“Planning” is the grand panacea of our age. But unfortunately its meaning is highly ambiguous. In popular discussion it stands for almost any policy which it is wished to present as desirable. . . . When the average citizen, be he Nazi or Communist or Summer School Liberal, warms to the statement that “What the world needs is planning,” what he really feels is that the world needs that which is satisfactory

Market socialism is attractive because it seems to combine the best parts of rival systems: the efficiency of a market-based system and egalitarian policies aimed at promoting social justice, all combined within a democratic polity. In his review, Hayek raised a number of pertinent questions about the details of Lange’s plan, most of which suggested that though market socialism sounded good, it would not work.

Sometimes he objected publicly, as he did in the preface to the 1976 edition: “It has frequently been alleged that I have contended that any movement in the direction of socialism is bound to lead to totalitarianism. Even though this danger exists, this is not what the book says.”