The title comes from Mises's description of the reality of central planning and socialism, whether of the national variety (Nazism) or the international variety (communism). Rather than creating an orderly society, attempts at central planning have precisely the opposite effect. By short-circuiting the price mechanism and forcing people into economic lives contrary to their own chosing, central planning destroys the capital base and creates economic randomness that eventually ends by killing prosperity.

This important work was written decades after Mises's original essay on economic calculation and includes the broadest and boldest attack on all forms of state control.

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