A Guide to the Socialist Economies PDF Download

Author: IAN. JEFFRIES
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032250151
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
First published in 1990, A Guide to the Socialist Economies explores the evolution of a variety of economic systems in the socialist world and highlights major problems facing fourteen countries - Albania, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, North Korea, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and Yugoslavia -against a background of continuous change, characterized by such events as the Berlin blockade, the Korean war, the Hungarian revolution and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The traditional Soviet economic model is studied in detail as the basic system adopted by or imposed upon all of these countries. A separate chapter is devoted to foreign trade in general and Comecon in particular, while each of the country studies deals with the political and economic background, economic reforms (including industry, agriculture, the financial system and foreign trade and capital) and the private sector. The book provides information on the economic institutions of all the individual countries which is invaluable if the various courses of reform each country has engaged upon are to be understood. Historical material supplements contemporary information in a work which is to be an essential reference for anyone engaged in a study of, or trade with, the socialist countries.

Author: Daniel E. Saros
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317803191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
The failure of command central planning in the twentieth century has led to a general disillusionment within the socialist movement worldwide. Some alternatives to capitalism have been proposed since the end of the Cold War, but none has offered an alternative form of economic calculation. This book explains how modern information technology may be used to implement a new method of economic calculation that could bring an end to capitalism and make socialism possible. In this book, the author critically examines a number of socialist proposals that have been put forward since the end of the Cold War. It is shown that although these proposals have many merits, their inability effectively to incorporate the benefits of information technology into their models has limited their ability to solve the problem of socialist construction. The final section of the book proposes an entirely new model of socialist development, based on a "needs profile" that makes it possible to convert the needs of large numbers of people into data that can be used as a guide for resource allocation. This analysis makes it possible to rethink and carefully specify the conditions necessary for the abolition of capital and consequently the requirements for socialist revolution and, ultimately, communist society. Information Technology and Socialist Construction will be of interest to students and scholars of political economy, the history of economic thought, labour economics and industrial economics.

Author: Ian Jeffries
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000570959
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
First published in 1990, A Guide to the Socialist Economies explores the evolution of a variety of economic systems in the socialist world and highlights major problems facing fourteen countries – Albania, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, North Korea, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and Yugoslavia –against a background of continuous change, characterized by such events as the Berlin blockade, the Korean war, the Hungarian revolution and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The traditional Soviet economic model is studied in detail as the basic system adopted by or imposed upon all of these countries. A separate chapter is devoted to foreign trade in general and Comecon in particular, while each of the country studies deals with the political and economic background, economic reforms (including industry, agriculture, the financial system and foreign trade and capital) and the private sector. The book provides information on the economic institutions of all the individual countries which is invaluable if the various courses of reform each country has engaged upon are to be understood. Historical material supplements contemporary information in a work which is to be an essential reference for anyone engaged in a study of, or trade with, the socialist countries.

Author: Kevin Williamson
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1596986492
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Argues that the same impulse for control that governed the Soviet Union is present in the American health care and educational systems and that socialism can never work because of human nature.

Author: Ian Jeffries
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000570932
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
First published in 1990, A Guide to the Socialist Economies explores the evolution of a variety of economic systems in the socialist world and highlights major problems facing fourteen countries – Albania, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, North Korea, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and Yugoslavia –against a background of continuous change, characterized by such events as the Berlin blockade, the Korean war, the Hungarian revolution and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The traditional Soviet economic model is studied in detail as the basic system adopted by or imposed upon all of these countries. A separate chapter is devoted to foreign trade in general and Comecon in particular, while each of the country studies deals with the political and economic background, economic reforms (including industry, agriculture, the financial system and foreign trade and capital) and the private sector. The book provides information on the economic institutions of all the individual countries which is invaluable if the various courses of reform each country has engaged upon are to be understood. Historical material supplements contemporary information in a work which is to be an essential reference for anyone engaged in a study of, or trade with, the socialist countries.

