Lippmann embraced the socialist calculation critique before his 1937 book

Evidence

Lippmann’s criticism of a socialist economy, however, did not originate with the preparation of The Good Society. Already in 1933, he was familiar with the socialist calculation debate and pointed at the same epistemological argument which Hayek and Polanyi had exposed. Quoting the American Austrian economist Benjamin Anderson, Lippmann stated clearly in his column “Today and Tomorrow” from February 27, 1934 that the state was in no position to intervene in a detailed manner in the economy because “to regulate the business of a country as a whole and to guide and control production there is required a central brain of such vast power that no human being can be expected to supply it.” — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 722

Categorization

• XREF: Dates the spread of the socialist calculation argument; connects to the intellectual history of the Mont Pelerin Society and Hayek’s knowledge problem. — connects to: Austrian economic readings converted Lippmann against planned economies by 1937 — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 154; Lippmann’s The Good Society was intellectually indebted to Austrian economics via Hayek — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 154