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LV
Modern Era
Ludwig von Mises
1881–1973 · Austrian economics
Without prices, planners are guessing.
Mises showed that a socialist economy cannot rationally allocate resources because it abolishes the market prices that carry the dispersed knowledge of millions. His Human Action built a whole science of human action on individual choice, and his Liberalism argued that the market is the only social order compatible with peace and personal freedom. He taught a generation, and outlived the systems that dismissed him.
Why it matters for freedom
He showed that without free prices there is no way to know what people want, only what the planner decided.
Who they stood against
central planning and the claim that experts can price other people's choices