Some people have been vexed by Mises calling socialism “impossible.” “Aren’t there,” they ask, “many historical examples of socialist societies? Maybe we wouldn’t want to live in any of them, but surely we must admit that socialism is possible.” However, what Mises meant is that it is impossible that any large society, beyond the size of a small, family-based tribe, could fully implement the socialist agenda without plunging into economic chaos. Certainly, some societies have called themselves “socialist.” But all attempts to really follow the socialist blueprint have been quickly abandoned. Sheldon Richman, in his essay “To Create Order, Remove the Planner,” notes:Immediately after the Russian revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky tried to carry out the Marxian program. They got planned chaos. Trotsky said they stared into the “abyss.” Chastened by that experience, Lenin enacted the New Economic Policy, which was a reintroduction of money and markets. No Soviet leader ever tried to abolish the market again. That is not to say that the Soviet Union had a free market. It is to say that the Soviet Union’s economy was a government-saturated market. There was no actual central plan. In truth, the plan was revised to reflect what was happening outside the planning bureau.
# Economics for Real People: An Introduction to the Austrian School (p. 168/169), Gene Callahan.
