Economic Thought and Economic Reform in the Soviet Union

In this 1991 work, Pekka Sutela presents a detailed analysis of Soviet economic thought and theory.

Pekka Sutela (Author)

9780521380201, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 July 1991

208 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.48 kg

"The Finnish economist Pekka Sutela has probably worked himself more fully into the minds of the economists of the USSR than any other westerner. His short book is a guide through the labyrinth of thought in which Soviet economists wandered over the last 25 years, trying to understand what was wrong and how it could be fixed....he does an excellent job of conveying the conceptual framework they used in analyzing the economy and the reform measures they proposed." Robert W. Campbell, Slavic Review

Although the history of centrally planned economies has been widely studied, the development of socialist thinking on the subject has remained largely uncharted. In this 1991 work, Pekka Sutela presents a detailed analysis of Soviet economic thought and theory. Dr Sutela traces the competing currents in the Marxist tradition of socialist economies from the Revolution to the present day. In particular he shows how the Gorbachev economic reform programme of 1987 rose from the work of Nobel Prize economist L. V. Kantorovich and his followers. However, this programme failed and the author explains in some detail why this happened. Since then, Soviet economists have tried to abandon their traditional theory of central planning and move along the path and long established contacts with leading Soviet economists, Pekka Sutela is able to show how Soviet economic thinking has moved from dogmatism through reformism to pragmatism.

Acknowledgements
1. The Soviet political economy of socialism
2. The mathematical challenge to orthodoxy
3. The reformist programme
4. The years of radicalism and reaction
5. Not of mathematics alone
6. The age of perestroika
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic theory & philosophy [KCA]