We calculate to arrange action.  No man can determine what is to be produced or how much without calculation.  It must be done in order to know what are the best means available to remove an uneasiness.  Calculation can’t tell you how to produce something, but it’s required to direct resources to the most urgent areas.  All other attempts to calculate are superfluous.  Calculation without property is impossible.

Technological innovations can tell you how to build something but that’s it.  A technological innovation can tell you how to build a new car, but it can’t tell you what materials to use, what processes, how many to build, or should it be built at all.  Only property can bid away resources to where they are most urgently needed.  It would be impossible to determine these if resources, such as materials and labor, couldn’t be bid away.

All attempts to calculate without property is letting statism in through the back door.  The classical economist believed in the labor theory of value, so did Marx, but he just called it selfish class interest.  Slightly more sophisticated was the lack of knowledge.  Mises did recognize this as a problem, but the lack of property is what makes it impossible.  Anything other than property backhandedly allows statism.

Money is a requirement for calculation.  Crusoe can decide to fish or build a cot without calculating, but in a modern economy, calculation is absolutely necessary.  An entrepreneur must be able to compare inputs and outputs.  Should the entrepreneur build widget A or B?  Should he sell in location X or Y?  It’s these questions, and many more, that can’t be answered without calculation.  There’s more to it than knowing how to build A and B.

There can’t be a modern economy without calculation.  It doesn’t matter if someone is smart enough to know how to build everything on earth.  Resources must be bid away to satisfy the most urgent desire.  No human is smart enough for this.  Property is necessary for calculation, and calculation is necessary for a modern economy.  Therefore, de-civilization will result without private ownership of property. 

Reference

Ludwig von Mises; Human Action