Alienation and the Soviet Economy

The Collapse of the Socialist Era

Paul Craig Roberts

• Publisher: Independent Institute
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781598132977
• Edition: 0
• Subtopic: Economic History

In 1971, Paul Craig Roberts created a firestorm among professional Sovietologists by proclaiming that the economies of the USSR and its East Bloc allies were doomed because their "planned" economies were, in reality, anything but planned.

In this revised edition, Paul Craig Roberts examines how reality triumphed over Marxist theory and the implications for the future of Russia and eastern Europe. Expanding on his original ideas, Roberts demonstrates the fatal shortcomings of Marxist economies, ranging from misallocation of resources to ersatz capitalistic concepts grafted onto a system that calls for production without regard to profit. Roberts argues that the economies of the nations emerging from the USSR’s collapse must grasp the profound truths in this book if they are to become viable.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword by Aaron Wildavsky
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Revised Edition
• 1 Alienation and Central Planning in Marx
• 2 “War Communism”—Product of Marxian Ideas
• 3 Polycentricity and Hierarchy
• 4 The Polycentric Soviet Economy
• 5 Oskar Lange’s Theory of Socialist Planning: An Obscurant of Socialist Aspirations
• 6 Speculative Excess as a Force in History
• Appendix: A Critique of Other Interpretations of Marxian Alienation
• Note on the Author