A restaurant in Miami sells a burger for $8. The $8 price provides vital information. Perhaps $1, might be profit, and $7 will be spent in costs, in other words, in the necessary consumption or use of wealth needed to produce the burger, things like equipment, labor and everything employees will consume at home (food, energy) thanks to their paychecks that came from the $7/burger. The businessman discovered 1) that there are enough customers nearby willing to patronize the restaurant at the $8/burger price and he also discovered 2) how to reorder $7 worth of stuff(labor/supplies/etc.) to produce the burger. If he sets prices too high, customers will choose other superior competing options, if too low, they might not cover costs and cause the business to consume more than it produces leading to an overall shrinking of the economic pie and thus go out of business. Socialism/Communism can’t work because only businessmen dispersed throughout society are at the right time and place needed to discover people’s desires(1) and (2) the information needed to properly set prices and thus create a profitable order (one that produces more than it consumes).

[8 min version of article here]