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.
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Notes
- 1.
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.
- 2.
Lenin, What is to be Done? (1902). It is perhaps the most comprehensive guide-book on party voluntarism.
- 3.
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.
- 4.
Marcuse, From Luther to Popper (1983, p. 149).
- 5.
Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (1846).
- 6.
Kautsky, The Materialist Conception of History (1902).
- 7.
A description of Dmitriev-Bortkiewicz model can be found in Marchionatti and Fiorini (2000).
- 8.
For a description see Kurz and Salvadori, Theory of Production: A long-period analysis (1995, Chaps. 13.2 and 13.3).
- 9.
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.
- 10.
Neurath was the head of the Office for Central Economic Planning in the short-lived Munich Soviet Republic (April–May 1919). See Rosner (1990).
- 11.
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.
- 12.
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).
- 13.
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
- 14.
- 15.
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).
- 16.
Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR (1952).
- 17.
- 18.
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.
- 19.
Stalin (1952, op. cit).
- 20.
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).
- 21.
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).
- 22.
Bakunin, Anarchy: The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State (1971).
- 23.
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.
- 24.
von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition (2005, Chap. 2.4, “The impracticability of Socialism”, pp. 46–50).
- 25.
Rosner (1990).
- 26.
- 27.
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.
- 28.
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.
- 29.
Kantorovich, Essays in Optimal Planning (1977, p. 229).
- 30.
Kantorovich, (op. cit., p. 214).
- 31.
Domar (1974), “On the optimal compensation of a socialist manager”. Reprinted in Domar, Capital, Socialism and Serfdom (1989, op. cit).
- 32.
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).
- 33.
Sraffa, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960, p. 9).
- 34.
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).
- 35.
As Kuusinen famously put it in Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism (1960).
- 36.
Hobsbawm “Introduction”, op. cit. p. 61.
- 37.
Hicks, A Theory of Economic History (1969, p. 3).
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Christodoulakis, N. (2015). Theories of Central Planning and the Socialist Crises. In: How Crises Shaped Economic Ideas and Policies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16871-5_11
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