> You don't need a Sears catalog to sum the costs of production/acquisition all the way to the start of the value chain This was common practice for communist

> You don't need a Sears catalog to sum the costs of production/acquisition all the way to the start of the value chain This was common practice for communist countries, because they couldn't calculate otherwise. Logically, you can't calculate like the market does since the price system (or lack of system) is able to communicate vast amounts of information that socialism just can't. See The Use of Knowledge in Society by Friedrich Hayek. It's in part why he won the Nobel prize in economics. It's a short essay that's free online. > You seem to ignore the effects of embargos and arms races. It doesn't come close to explaining the catastrophic system wide failure that Marxism produces.