This approach, which is an apparent centerpiece of the debate, has a major flaw: > "Assuming that individuals rationally assessed the marginal utility (or simp

This approach, which is an apparent centerpiece of the debate, has a major flaw: > "Assuming that individuals rationally assessed the marginal utility (or simply the benefit gained) of their decisions, the economy could be modeled as a system of functional equations. Using mathematical formulas, these equations could be solved to address imbalances in supply and demand and steer the economy toward equilibrium. In a way, neoclassical ideas suffused socialist rationales for economic planning with a kind of mathematical and scientific authority." Look around. Are individuals rational in their decision making? Are the crypto boom and bust cycles rational? Was the housing market rational? Was the dot-com boom rational? Take away that and there's no longer any foundation for the 'mathematical and scientific authority' - and then, neoclassical economics becomes as nonsensical as Lysenko's 'blank slate' model of plant breeding in the Soviet Union was. In practice socialist ideas and capitalist ideas have value in different contexts. A good balance can be found in John Kenneth Galbraith's work, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Capitalism There are a couple of basic concepts, such as the fact that markets fail miserably to provide optimal outcomes when there is no real competition ('natural monopoly' situations such as roads, water supplies, electricity grids, fiber optic trunks, etc.), and that business interests as well as labor unions conspire to control prices and wages. If the business interests or the labor unions get the upper hand, you tend towards authoritarian control of the facist or communist form, respectively. The optimal solution is thus a balance of power between competing interests. Over four decades of neoliberal economic policy in the USA has upset that balance and made old-school state socialism much more popular with the general public than it was previously, as Galbraith warned about: > "...private decisions could and presumably would lead to the unhampered exploitation of the public, or of workers, farmers and others who are intrinsically weak as individuals. Such decisions would be a proper object of state interference or would soon so become."