The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the Formative Years, 1918-1928

The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the Formative Years, 1918-1928 PDF Author: Peter J. Boettke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940173433X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book presents a narrative of one of the more interesting utopian experiments in comparative political and economic history: the first decade of the Soviet experience with socialism (1918-1928). Though historical and textual analysis, the book’s goal is to render this experience intelligible, to get at the meaning of the Soviet experience with socialism for comparative political economy today. The book examines the texts of Lenin, Bukharin, and other revolutionaries, as well as the interpretations of contemporary historians of the revolution and the writings of more recent interpreters of Soviet political and economic history. Arguing that the first three years of the Bolshevik regime (1918-1921) constitute an attempt to carry out the Marxian ideal of comprehensive central planning, and that the disastrous results, which all commentators agree occurred, were the inevitable outcome of this Marxian ideal coming into conflict with the economic reality of the coordination problem that all economic systems face, the book draws clear conclusions and elucidates the air of mystery that often surrounds the subject. Offering a radical challenge to contemporary comparative political economy at the level of high theory, applied research, and public policy, this book is appropriate for students and scholars interested in Marxism, economic history, political economy, and Austrian economics.

The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the Formative Years, 1918-1928

The Political Economy of Soviet Socialism: the Formative Years, 1918-1928 PDF Author: Peter J. Boettke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940173433X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents a narrative of one of the more interesting utopian experiments in comparative political and economic history: the first decade of the Soviet experience with socialism (1918-1928). Though historical and textual analysis, the book’s goal is to render this experience intelligible, to get at the meaning of the Soviet experience with socialism for comparative political economy today. The book examines the texts of Lenin, Bukharin, and other revolutionaries, as well as the interpretations of contemporary historians of the revolution and the writings of more recent interpreters of Soviet political and economic history. Arguing that the first three years of the Bolshevik regime (1918-1921) constitute an attempt to carry out the Marxian ideal of comprehensive central planning, and that the disastrous results, which all commentators agree occurred, were the inevitable outcome of this Marxian ideal coming into conflict with the economic reality of the coordination problem that all economic systems face, the book draws clear conclusions and elucidates the air of mystery that often surrounds the subject. Offering a radical challenge to contemporary comparative political economy at the level of high theory, applied research, and public policy, this book is appropriate for students and scholars interested in Marxism, economic history, political economy, and Austrian economics.

The Socialist System

The Socialist System PDF Author: Janos Kornai
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191521604
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 676

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive account of the structure, conduct, and performance of the centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe, the USSR, Communist China and the Marxist LDCs, looking at 26 nations in all. The author focuses on reform, perhaps the most important issue facing countries such as the USSR, Poland, Hungary, and China. Bureaucracy, soft budget constraints, markets, and the nature of the socialist state are the central issues that arise in the course of reforming a socialist economy. The first half of the book deals with 'classical socialism' and provides a theoretical summary of the main features of a now closed period of history. The second half deals with the processes of reform and concludes that the reform of classical socialist systems is doomed to failure as they are unable to renew themselves internally.

Against the Market

Against the Market PDF Author: David McNally
Publisher: Verso
ISBN: 9780860916062
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
In this innovative book, David McNally develops a powerful critique of market socialism, by tracing it back to its roots in early political economy. He ranges from Adam Smith’s attempt to reconcile moral philosophy with market economics to Malthus’s reformulation of Smith’s political economy which made it possible to justify poverty as a moral necessity. Smith’s economic theory was also the source of an attempt to construct a critique of capitalism derived from his conception of free and equal exchange governed by natural price. This Smithian forerunner of today’s market socialism sought to reform the market without abolishing the social relations on which it was based. McNally explores this tradition sympathetically, but exposes its fatal flaws. The book concludes with an incisive consideration of efforts by writers such as Alec Nove to construct a “feasible” model of market socialism. McNally shows these efforts are still plagued by the failure of early Smithian socialism to come to grips with the social foundations of the market, the commodification of labor-power which is the key to market regulation of the economy. The results, he argues, are neither socialist nor workable.

