into a suitable format. Indeed, many capitalist companies have software which records raw material inputs and finished product into databases and spreadsheets. Such software could be the basis of a libertarian communist decision making algorithm. Of course, currently such data is submerged beneath money and does not take into account externalities and the nature of the work involved (as would be the case in an anarchist society). However, this does not limit their potential or deny that communist use of such software can be used to inform decisions.
This, we must note, indicates that communist society would use various "aids to the mind" to help individuals and groups to make economic decisions. This would reduce the complexity of economic decision making, by allowing different options and resources to be compared to each other. Hence the complexity of economic decision making in an economy with a multitude of goods can be reduced by the use of rational algorithmic procedures and methods to aid the process. Such tools would aid decision making, not dominate it as these decisions affect humans and the planet and should never be made automatically.
It is useful to remember that von Mises argued that it is the complexity of a modern economy that ensures money is required. As he put it, "[w]ithin the narrow confines of household economy, for instance, where the father can supervise the entire economic management, it is possible to determine the significance of changes in the processes of production, without such aids to the mind [as monetary calculation], and yet with more or less of accuracy." However, "the mind of one man alone — be it ever so cunning, is too weak to grasp the importance of any single one among the countlessly many goods of higher order. No single man can ever master all the possibilities of production, innumerable as they are, as to be in a position to make straightway evident judgements of value without the aid of some system of computation." [Op. Cit., p. 102]
That being the case, a libertarian communist society would quickly develop the means of comparing the real impact of specific "higher order" goods in terms of their real costs (i.e. the amount of labour, energy and raw materials used plus any social and ecological costs). As we noted above, this essential decision making information would have to be recorded and communicated in a communist society and used to evaluate different options using an agreed methods of comparison. This methods of comparison differs drastically from the price mechanism as it recognises that mindless, automatic calculation is impossible in social choices. Such choices have an unavoidable ethical and political dimension simply because they involve other human beings and the environment. As von Mises himself acknowledges, monetary calculation does not capture such dimensions. We, therefore, need to employ practical judgement in making choices aided by a full understanding of the real social and ecological costs involved using, of course, the appropriate "aids to the mind."
In addition, a decentralised system will by necessity have to compare less alternatives as local knowledge will eliminate many of the options available. As von Mises acknowledged, a "household economy" can make economic decisions without money. Being more decentralised than capitalism, a libertarian communist economy will, therefore, be able to do so as well, particularly when it uses the appropriate "aids to the mind" to evaluate external resources versus locally produced ones. Given that an anarchist society would be complex and integrated, such aids would be essential but, due to its decentralised nature, it need not embrace the price mechanism. It can evaluate the efficiency of its decisions by looking at the real costs involved to society rather than embrace the distorted system of costing explicit in the price mechanism (as Kropotkin once put it, "if we analyse price" we must "make a distinction between its different elements" in order to make rationale allocation and investment decisions [Op. Cit., p. 72]).
Thus, anarchists argue that von Mises' claims were wrong. Communism is viable, but only if it is libertarian communism. Economic decision making in a moneyless "economy" is possible. Indeed, it could be argued that von Mises' argument exposes difficulties for capitalism rather than for anarchism. Capitalist "efficiency" is hardly rational and for a fully human and ecological efficiency, libertarian communism is required. As two libertarian socialists point out, "socialist society still has to be concerned with using resources efficiently and rationally, but the criteria of 'efficiency' and 'rationality' are not the same as they are under capitalism." [Buick and Crump, Op. Cit., p. 137]
So, to claim that communism will be "more" efficient than capitalism or vice versa misses the point. Libertarian communism will be "efficient" in a totally different way and people will act in ways considered "irrational" only under the logic of capitalism.