Building Socialism: Role of Government

Juan Jose Barrios jota at netgate.com.uy
Thu May 27 16:51:24 PDT 1999


Enrique Diaz-Alvarez wrote:


> Juan Jose Barrios wrote:
> >
> > What is your view about how society would work. Do you think on some
> > kind of particpatory economy, an Hahnel-type of society?
> >
> > Who cares about what we consume? The market through the private sector?
> > Galbraith (John K) argues that the demise of the real socialism was
> > because they could not solve for the "consumption problem". How would
> > you handle that issue?
> >
> > JUan
> >
>
> Juan,
>
> two questions. Where does JKG talk about the demise of socialism? and
> what exactly is the consumption problem?

I wrote REAL socialism, i.e. The Soviet Union. So JKG talks about the implosion of the Soviet Union. He does (at least) so in his book " A Journal Through Economic Time", Chapter 23 pp. 220-222.:

pp221:

" For heavy industry and armaments, the Soviet command and control system worked with obvious efficiency...."...." The principale failures, to remind, were in meeting the needs of the Soviet consumer and agriculture. The succesful consumer economy produces or requires a disconerting number of goods and services...... The Communist central planning system.......did not worked for consumer goods; it was too rigid and unyielding, incapable of accommodating to variety and change".

On pp. 223, JKG goes on to argue that the second factor contributing to the collapse of Communism lay in the field of human rights.

Hope this helps

Otro saludo Juan


>
>
> Un saludo,
>
> --
> Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034
> Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 272 4808
> 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565
> Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu
> Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique



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