EPISTEMOLOGY & IDEOLOGY

Von Mises and Hayek have argued that in principle, a centrally-planned economy cannot work because there is no substitute for the information about people's needs and desires provided by the market through prices.  This in turn has led to an attack on all forms of social control over the free market, most notably in America by devotees of Ayn Rand such as Rep. Paul Ryan.

Aside from the problems of information not being captured by the market at all, the so-called externalities, I think the epistemic critique is in fact a straw dog because ALL human activity is essentially under-determined and thus unreflected in prices or other market features.  This inherent uncertainty extends all the way down to the cherished autonomous individual of the Free Marketeers.