Mises's Argument: Marx's Concept of Central Planning is Utopian, Demonstrably Unworkable

My main purpose in this section is to examine Mises's argument that Marx's concept of central planning is "utopian" in Marx's own sense of the word -- that is, is demonstrably unworkable, as is revealed through an analysis of the way the existing capitalist economy works. Mises contends that advanced technological production is too complex to be subsumed under a conscious plan and therefore must be broken up into subplans that require coordination. But since Marxian socialism eschews the use of money, there is no suitable common denominator for the quantitative calculations that decentralized coordination requires.

--Don Lavoie, Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 60.

The Socialist Calculation Debate of the 1930s Was the Most Important Theoretical Controversy in the History of the Field of Comparative Economics

The socialist calculation debate of the 1930s is widely acknowledged to have been the most important theoretical controversy in the history of the field of comparative economics. Alexander Eckstein was not exaggerating when he referred to the debate as a "theoretical controversy ... of far-reaching importance in the study of comparative economics" that "focused on a range of problems that had a profound impact on the development of the field."

--Don Lavoie, introduction to Rivalry and Central Planning: The Socialist Calculation Debate Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1.