More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next

by Andrew McAfee

So free-floating prices in capitalist economies do an important double duty: they provide both information and incentives. Prices fixed by a socialist government do neither of those things. Hayek used this insight to shoot down the idea of socialism in 1977: “I’ve always doubted that the socialists had a leg to stand on intellectually.… Once you begin to understand that prices are an instrument of communication and guidance which embody more information than we directly have, the whole idea that you can bring about the same order… by simple direction falls to the ground.… I think that intellectually there is just nothing left of socialism.” But