Objections to the Economic Calculation Problem Argument

 

I find the argument of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, sometimes called the "economic calculation problem" to be an interesting, intriguing, attractive argument, but one that is not very rigorous. I haven't seen it worked out in a mathematical, quantitative way that would be scientifically testable. So far, I'm not convinced. Here are some doubts I have:
 
First of all, it does seem intuitive to say that economic planning would be very difficult, but I haven't seen an air-tight proof that it's actually impossible. Even if it were somehow proven that it is impossible for a human or a group of humans, I don't see how it would be impossible for AI or for a combination of humans and AI software. Just as an example off the top of my head, what if there were a machine-learning algorithm that could simulate human minds - not just a single human mind, but many human minds - hundreds, or thousands, or more, at various levels of resolution. Mightn't it be possible to create a kind of simulated economy among these simulated minds, that one could run backwards and forwards, making certain interventions into the economy and then fast-forwarding it and observing the results? So that we could learn what works and how?
 
Second of all, and more importantly, even if we grant that human calculation of economic transactions for the purposes of planning has massive limitations (and I think it does), the natural question to ask is: okay, yeah, but can we guarantee that the free market works any better? How do we know that the free market will work better? The truth is, you don't know. It's only hubris that makes you think you know.  You have no way of predicting - in exactly the same way that economic planners have no way to predict the results of their economic interventions. In fact I would say that the free market is a kind of economic planning - and we should have the same kind of humility about our ability to apply this kind of plan and know how what its results will be as we are about every other kind of economic planning.
 
Third, and most important of all: even if I accept, for the sake of argument, that not only human economic planning is severely limited and that free market transactions will always work better than any kind of planning, I have to ask: better for what? Better how? Better towards what end? Better according to what values? I mean, I can imagine (though again, I'm somewhat doubtful) that it might be the case that a free market might be the system that most efficiently allocates economic resources (with the fewest shortages and surpluses). But is "the efficient allocation of economic resources" really the highest ethical value? Or the highest purpose of human life? Mightn't there be some ethical values that are higher and deeper than that? Is the efficient allocation of economic resources the meaning of life? It seems like a pretty shallow goal. Isn't it possible that there might be something that is more important than the efficient allocation of economic resources, and that people might be willing to sacrifice perfect efficiency in favor of a deeper meaning and higher goals?

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