darkdog
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I think Friedrich Hayek's essay, The Use of Knowledge in Society, should be required reading in schools. It argues against centralized planning of resource allocation. Basically, he says that in a free-market system, there is still economic planning- it's just not centralized. The knowledge required to efficiently allocate scarce resources is so vast and changes so quickly that a single person or committee couldn't possibly do it- they have neither the mental capacity nor the access to quickly changing information. Such decisions are best made when spread across the entire population because it utilizes the knowledge of hundreds of millions rather than the knowledge of a few.
This certainly applies in this debate where we're talking about moving to a single-payer system in which the government would make decisions about the allocation of medical resources. It's a quick read. Check it out here: Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society | Library of Economics and Liberty
This certainly applies in this debate where we're talking about moving to a single-payer system in which the government would make decisions about the allocation of medical resources. It's a quick read. Check it out here: Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society | Library of Economics and Liberty