nach oben

Erschienen in:

2015 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

11. Theories of Central Planning and the Socialist Crises

verfasst von : Nicos Christodoulakis

Erschienen in: How Crises Shaped Economic Ideas and Policies

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

Marxist theory was certain about the inevitable demise of capitalism but less so on the system that would succeed it. Critical problems of production and distribution were only coarsely dealt with, thus the practical implementation of socialism was full of ideological experimentation, policy shortcomings, and food shortages. Early famines led to the formation of a highly bureaucratic central planning which enabled a speedy industrialization of Soviet Union but failed in the production of consumer goods and the efficient allocation of investments. The failures of central planning invited a variety of critiques, from the suggestion of an intermediate mix of markets with socialist production to the utter denouncement of price dirigisme in the economy. Several economic and political thinkers put in doubt the very character of the socialist system and tried to explain it as a modern replica of Asiatic despotism.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Vorheriges Kapitel The Great Crisis and the Theory of Keynes

Nächstes Kapitel From Keynesian Economics to Stagflation

In an outburst of voluntarism, in the Preface to the Russian edition of the Communist manifesto (1882), Marx and Engels conceded that under certain circumstances, Russia could join the socialist revolution.

Lenin, What is to be Done? (1902). It is perhaps the most comprehensive guide-book on party voluntarism.

Pareto was in touch with Sorel, and it was rumored that both had been fascinated by the promises of Mussolini, but then Pareto got disillusioned when the fascist regime nationalized big enterprises. Sorel influenced the establishment of a fascist movement in France, but later clashed with Mussolini for persecuting his old comrades.

Marcuse, From Luther to Popper (1983, p. 149).

Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (1846).

Kautsky, The Materialist Conception of History (1902).

A description of Dmitriev-Bortkiewicz model can be found in Marchionatti and Fiorini (2000).

For a description see Kurz and Salvadori, Theory of Production: A long-period analysis (1995, Chaps. 13.2 and 13.3).

At that time, von Neuman was also a student in Berlin and was working on the cyclical model. He would later flee to the US, where he developed the study of strategic decision making in the Theory of Games.

Neurath was the head of the Office for Central Economic Planning in the short-lived Munich Soviet Republic (April–May 1919). See Rosner (1990).

Marx and Engels have a deep contempt for the concept of individual utility. As they write “pleasure-seeking philosophy has been around in Europe since the time of the Cyrenaics. This philosophy has never been anything more than the witty language of specific social groups enjoying the privilege of pleasures”; Marx and Engels, German Ideology.

The famine was caused by a combination of prolonged draught and civil war. The Soviet Union experienced another famine in 1932–1933 due to shortages and mismanagement of arable lands. Six million people died. The source of the data is O’Grada, Famine: A Short History (2009, Table 1.1, p. 23).

Lenin speaking in the 11th Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR. The speech is available at. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

For a detailed account, see Ellman, Socialist Planning (1989, Chap. 2).

The “ideal accounting and monitoring system” according to the words of Lenin as reported in Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth-Century: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization (Berend 2006).

Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (1952).

See Ellman (1989, op. cit). Subscribing to the Hobbesian approach of man’s perpetual desire for power after power (See Hobbes’ Leviathan, 1982, Chap. XI).

Alexey Stakhanov (1906–1977) was perhaps the most famous example. He broke the mining record, exceeding the quota by 14 times, and became a celebrity and role model for all Soviet workers, appointed at the Supreme Soviet and even featured in the TIME magazine’s cover in 1935. In his film Man of Marble, Polish director Andrzej Wajda shows Stakhanov as a hated figure, used by the regime as a convenient pretext to impose ever more inhuman working conditions. Later, Stakhanov’s record was disputed as propaganda fabrication.

Stalin (1952, op. cit).

Centuries earlier, Thucydides had warned about the problems of elaborate planning: one is overly enthusiastic in the beginning, but at the time of execution, there is often hesitation and fear. “The confidence with which we prepare our plans is never entirely justified by their execution; speculation is safe, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure” (The Peloponnesian War, A’, CXVIII).

Domar Evsey (1965), “Special Features of Industrialisation in planned economies: a comparison between the Soviet Union and the United States”. Reprinted in Domar, Capital, Socialism and Serfdom (1989). For an evaluation of Soviet post-war successes see also in Heilbroner and Midberg, The Making of Economic Society (2008, Chap. 11).

Bakunin, Anarchy: The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State (1971).

