Prices Bleg
Timothy Sandefur on Sep 28th 2005
Okay, so we all know how Mises predicted that socialist economies would be incapable of determining prices, and that the economic calculation problem was one of the insurmountable problems of socialism. Now, I have often heard it said that the Soviet Union, or other communist countries, being unable to figure out what to charge for various items in their stores, copied those prices out of the Sears catalogues they got from western countries. Unfortunately, while this story appears to be quite common, it also has the earmarks of an urban myth (repeated by people with ideological purpose; no citation given; several different versions of the story). Does anyone know of a reliable source for this assertion? I would really appreciate leads; please email me at tmsandefur@gmail.com.
Filed in The Bookshelf, The Bureau