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Marx, Kantorovich, and Novozhilov: Stoimost’ Versus Reality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Robert W. Campbell
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Extract

Like other aspects of Soviet life, economics has been revivified by Stalin's death. The most visible part of its reawakening has been an extensive discussion of, and experimentation with, institutional arrangements, though even questions of strategy and basic policy have also been exposed to an unwonted amount of free discussion. The real measure of this freedom, however, is that the search for theoretical clarification, which inevitably accompanies discussion of practical issues, has been allowed to develop in a way not permitted since the late twenties. One aspect of this dramatic change is the controversy which has developed around the use of mathematics in economics. After long aversion to any introduction of mathematical reasoning into analysis of economic relationships, the Russians are now thinking about the possible usefulness of input-output techniques in balancing supply and demand and in price planning and about the application of linear programming to enterprise planning, and have begun to resort to mathematical models to explore the abstract essence of practical problems.

Type
Articles
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , October 1961 , pp. 402 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1961

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References

1 Such propositions are developed, for instance in B. M. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1949 Google Scholar) and H. B. (Moscow, 1959).Google Scholar

2 His explanation of his approach is in (Leningrad, 1939). This has been translated and published as“Mathematical Methods of Organizing and Planning Production,” in Management Science, July, 1960.

3 For a history of linear programming and an explanation of its relationship to traditional value theory, see Dorfman, Robert, Samuelson, Paul, and Solow, Robert, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958).Google Scholar

4 These include , No. 7-8, 1942, (Moscow, 1949).

5 HayK CCCP, 1959).

6 The Gregory Grossman,“Scarce Capital and Soviet Doctrine,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1953.

7 B. B., No. 4, 1939, and , No. 1, 1946. These two papers have been published in translation in International Economic Papers, No. 6, 1956.

8 in the volume (Moscow, 1959).

9 , No. 1,1960.

10 , No. 11,1960.

11 Summaries of some of the presentations at this conference, held in April, 1960, in Moscow, are given in , No. 8, 1960. The rebuke to Kantorovich is on page 122.

12 CCCP, No. 4,1959, p. 60.

13 , p. 478.

14 See the remarks by A. G. Aganbegian in the report of the conference on mathematical methods in economics in , No. 8, 1960, pp. 110-12.

15 HayK CCCP, 1957). The article by Konius is entitled

16 In a speech at the 21st Congress of the Communist Party quoted in , p. 3.

17 , No. 8,1960, p. 114.