The economics and politics of socialism [antikvár]

Foreword by Maurice DobbProfessor Wlodzimierz Brus became known to us, here as elsewhere, as having contributed important new ideas and a növel viewpoint to the debate about the role of the markét in a planned economy as a result, first, of a short book of 1956, Prawo wartosci a problematyka bodzców ekonomicznych ( The Law of Value and the Problem ofEconomic Incentives), and, second, in 1961, of a broader work entitled Ogólne problemy funkcjonowania gospodarki socjalistycznej (General Ouestions of the Functioning of a Socialist Economy).1 This latter drew upon the experience of socialist planning in the light of three important theoretical debates on a socialist economy: namely, discussion in the Soviet Union in the middle twenties, the controversy about economic calculation under socialism in the thirties and the debates of the middle fifties, especially in Poland, in the period following Stalin's death.The present collection of articles and essays has an interest, how-ever, that extends beyond the circle of those concerned with problems associated with the 'economic reforms* of the past decade in the planned economies of Eastern Europe. Somé of the articles below bear upon the latter. But they are concerned alsó (as is, indeed, emphasized by the author) with wider political issues connected with the discussions, alike among Marxists in those countries and in the West, since the death of Stalin and especially since 1956: in particular, the question of democratization both within industry and alsó politically. Most readers will, I think, be struck by the frankness, indeed fearlessness, as well as the clarity and balance with which such questions are formulated and discussed-an outspokenness that has been rather rare previously in discussion of this type.At the time of his first book the author was about to become,1 Both of these works were published in Warsaw by P.W.N., and the second of them is available in English (The markét in a socialist economy, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972).