Suchergebnisse

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS HAS ATTRIBUTED THE EXCESSES OF WAR COMMUNISM, THE RESISTANCE TO MARKET-TYPE REFORMS, AND THE RETENTION UNTIL VERY RECENTLY OF ADMINISTERED MATERIAL ALLOCATION IN THE SOVIET UNION TO MARXIST IDEOLOGY, AND IN PARTICULAR TO MARX'S VIEWS ON THE LINK BETWEEN MARKETS AND "ALIENATION." HOWEVER, WAR COMMUNISM WAS DUE IN SOME PART ALSO TO WAR EMERGENCY, AND IT WAS NOT ONLY IDEOLOGY BUT ALSO THE INTERESTS OF THE RULING STRATUM THAT DELAYED THE MUCH-NEEDED MOVE TOWARDS A MARKET ECONOMY. THERE ARE INDDED PROBLEMS IN RECONCILING SOCIALIST IDEAS WITH EFFICIENCY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND LANGE'S ATTEMPT TO DEFINE A SORT OF NEOCLASSICAL SOCIALISM WAS UNSATISFACTORY. HOWEVER, IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE TO SOVIET-TYPE PLANNING IS UNTRAMMELLED LAISSEZ-FAIRE.

Takes issue with Ernest Mandel's 'Defence of socialist planning' (NLR, 159), insisting that the argument over market and planning cannot be resolved by the experience of the existing post-capitalist societies. The characteristic tensions between central allocation and enterprise autonomy, material and non-material incentives, general and partial interests, admit of no lateral resolution in a world in which abundance remains a distant prospect. (AM)

ARTICLE PROVIDES AN ANALYSIS AND ASSESSMENT OF THE FUNCTIONING OF THE SOVIET (PLANNED) ECONOMY, WHICH HAS ESCAPED STAGNATION, UNEMPLOYMENT AND INFLATION. THE AUTHOR ARGUES THAT THE EQUATION OF SOCIALISM WITH A HYPER-CENTRALIZED ECONOMIC PLANNING SYSTEM IS SPURIOUS AND HE URGES THE CONSIDERATION OF A MODEL OF MARKET SOCIALISM.