Integration by Market Forces and through Planning (Main Paper, Working Group I)

The development of integration processes in international economic (and not only economic) life is a characteristic feature of the modern world. The concentration and internationalisation of production and the new require-ments of economic, scientific and technical progress add up to the objective basis for the emergence of integrating communities that differ from each other in socio-economic terms. These communities are an important factor in the world economy, notably in Europe. At the same time, a regional instead of a universal basis for integration may contain within itself definite contradictions, which come to the surface when an integrating community resorts to some form of collective protectionism.