One of the things that Mises emphasized in his critique of socialism was that the real problem was in the economic calculation for the factors of production. Because mainstream economists tend either to be clueless about factors or to assume the factors into market supply and demand functions, they miss one of the central reasons as to why socialism fails. The government of Venezuela under Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil companies a while back and, surprise, surprise, production has fallen severely. In 1998 before Chavez assumed power, production stood at 3.2 million barrels a day. Now, it is at 2.4 … Continue reading Chavez’s Folly