Mises rejected central planning because no single mind could grasp economic complexity.

Evidence

The refutation of Neurath’s scheme published in 1920 by Mises triggered the Planwirtschaft (planned economy) debate in Vienna, wherein Mises argued that economic calculation was naive and unmanageable without the indispensable role of prices as signals of the relative value of factors of production. Against Neurath’s desire to institute a scientific management of the economy, Mises claimed that the complexity of the economic system made its apprehension in one mind or place so difficult as to be near impossible. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 58

Categorization

• DEFINE: The Planwirtschaft debate and Mises’s core economic-calculation argument against planning are defined here.
• XREF: Connects to the socialist calculation debate literature (Lavoie, ‘Rivalry and Central Planning’) and later readings on knowledge problems in economics.