Quote from: Stone Man on July 16, 2010, 06:57:15 PM

It has been said that the economy is more like an organism than a machine. I agree with this. An organism grows and adapts to its environment but does not do well in restricted environments. It is impossible to calculate what a few billion people will do next year. Each has free will and can complicate the picture.

Have you read this site before? http://mises.org

You might find it interesting. Mises was the first guy AFAIK to posit that it was impossible for central planning to fulfill people's desires better than a free market due to the calculation problem.

They approach economics with an axiomatic approach; humans act, humans value things differently, and it is impossible for a central planner to calculate what a few billion people will do because it does not know what those people think or what those people want; indeed, in order to truly centrally plan an economy successfully you'd have to be able to essentially simulate humans to find out their subjective preferences and desires, even if you had an extremely powerful AI. Otherwise, the most an AI could do is fulfill the role of an entrepreneur and try to please people as they tell it what they want