Study of the Soviet Economy; Direction & impact of Soviet growth teaching and research in Soviet economics

The Soviet challenge manifests itself on a widening front which stretches from politics to defense and from economics to science. What are the mainsprings, direction, and impact of Soviet growth? What place does the study of the Soviet-type econ omies now occupy in our college teaching and research, and what place should it occupy in the future?

The present Soviet economic system is the outcome of a variety of shifts and adjustments, carried out through a number of decades, within a given ownership framework, established by a revolution. In this system, the complete nationalization of non labor factors of production has been instrumental, along with other elements, to a heretofore unheard-of centralization of poli tical and economic power. At the same time, various decentrali zing procedures have been employed in the administration of this gigantic complex. Such procedures, are, for instance, the es tablishment of the principle of autonomy of the state owned enter prises and the utilization of the market for deploying labor and distributing consumers' goods. The USSR's specific institutional arrangements, its strategy of methodically emphasizing certain key sectors and finally, its techniques of comprehensive planning, have now been emulated by a number of Soviet-type economies and have all, in varying degrees, exercised an impact on the rest of the world.