finding a substitute as
efficient as the market
price mechanism for
setting those prices

Central economic planning:

must compile an enormous network of simultaneously interlocking equations to express production goals and prices of all goods and services

• Such equations must change momentarily as consumer preferences shift.
• Every price change for one article has unforeseen and disproportionate effects on production costs of other articles in which the first is a component.
• Endless and fruitless price-juggling ensues.

relies on inadequate knowledge of a few remote planners in a highly complex economy

These cannot reckon with the mass of detail in each economic situation, lack enough technical expertise to handle from afar each unique local production problem as competently as can the many on-site specialists in decentralized market economies.

raises prices and lowers productivity

Without price competition in open markets with other producers whose production costs may be lower, resource misallocation continues uncorrected.

makes prices less sensitive to nuances of product differentiation

In fixing prices of each category of goods, central planners overlook "special advantages of time, place and quality."

retards price changes to balance supply and demand

Delayed adjustments cause shortages and surpluses while price changes move through a central bureaucracy for prior approval.

discourages entrepreneurship

Disapproval by the central authority would certainly follow any loss of capital from unsuccessful risk-taking, but approval for the manager who increases capital through successful risk-taking may not follow.

encourages inefficient investments

Over- and under-investment multiply because the central planner is insulated from the harsh penalties in competitive markets on inefficient allocations of resources.

avoids responsibility for bad investments

A central planning committee is harder to penalize than individual entrepreneurs or private companies.

slows innovation and problem-solving

Small decentralized units can react quicker and better than large centralized bodies to sudden changes or special local conditions.

Political masters, whether an elite or the democratic
majority, deny individual economic self-determination.
Political decisions become economic decisions and vice versa.
Consumer preferences of economic minorities go unmet.

Jesus Christ – the Word of God – is pessimistic on human nature and denies economic sovereignty to man. State economic control, which assumes perfectible human knowledge
and claims economic sovereignty for man, cannot prosper in a Christocentric creation.