A sweeping overview of the Soviet Union's economy that takes as its
focus just what Gorbachev needs to do to successfully engineer a
systemic reform. Goldman (economics/Wellesley), author of USSR In
Crisis, and associate director of Harvard's Russian Research
Center, invests his task with unusual comprehensibility: readers on
this side of the Iron Curtain can visualize an economy from the
bottom up on their own terms. The Soviet worker, foreman, middle
manager, or executive is easily envisioned as a derivative of our
own types. Here are no faceless robots, doing the bidding of a
nameless central planner. "Factory managers have been and . .
.continue to be subject to intense scrutiny." Why? Because just
like managers in our own country, they apply loopholes in
regulations and policy statements to work to their advantage. For
example, a factory that made, say, light widgets and heavy tanks
looked at a new policy that rewarded tonnage production and opted
to manufacture only tanks, leaving a widget shortage. When Soviet
planners designed a new system (known as VAL) that would put a
premium on total ruble output, regardless of weight, the factory
would still produce only the more expensive tanks. Goldman writes
in the style of a policy briefing paper for Gorbachev's own eyes.
He suggests a variety of ways the Soviets might reform. Among them:
employee ownership of state enterprises (perhaps a little too
communistic for the communists), gradually bringing into being a
free price system (which is always followed by inflation, thus
anathema to the central planners); the abolition of direct
administrative allocation of goods and the decentralization of
banking. All in all, "there would have to be more emphasis on
consumer and innovator sovereignty and less on the preferences of
central planners." Though this might sound like pie-in-the-sky
Western dreaming, the Politburo has already agreed in principle to
many of these changes. An excellent review. (Kirkus Reviews)
Gorbachev's Challenge is deeply knowledgeable about the Soviet and
Chinese institutional landscapes, and the American system as
well...There is no better-informed or more imaginative introduction
to the economic problems facing the Russians as the century ends.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
