"In his work, Socialism, Ludwig Von Mises criticized socialism for its inability to calculate rationally:
"To suppose a socialist community could substitute calculation in kind for calculation in terms of money is an illusion. In a community that does not practice exchange, calculations in kind can never cover more than consumption goods. They break down entirely once goods of higher order are concerned. Every step that moves away from private ownership of the means of production is a step away from rational economic calculation"
Von Mises also pointed out socialism's tendency to consume capital, whose accumulation is the source of economic progress:
"In fact, socialism is not in the least what it pretends to be. It is not the pioneer of a better world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization has created. It does not build; it destroys. Destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, and only consumes what the private ownership of the means of production has created. Since a socialist order of society cannot exist, unless it be a fragment of socialism within an economic order resting otherwise on private property, each step leading towards socialism must exhaust itself in the destruction of what already exists."
In conclusion, Von Mises warned his audience against the consequences of socialist economics.
"If the intellectual dominance of socialism remains unshaken, then in a short time the whole cooperative system that Europe has built up for thousands of years will be shattered. For a socialist order of society is unrealizable. All efforts to realize socialism leads only to the destruction of society. Factories, mines, and railways will come to a standstill, while towns become deserted. The population of the industrial societies will die out or migrate elsewhere. The farmer will return to the self-sufficiency of the closed, domestic economy. Without private ownership of the means of production there is, in the long run, no production other than hand-to-mouth production for one's needs.""