This article reinterprets the socialist calculation debate of the 1920s and 1930s with reference to climate change and planetary boundaries. It argues that the full significance of Mises’s critique of central planning has not been fully appreciated or rebutted by his leftist critics. The core of his argument concerns the lack of a performance evaluation criterion: While capitalism measures its success by profit rates, socialism has no metric to gauge its own outcomes. Acknowledging the reality of ecological destabilization, the article concludes, allows us to respond to Mises’s challenge in a more complete way by substituting sustainability for profitability as a criterion for centralized planning.
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