The socialist calculation debate and its impact on the development of the austrian school of economics

The paper presents the debate over economic calculation under socialism that took place in the interwar period. The author explains why and how important was the debate for the history of economic thought. The main conclusion of this article is that the debate was not only an important episode for its own sake. The paper exemplifies that the socialist calculation debate played an important role as a catalyst in the development and articulation of the modern Austrian view of the market as a competitive enterpreneurial process of discovery.

Keywords: competition, socialist calculation debate, calculation, prices, equilibrium, disequilibrium, dispersed knowledge, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial discovery