Suchergebnisse

Detailed notes on weekly meetings of the sugar-refining cartel show how communication helps firms collude, and so highlight the deficiencies in the current formal theory of collusion. The Sugar Institute did not fix prices or output. Prices were increased by homogenizing business practices to make price cutting more transparent. Meetings were used to interpret and adapt the agreement, coordinate on jointly profitable actions, ensure unilateral actions were not misconstrued as cheating, and determine whether cheating had occurred. In contrast to established theories, cheating did occur, but sparked only limited retaliation, partly due to the contractual relations with selling agents. (JEL L13, L41)

In the present article, I will attempt to outline the communicative aspectof Stalin's dictatorship and pose for discussion a number of conclusionsI reached while writing my dissertation (Erren 2008). Throughout thetext, the concepts of "social relationship", "power", and "domination" [Herrschaft] will be based on the classical definitions of Max Weber. Following Niklas Luhmann, I will furthermore presuppose that socialrelationships, power, and domination can be established only by means of communication, while stressing the fact that under Stalin the latter largely took place in the context of a "public of physically presentindividuals".