Efficiency and Ownership under Socialism: Social and Group Appropriation (original) (raw)

The concept of the ownership in the late 'socialist economics

Research Papers in Economics, 2000

The ownership has a very controversial place in the economics' history. While it was placed in the centre of the so called "socialist political economy", (actually, the issue of its abolishment), it is still taken for granted in the orthodox economics and little attention is paid on its analysis. Contrary, the institutional economics shows all increasing interest in this par excellence 'institutionalist' economic concept - two out of ten chapters are directly devoted to the ownership in the recent E. Furobotn and R. Richter's book - 'Institutions and Economic Theory' (1997). Within the latter discourse it seems important and interesting to analyse the development of that concept in 'the economics of the socialism' - from the state, unique, single ownership through various degrees of 'relative autonomy of the state companies' and to the eventual triad of 'ownership, possession and management'. A theoretic development forced by...

The property regime of socialism

Conservation and Society, 2004

IN THEIR INTRODUCTION to this set of articles, Janet Sturgeon and Tomas Sikor ask whether we are justified in lumping together Central European and East Asian cases of property transformation. Their answer to this question is 'yes', despite significant differences that ...

Property and politics in and after socialism

Revista Română de Sociologie, 2008

This essay synthesizes work on the property regime of Soviet-type societies, using examples from Romania. Its aim is to correct the assumption common among western economists and policy-makers that there was no property in socialist societies (see, e.g., Frydman and Rapaczynski) and therefore no obstacles to privatization. On the contrary, socialist property was clearly articulated, and its organization had strong implications for how socialist firms might be privatized. Thus, what looked like a “property vacuum” to western advisors proved to be very full of property rules and relations, which impeded satisfactory privatization even years after the collapse of communist parties.

Towards a new socialism

1993

Here we base ourselves on the classical Marxist analysis of society. In Marx's view, the most basic distinguishing feature of different modes of social organisation is the manner in which they ensure the 'extraction of a surplus product' from the direct producers. This requires a little explanation. The 'necessary product', on this theory, is the product required to maintain and reproduce the workforce itself. This will take the form of consumer goods and services for the workers and their families, and the investment in plant, equipment and so on that is needed simply to maintain the society's means of production in working order. The 'surplus product', on the other hand, is that portion of social output used to maintain the non-producing members of society (a heterogeneous lot, ranging from the idle rich, to politicians, to the armed forces, to retired working people), plus that portion devoted to net expansion of the stock of means of production. Any society capable of supporting non-producing members, and of generating an economically progressive programme of net investment, must have some mechanism for compelling or inducing the direct producers to produce more than is needed simply to maintain themselves. The precise nature of this mechanism is, according to Marxist theory, the key to understanding the society as a whole-not just the 'economy', but also the general form of the state and of politics. Our claim is that the Soviet system put into effect a mode of Synopsis of the book In the remainder of this introduction we offer a synopsis of the main arguments to come, in the light of the problems and issues identified above. Chapters 1 and 2 tackle issues connected with inequality and inequity. The first gives an overview of the bases of inequality in capitalist society-bases which, as we have suggested above, social democratic amelioration is unable to eradicate. The

Self — Management and Requirements for Social Property : Lessons from Yugoslavia

2003

1. Problems with transitions in Eastern Europe have focused attention on alternatives to both central—planning and unregulated markets. Naive enthusiasm for the market has already begun to wane in the face of growing economic chaos and inequality, precipitating a search for more humane and stable forms of organization. Theoretically and in practice, worker self—management is being advocated as a system able to produce efficiently and at the same time distribute goods and power equitably. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of self—management in achieving equity and efficiency from both theoretical models of the self—managed economy and the experience of Yugoslavia, the one economy at least nominally self—managed on a system—wide scale. 2. Theoretical models derive from many different frameworks, distinguished from each other by assumptions about property rights, the level of competitiveness or openness of the economy and even the objectives of the worker—managers withi...