Author: Hadas Thier
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642592188
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A lively, accessible, and timely guide to Marxist economics for those who want to understand and dismantle the world of the 1%. Economists regularly promote Capitalism as the greatest system ever to grace the planet. With the same breath, they implore us to leave the job of understanding the magical powers of the market to the “experts.” Despite the efforts of these mainstream commentators to convince us otherwise, many of us have begun to question why this system has produced such vast inequality and wanton disregard for its own environmental destruction. This book offers answers to exactly these questions on their own terms: in the form of a radical economic theory. “Thier’s urgently needed book strips away jargon to make Marx’s essential work accessible to today’s diverse mass movements.” —Sarah Leonard, contributing editor to The Nation “A great book for proletarian chain-breaking.” —Rob Larson, author of Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley “Thier unpacks the mystery of capitalist inequality with lucid and accessible prose . . . . We will need books like A People’s Guide to help us make sense of the root causes of the financial crises that shape so many of our struggles today.” —Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership “Ranging from exploitation at work to the operations of modern finance, this book takes the reader through a fine-tuned introduction to Marx’s analysis of the modern economy . . . . Thier combines theoretical explanation with contemporary examples to illuminate the inner workings of capitalism . . . . Reminds us of the urgent need for alternatives to a crisis-ridden system.” —David McNally, author of Blood and Money

Author: Eric Holt-Giménez
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583676600
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
How our capitalist food system came to be -- Food, a special commodity -- Land and property -- Capitalism, food, and agriculture -- Power and privilege in the food system: gender, race and class -- Food, capitalism, crises and solutions

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.

Author: Paul H. Rubin
Publisher: Bombardier Books
ISBN: 1642936723
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Whenever socialism has been tried, it has led to failure, and often, great human misery. Nonetheless, many young people prefer socialism to capitalism. There are dozens of books and articles explaining the failures of socialism, but these do not seem to have an impact on students. One reason for this may be that the books are written in abstract terms, and do not relate to the lives of the readers. This book takes a different approach. It asks the question, “What will my life be like if I live under socialism?” Professor Paul Rubin—a leading expert on socialism and capitalism—shows that under socialism: • People will be poorer • There will be less freedom • Goods will be of lower quality but more expensive • There will be less innovation • The environment will be in worse shape He also shows that the U.S. is the most productive and richest country that has ever existed, and that the current level of wealth in the U.S. is due to capitalism. Lastly, he demonstrates that many critiques of capitalism (such as, it leads to excessive inequality) are mistaken or ill-founded. Professor Rubin points out an important paradox. The young people who are the sharpest critics of capitalism are themselves highly dependent in their daily lives on the products of capitalism. These include computers themselves, mobile phones, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Uber, Skype, Spotify, computer games, and almost any other modern product. Additionally, the creators of these products are among the “millionaires and billionaires” despised by socialists.

Author: Gareth Dale
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745640710
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation is generally acclaimed as being among the most influential works of economic history in the twentieth century, and remains as vital in the current historical conjuncture as it was in his own. In its critique of nineteenth-century ‘market fundamentalism’ it reads as a warning to our own neoliberal age, and is widely touted as a prophetic guidebook for those who aspire to understand the causes and dynamics of global economic turbulence at the end of the 2000s. Karl Polanyi: The Limits of the Market is the first comprehensive introduction to Polanyi’s ideas and legacy. It assesses not only the texts for which he is famous – prepared during his spells in American academia – but also his journalistic articles written in his first exile in Vienna, and lectures and pamphlets from his second exile, in Britain. It provides a detailed critical analysis of The Great Transformation, but also surveys Polanyi’s seminal writings in economic anthropology, the economic history of ancient and archaic societies, and political and economic theory. Its primary source base includes interviews with Polanyi’s daughter, Kari Polanyi-Levitt, as well as the entire compass of his own published and unpublished writings in English and German. This engaging and accessible introduction to Polanyi’s thinking will appeal to students and scholars across the social sciences, providing a refreshing perspective on the roots of our current economic crisis.