This volume, originally published in 1979, examines systematically the nature of control in both capitalist and socialist economies, develops a theoretical and applied framework which can embrace both macroeconomics and plannng and demonstates the essential unity of all forms of macroeconomic planning by the consistent application of basic economic principles. Firstly, the authors establish why societies feel a need for government control and examine the mechanisms by which such social decisions are reached. Next they examine the nature of economic data, the modelling of economic systems nad a review of practical policy goals and instruments. The book then reviews the basic theory of optimisation and elaborates it in the context of planning for growth, for stabilisation and under uncertainty. It closes with an analysis of practical planning based on French and Soviet experience.

"The editors have merged work from two disciplines, economics and political science; in a summary conclusion, a sociologist suggests possible extensions in the comparison of socialist systems for the future. . . . contributes generously to the field."—Slavic Review

This study aims to reconstruct the activities of enterprises and individuals over two decades in one developing country (Hungary), within and across four politico-economic domains (agriculture, infrastructure/construction, commerce, and manufacturing), from the initial Stalinist obsession with heavy industry (Volume 1: Creating the Theft Economy, 1945-1957) through later reforms paying greater attention to profitable farming and the provision of abundant consumer goods (Volume 2: From Chaos to Contradiction, 1957-1972, forthcoming 2023). It provides hundreds of grounded, granular stories for reflection, as reported by actors and direct observers, ranging from innovation and improvisation to obstruction, failure, and fraud. Further, it offers an otherwise-unobtainable close encounter with another world, familiar in some respects while amazingly peculiar in others. The social history of enterprise and work in postwar Central European nations “building socialism” has long been underdeveloped. Through extensive macro-level research on planning and policy in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Bloc countries, a grand narrative has been framed: reconstruction and breakneck industrialization under Soviet tutelage; then eventual mismanagement, stagnation and crisis, leading to collapse. This book seeks to explore what socialism actually looked like to those sustaining (or enduring} it as they faced forward into an unknowable future, to assess how and where it did (or didn’t) work, and to recount how ordinary people responded to its opportunities and constraints. This study will appeal to readers interested in understanding how businesses worked day-to-day in a planned economy, how enterprise practices and technological strategies shifted during the first postwar generation, how novice managers and technicians emerged during rapid industrialization, how peasants learned to farm cooperatively, how organizations improvised and adapted, how political purity and practical expertise contended for control, and how the controversies and convulsions of the postwar decades shaped a deeply flawed project to “build socialism.”

First published in 1970, Economics of Socialism covers all aspects of socialist economics: planning, profit, production and growth, investment, consumption, labor and land. The author then goes on to discuss pricing, money and banking, fiscal policy and control, and both domestic and foreign trade and international economic cooperation. The book is introduced by a background chapter on the socialist economic system, models of the socialist economy, the reforms, and the new socialist economics. It ends with a singularly objective comparison of socialist and capitalist economies and seeks to answer the question of whether the two systems are indeed converging. The book is based on socialist sources published in the Eastern European countries, which Professor Wilczynski has studied in the original, and which he is able to interpret against a first-hand knowledge of the countries concerned. He also provides a considerable apparatus which will be useful to students: a full glossary of socialist economic terms and extensive references for further reading in English. This is an interesting historical reference work for scholars and researchers of Soviet economics and Russian economics.