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At 01:14 PM 1/18/2000 +1100, Steve wrote:
>I have argued in the past that Kornai's explanation wasn't the whole
>story--even though the resource constrained analysis made sense, it was
>also the case that Stalinism and specific policies, like the heavy
>industrialisation focus, made the outcome worse. But I've seen them as
>relatively independent forces, and now Kornai has effectively argued they
>are causally linked: vanguard party leads to the other two.
>
In one respect, Feldman's model (which is an elaboration of Lenin, if I
remember correctly) may point in a different direction to Kornai. The
former implies that Department I will always have priority in resource
allocation (subject, of course, to the need to reproduce existing
productive relations) and that Department I enterprises then logically
would face soft budget constraints *but* that Department II enterprises
would face hard budget constraints. My recollection (which I'll need to
refresh soon for classes) is that Kornai tends to treat the soft budget
constraint as universal in the resource constrained economy.
in solidarity,
mike
Michael A. Lebowitz
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office: Phone (604) 291-4669
Fax (604) 291-5944
Home: Phone (604) 872-0494
Fax (604) 872-0485
Lasqueti Island: (250) 333-8810
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