From Marx to Mises: Post Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Ecomic Calculation [Hardcover]

David Ramsay Steele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

In 1920, Ludwig von Mises proclaimed that all attempts to establish socialism would come to grief, for reasons of informational efficiency. At first, socialists and economists took Mises's argument seriously, but by the end of the Second World War, a consensus prevailed that Mises had been discredited. More recently, that consensus has been rapidly reversed: it is now widely agreed that 'Mises was right'. Yet the momentous implications of the Mises argument -- for economics, politics, culture, and philosophy -- remain largely unexplored. From Marx to Mises is a clear, penetrating exposition of the economic calculation debate, and a scrutiny of some of the broader issues it raises.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 440 pages
• Publisher: Open Court (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875484492
• ISBN-13: 978-0875484495
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #966,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Won't Be Disappointed, October 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation (Paperback)

Only a man like Steele, who was once a well-versed Marxist, and then came to appreciate the passionate and compelling anti-socialism of "the Marx of capitalism," the great Ludwig von Mises, could have produced such an insightful book.

The trouble with most Marxists and Misesians is that they usually misconstrue the other side. Steele doesn't. He's one of the few writers who really understands where both sides are coming from.

The result is a fascinating and pentrating analysis of the single most important debate of the last 200 years----one which actually came close to destroying Western civilization as we know it.

Steele cuts through layers of irrelevancies to arrive at the crux of the controversy, and no one who reads this book will go away without a much deeper understanding of politics, economics, and intellectual history. (Example: A powerful analysis of the very idea of "property," whether public or private.) There is no thinking person that the insights of this book will not affect.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book of the first importance, July 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation (Paperback)

This book explores the relationship between economics and politics by focusing on the idea of "social planning" of the economy. The idea has been tremendously important, both in socialist and in modern liberal countries--but is it right? Steele shows the reasons for and against the idea, and while doing so provides an excellent account of the history of economic theories. He brings clarity, intelligence, and even wit to a subject that other writers struggle to make as opaque as possible. A fascinating book, the best introduction to modern economic thought that I've ever seen.

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miscalculations and botched economies, January 15, 2002

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Marx to Mises: Post-Capitalist Society and the Challenge of Economic Calculation (Paperback)

Critiques of Marxism are too often biased and useless misunderstandings of the substance and history of its philosophy and theories, but this book points to a partial exception that is more than ideological cliches, the socialist calculation debate, and contains a thorough history of this theoretical wrangle and its arcana, exposing the core weakness of the so-called Communist economies in action. Since consevatives make a fetish of this argument, I will recommend it instead to ostrich students on the left since few seem to be even aware of domain of discourse, or else they are not telling. G. Hogdson's Economics and Utopia also contains a corrective discussion of this issue, with a summary of "Towards a New Socialism", with its provocative and amusing attempt to resolve the intractable pricing nexus with computers! This after all is partly a technical, not a philosophic, issue, in the long run. Pricing twelve million commodities was a nightmare for Stalinist bureaucracies, but a few seconds computer time these days doing an input-output matrix! Hayek the dragonslayer may find himself trumped by Moore's Law, one day. That will be the day. Ha!
Important and useful book.