STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND RUSSIA

Transcription

1 STUDIES IN ECONOMICS AND RUSSIA

2 Also by Alec Nove AN ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE USSR ECONOMICS OF FEASIBLE SOCIALISM EFFICIENCY CRITERIA FOR NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES GLASNOST IN ACTION SOCIALISM, ECONOMICS AND DEVELOPMENT STALINISM AND AFTER THE SOVIET ECONOMIC SYSTEM WAS STALIN REALLY NECESSARY

3 Studies in Econotnics and Russia Alec Nove Professor Emeritus University of Glasgow M MACMILLAN

4 ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / Alec Nove 1990 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WC1E 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1990 Published by MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Nove, Alec, Studies in economics and Russia. 1. Eastern Europe & Soviet Union. Economic policies I. Title

5 Contents Preface Vl PART I HISTORY OF ECONOMIC IDEAS 1 1 Three Early Russian Economists 3 2 M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky ( ) 24 PART II ECONOMIC HISTORY 41 3 War Communism 43 4 Lenin and the New Economic Policy 50 5 Trotsky, Markets and East European Reforms 71 6 The End of NEP 80 7 The Soviet Peasantry in the Second World War 90 8 Industry under Khrushchev Russian Modernization 114 PART III ECONOMICS: EAST AND WEST Planning Markets? Yes but Friedman, Markets and Planning: A Comment The Fragmentationist Disease Marxism and 'Really Existing Socialism' Planning and Markets 'Feasible Socialism' Revisited Soviet Reforms and Western Neoclassical Economics 244 PART IV CONTEMPORARY USSR Has Soviet Growth Ceased? Labour Incentives in Soviet Kolkhozy Soviet Agriculture The Contribution of Imported Technology to Soviet Growth The Defence Burden: Some General Observations Is Within-system Reform Possible? Soviet Economic Reform: Progress and Frustrations 355 Index 367

6 Preface This collection reflects the rather wide range of my interests, from the history of Russian economic thought to the contemporary Soviet scene, as well as questions relating to socialism and the role and limitations of markets. Major changes are taking place in the Soviet Union and in a number of other communist-ruled countries, changes which involve decisive strengthening of market forces and abandonment of the attempt to plan everything from above. However the reformers are frequently unaware of how a real market functions in real capitalist countries, and indeed I have had three articles published in the Soviet Union in 1988 in which I tried to draw attention to 'market' problems, some of which beset (for example) Mrs Thatcher's Britain today. These are also the subject of some of the papers in the present collection. I would particularly draw to the reader's attention my critique of what I call 'fragmentationism', a disease that has actually become worse since I wrote the paper on the subject: to the disruption of urban transportation, the hospitals and school systems, electricity generation, London and the Post Office has now to be added the ambulance service. All this seems to link up with an ideological blind spot peculiar to Britain: the whole is seen as no more than the sum of its parts, and therefore any network can apparently be costlessly broken up. Conservative governments and municipalities in other countries behave quite differently. Whenever it is relevant I have added a short introduction to the papers here published, if some recent events have rendered their contents significantly out of date. To cite just one example, the paper entitled 'Has Soviet Growth Ceased?' was written at a time when official Soviet publications were claiming a growth rate of around 3 per cent; now it is accepted that these have been years of stagnation, with growth close to zero. (I do not suggest that this is because Soviet statisticians had read my paper!) There should be something here to interest a wide variety of readers, those who are concerned with political economy in its broadest sense. Here and there the reader will find the same argument repeated. For example a brief critique of the psychological oversimplifications of so-called public choice theory occurs even three times. This seems to me excusable, as this occurs in the body of the argument in vi

7 Preface vii somewhat different contexts. Also inevitably some judgements have been overtaken by events. Thus in an analysis dated 1985 I did not anticipate the very great sharpening of the nationalities issues which occurred four or five years later. It may still be of interest to see how this critical observer viewed the situation at the beginning of Gorbachev's rule, so I did not 'update' the text. ALEC NOVE