Principles of Political Economy -

Principles of Political Economy - PDF Author: John Stuart Mill
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1596052406
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
Can national growth be sustained indefinitely? How much should government intervene in a competitive market economy? The questions John Stuart Mill raised a century and a half ago, in 1848's Principles of Political Economy, and the answers he found, are just as critical-and just as contentiously debated-today. Through a lens of what the philosopher himself termed "philosophical radicalism"-and what some today call "democratic liberalism"-Mill takes a fresh look at Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and other influential works of political thought of his time, and recasts them from a more scientific viewpoint, suggesting that such realities as the unequal distribution of wealth were not "natural" but rather a matter of human choice... choices we continue to have to make in our ever more complicated economy. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Selected Writings of John Stuart Mill and On Liberty. English philosopher and politician JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) was one of the foremost figure of Western intellectual thought in the late 19th century. He served as an administrator in the East Indian Company from 1823 to 1858, and as a member of parliament from 1865 to 1868. Among his essays on a wide range of political and social thought are On Liberty (1859), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869).

Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship

Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship PDF Author: Jes£s Huerta de Soto
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1849805008
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
This highly topical book presents a new theory on the characteristics of entrepreneurial knowledge. It explores the recent shift among professional economists and scholars in their evaluation of the debate of socialism. Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship presents an application of Israel M. Kirzner's theory of entrepreneurship to the theory of the impossibility of socialism. It discusses the influence of the fall of socialism, with particular reference to the evolution of economic thought.

Political Economy for Socialism

Political Economy for Socialism PDF Author: Makoto Itoh
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349240184
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
A reconsideration of socialism in the post-Soviet era based on the theoretical achievements of Japanese Marxist political economy. The origins and the various components of the broad current of socialist thought, as well as the implications of Marx's economic theories for socialism, are explored afresh. The Western debate on the rationality of a socialist economy, starting in the 1920s and continuing to the present, is reviewed and reassessed. The book further inquires into the nature, the achievements, and the character of the systemic change in the socialist economies of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. The existence of a broad range of alternatives for future socialism, which can be chosen flexibly by the people of each society, is the message suggested by the book.

The Political Economy of Cooperatives and Socialism

The Political Economy of Cooperatives and Socialism PDF Author: Bruno Jossa
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000728021
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
This book argues that capitalism cannot be said to be truly democratic and that a system of producer cooperatives, or democratically managed enterprises, is needed to give rise to a new mode of production which is genuinely socialist and fully consistent with the ultimate rationale underlying Marx’s theoretical approach. The proposition that firms should be run by the workers on their own, was endorsed by John Dewey, the greatest social thinker of the twentieth century, but is also shared by Marxists such as Anton Pannekoek, Karl Korsch, Angelo Tasca, Antonio Gramsci and Richard Wolff. This book explores the history of this argument taking in concepts from economic and political thought including historical materialism, cooperation, utopianism and economic democracy. The book will be of significant interest to scholars and students of political economy, Marxism, socialism, history of economic thought and political theory.

Democracy, Plan, and Market

Democracy, Plan, and Market PDF Author: David Mandel
Publisher: Ibidem Press
ISBN: 9783838210087
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
This is the first book in English to present a succinct overview of the influential work of Russian economist Yakov Abramovich Kronrod (1912-1984) on the political economy of socialism. Kronrod headed the theoretical section of the Institute of Economics of the Academy of the USSR in the 1970s until the authorities decided that his ideas were dangerous, banning Kronrod's publications until his death in 1984. Kronrod argued that while national ownership and democracy are the dominant relations of socialism, commodity-market relations nevertheless have an important role to play in the planned economy. This stunning, revelatory book includes a first translation of one of Kronrod's key essays, 'Socio-oligarchism-Pseudo-Socialism of the Twentieth Century' and introduces Kronrod's thought to the English-speaking world for the first time.

Dynamism, Rivalry, and the Surplus Economy

Dynamism, Rivalry, and the Surplus Economy PDF Author: János Kornai
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199334765
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
In this book, János Kornai examines capitalism as an economic system and in comparison to socialism. The two essays of this book will explore these differing ideologies on macro and micro levels, ending with definitive explanations of how the systems work and how they develop.

A Future for Socialism

A Future for Socialism PDF Author: John E. Roemer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674339460
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
In this text, Roemer proposes a new future of socialism based on a redefinition of market socialism. The Achille's heel of socialism has always been maintaining innovation and efficiency in an economy in which income is equally distributed. Roemer points out that large capitalist firms have already solved a similar problem: in those firms, profits are distributed to numerous shareholders, yet they continue to innovate and compete. The author argues for a modified version of socialism, not necessarily based on public ownership, but founded on equality of opportunity and political influence.