And even if you could gather it and decide what to do, it would be impossible to execute in a timely matter.
I was thinking about that the other day in relation to the fact that jobs in the public sector are much higher paying than those in the private sector. Couple that with the greater difficulty one has in trying to fire someone who holds a public sector job. The ability of the public sector to react quickly to changes in market forces must be incredibly sluggish and costly. The difference must be akin to comparing the maneuverability of a speed boat with a cruise ship.
If I recall correctly, that was the critique the other great Austrian School economist, von Mises, gave of central planning, based essentially on processing speed.
Excellent post—never heard of Hayek till now. I’ve thought the same thing many times, buy Hayek elegantly put it into words.
By spreading expertise across the market, capitalism should run at light speed compared to a socialist bureaucracy. Innovation with the desire to seek profit would accelerate productivity and efficiency. Socialism therefore should show itself quickly to be an extremely inefficient and expensive alternative. The privatization of bureaucracy, with competition, would be more efficient and cost-effective to government. It would also shrink government, and improve the information feedback from those privatized bureaucracies.
Our country would also do well to apply the same formula to education.