Re: needs, consumption & productive forces

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Brian Milani:
>driving forces of the economy.  The problem with many (no
>longer) actually-existing socialisms is that they never really
>changed the rules to facilitate qualitative development, and as
>Wallerstein says, just ran whole national economies like giant
>corporations.

Not so. Corporations have to make profits. As Alec Nove pointed out, the
Soviet type economies paid no attention to the bottom line. Workers were
guaranteed a job for life. Unless you have the lash of unemployment, it
does not make sense to compare Fiats to Lada, even though they produced the
same commodity.

Louis Proyect
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