An example is the Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS) in Slovakia. Party’s charter subscribes to the Austrian School of economic thought and dismisses state intervention in the markets; see Financial Times, October 9, 2011. Before, it was only in communist states that political parties unconditionally subscribed to a specific economic theory.

von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition (2005, Chap. 2.4, “The impracticability of Socialism”, pp. 46–50).

Rosner (1990).

For a mathematical proof, see Blanchard and Fischer, Lectures on Macroeconomics (1989, Chap. 2).

Contemporary supporters of Polanyi argue that he did believe in the abolition of capitalism, but did not accept the Marxist theory premise about the transition to socialism. Gyorgy Dalos (1990) writes that, when he was in exile in Vienna, he had dismissed the soteriological aspects of socialist theory.

Tjalling Koopmans (1910–1985), a Dutch mathematician, worked independently in the US on the same problem of optimal allocation of resources. Koopmans and Kantorovich were jointly awarded the NLE 1975.

Kantorovich, Essays in Optimal Planning (1977, p. 229).

Kantorovich, (op. cit., p. 214).

Domar (1974), “On the optimal compensation of a socialist manager”. Reprinted in Domar, Capital, Socialism and Serfdom (1989, op. cit).

This is why perestroika was often called “katastroika”. See Mark Almond in his article “1989 without Gorbachev: What if Communism had not collapsed”, published in Ferguson, Virtual History (2011).

Sraffa, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960, p. 9).

For an account see Godelier, The Concept of the Asiatic Mode of Production and Marxist Models of Social Evolution (1978).

Hobsbawm offers an alternative explanation for the Chinese Communist Party’s decision to delete all reference to the AMP from official texts as wanting to avoid giving Western imperialism a reason to intervene in a “stagnant” country; see Hindes B. and P. Q. Hirst, op. cit., “Introduction” (1979, p. 61).

As Kuusinen famously put it in Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism (1960).

Hobsbawm “Introduction”, op. cit. p. 61.

Hicks, A Theory of Economic History (1969, p. 3).

Bakunin M (1971) Anarchy: the Paris commune and the idea of the state (translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff)

Berend I (2006) An economic history of twentieth-century Europe: economic regimes from Laissez-Faire to globalization. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Blanchard O, Fisher S (1989) Lectures on macroeconomics. MIT Press, Cambridge

Dalos G (1990) The fidelity of equals: llona Duczynska and Karl Polanyi. In: Polanyi-Levitt K (ed) The life and work of Karl Polanyi. Black Rose Books, Montreal

Domar E (1989) Capital, socialism and serfdom. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Ellman M (1989) Socialist planning, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Ferguson N (2011) Virtual history. Penguin, London

Godelier M (1978) The concept of the “Asiatic mode of production” and Marxist models of social evolution. In: Seddon D (ed) Relations of production: Marxist approaches to economic anthropology. Frank Cass, London, pp 209–257

Heilbroner R, Milberg W (2008) The making of economic society. Pearson Education Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Hicks J (1969) A theory of economic history. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Hindes B, Hirst PQ (1979) Pre-capitalist modes of production. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London

Hobbes T (1982) Leviathan. Penguin, New York

Kantorovich LV (1977) Essays in optimal planning. Blackwell, Oxford

Kautsky K (1902) The aims and limitations of the materialist conception of history. Available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/08/aims-limitations.htm

Kurz H, Salvadori N (1995) Theory of production: a long-period analysis. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Kuusinen OW (1960) Fundamentals of Marxism – Leninism. Foreign Language Publishing House, Moscow

Lenin VI (1902) What is to be done? Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow

Marchionatti R, Fiorini R (2000) Between Walras and Ricardo: Ladislaus von Bortkievicz and the origin of neo-ricardian theory. Revue européenne des sciences sociales. Tome 38(117):173–191

Marcuse H (1983) From Luther to Popper. Verso, London

Marx K, Engels F (1846) The German ideology. Progress Publishers, Moscow

O’Grada C (2009) Famine: a short history. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Rosner P (1990) Karl Polanyi on social accounting. In: Polanyi-Levitt K (ed) The life and work of Karl Polanyi. Black Rose Books, Montreal

Sraffa P (1960) Production of commodities by means of commodities: Prelude to a critique of economic theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Stalin J (1952) Economic problems of socialism in the USSR. International Publishers, New York

von Mises L (2005) Liberalism: the classical tradition. Liberty Fund, Indianapolis

Titel: Theories of Central Planning and the Socialist Crises
verfasst von: Nicos Christodoulakis
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: How Crises Shaped Economic Ideas and Policies
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16870-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-16871-5

Copyright-Jahr: 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16871-5_11