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Introduction : the birth of the Soviet consumer -- Soviet champagne : Stalin's great invention -- Soviet Kitsch and organized carnivals -- Increasing variety -- Soviet novelties and their advertising -- The emergence of the Soviet system of retail trade -- The political struggle over the development of the restaurants -- Soviet consumption amidst general poverty -- Conclusion : Socialist realism in the material culture.

"During the last two decades, economic sociology has experienced a remarkable revival and has become one of the most innovative fields of sociological research. Shifts in economic policy worldwide have led to the increasing interest in the sociological analysis of economic phenomena and institutions by challenging traditional research questions and demonstrating the limits and problems inherent in standard economic thinking and reasoning.
Jukka Gronow's book Deciphering Markets and Money solves the problem of the specific social conditions of an economic order based on money and the equal exchange of commodities. Gronow scrutinizes the relation of sociology to neoclassical economics and reflects on how sociology can contribute to the analyses of the major economic institutions. The question of the comparability and commensuration of economic objects runs through the chapters of the book.
The author shows that due to the multidimensionality and principal quality uncertainty of products, markets would collapse without market devices that are either procedural, consisting of technical standards and measuring instruments, or aesthetic, relying on the judgements of taste, or both. In his book, Gronow demonstrates that in this respect, financial markets share the same problem as the markets of, wines, movies, or PCs and mobile phones, and hence offer a highly actual case to study their social constitution in the process of coming into being.
Jukka Gronow is professor emeritus of sociology at Uppsala University, Sweden, and docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has published on sociology of consumption, history of sociology and social theory."

Front Matter -- Introduction -- Organised Capitalism, the General Cartel and the Proletariat -- The Dispute over Revisionism -- The Theory of Immiseration, Socialist Consciousness and the Intellectuals -- Socialism as Science -- The Capitalist Law of Appropriation: Kautsky's Interpretation of Karl Marx's Economic Thought -- The Centralisation of Capital and Monopoly Formation -- Imperialism and the Relation between Industrial and Agrarian Countries -- Imperialism and Its Alternatives -- Imperialism as the Last Stage of Capitalism -- Theoretical Sources of Kautsky's and Lenin's Studies on Imperialism -- Imperialism as the Truth about Capitalism -- Parliamentary Democracy and Revolutionary Tactics -- The Question of Democracy and Dictatorship: Lenin's Critique of Kautsky the Renegade -- The Immanent Critique and the Natural Rights Theory -- John Locke, Adam Smith and Karl Marx's Critique of Private Property -- The Principle of Labour -- The Theory of Increasing Misery and the Critique of Capitalism -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Indexes.

Talouden viimeaikaiset kriisit ovat virittäneet kiinnostusta radikaalisti erilaisiin, kapitalismia tasa-arvoisempiin taloudellisiin järjestelmiin, jotka mahdollistaisivat kansalaisten tasavertaisemman osallistumisen taloudelliseen päätöksentekoon. Tämä katsausartikkeli tarkastelee kahta kiinnostavaa ja seikkaperäistä muutosohjelmaa, joilla on pitkälti samoja tavoitteita ja paljon yhtäläisyyksiä mutta myös tärkeitä eroja ja jotka ansaitsevat perusteellista tarkastelua ja arviota. Ensimmäisen esittää Thomas Piketty tulon- ja omaisuuden jaon jyrkentymistä sekä sen syitä koskevan tutkimuksensa lopuksi Capital and Ideology -teoksessaan (2019/2020), ja toinen löytyy Yanis Varoufakiksen utopistisesta tieteisfiktio-romaanista Another Now (2020). Kumpikin ottaa etäisyyttä valtiojohtoisesta sosialistisesta suunnitelmataloudesta, jota Neuvostoliiton "reaalisosialismi" edusti. Kummankin sosialismi perustuu pääoman kasautumisen kahlitsemiseen ja kansalaisten aktiiviseen osallistumiseen taloudellisessa päätöksenteossa paikallisesti sekä laajemmin kansallisen ja kansainvälisen talouden mitassa. Jos Pikettyn voi sanoa edustavan radikaalia reformistista sosialismia, on Varoufakis taas "pesunkestävä" anarkisti. Katsaus esittelee kummankin radikaalin yhteiskuntapoliittisen ohjelman perusajatukset, vertaa niitä toisiinsa sekä esittää lopuksi niistä muutamia kriittisiä huomioita. Ohjelmien vertaileva arviointi ei tee epäoikeutta kummallekaan, vaikka niiden kirjallisen esitystavan erilaisuus tulee huomioida.

Originally published as the author's doctoral thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki in 1986. - online resource (viii, 334 pages) : illustrations ; Karl Kautsky was, for three decades before the First World War, the main authority on the intellectual heritage of Marx and Engels, the founding fathers of Marxism. His interpretation of Marx's Capital and the basic laws and contradictions of capitalism was the standard reference point for both the foes and allies of Social Democracy. Jukka Gronow's On the Formation of Marxism analyses Kautsky's impact on the self-understanding of the European labour movement from his dispute over Revisionism with Eduard Bernstein to his polemics with V.I. Lenin over Imperialism and the Russian Revolution. Despite many political differences, Gronow shows that these authors shared a common understanding of the basic nature of capitalism, which in important respects differed from Marx's critique of political economy. ; Open Access funded by University of Helsinki

"This book presents, above all, a study of the establishment and development of the Soviet organization and system of fashion industry and design as it gradually evolved in the years after the Second World War in the Soviet Union, which was, in the understanding of its leaders, reaching the mature or last stage of socialism when the country was firmly set on the straight trajectory to its final goal, Communism. What was typical of this complex and extensive system of fashion was that it was always loyally subservient to the principles of the planned socialist economy. This did not by any means indicate that everything the designers and other fashion professionals did was dictated entirely from above by the central planning agencies. Neither did it mean that their professional judgment would have been only secondary to ideological and political standards set by the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, as our study shows, the Soviet fashion professionals had a lot of autonomy. They were eager and willing to exercise their own judgment in matters of taste and to set the agenda of beauty and style for Soviet citizens. The present book is the first comprehensive and systematic history of the development of fashion and fashion institutions in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Our study makes use of rich empirical and historical material that has been made available for the first time for scientific analysis and discussion. The main sources for our study came from the state, party and departmental archives of the former Soviet Union. We also make extensive use of oral history and the writings published in Soviet popular and professional press."

"This book presents, above all, a study of the establishment and development of the Soviet organization and system of fashion industry and design as it gradually evolved in the years after the Second World War in the Soviet Union, which was, in the understanding of its leaders, reaching the mature or last stage of socialism when the country was firmly set on the straight trajectory to its final goal, Communism. What was typical of this complex and extensive system of fashion was that it was always loyally subservient to the principles of the planned socialist economy. This did not by any means indicate that everything the designers and other fashion professionals did was dictated entirely from above by the central planning agencies. Neither did it mean that their professional judgment would have been only secondary to ideological and political standards set by the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, as our study shows, the Soviet fashion professionals had a lot of autonomy. They were eager and willing to exercise their own judgment in matters of taste and to set the agenda of beauty and style for Soviet citizens. The present book is the first comprehensive and systematic history of the development of fashion and fashion institutions in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. Our study makes use of rich empirical and historical material that has been made available for the first time for scientific analysis and discussion. The main sources for our study came from the state, party and departmental archives of the former Soviet Union. We also make extensive use of oral history and the writings published in Soviet popular and professional press."