We’d Better Develop what We’ve Got
V.N. Bogachev
the Academy of national economy under the USSR Council of Ministers
Keywords: эластичность спроса, эффективность производств и видов деятельности, социальные эксперименты, бюрократия, перестройка, напряженность общественных отношений, elasticity of demand, efficiency of production and activities, social experiments, bureaucracy, perestroika, tension of social relations
Abstract
An outstanding Soviet economist V. N. Bogachev, would have been 90 this year. He managed the “ECO” journal from the very beginning of its publication. He influenced the style and forged the orientation of the journal publications. This article is a reprint (with some abridgement) of his article from the 6th issue of “ECO” of 1989. It is remarkable in conveying the spirit of polemics of that perestroika time between scientists who pondered the question of where and how to direct the development of the economy and the society of the Soviet Union. Viktor Nikolaevich thought about specific issues, sharply and even sarcastically criticizing the economic illiteracy of the authorities, who made absurd decisions on price and income policy, and about fundamental problems, the relevance of which, paradoxically, has not faded with time, but is becoming ever more acute and painful. Being ahead of many of his contemporaries in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the economic science, he called for reasonable restraint in the import of “advanced” ideas of Western economic liberalism and at the same time demanded a full, integrated use of the Russian economic science with its rich heritage of such classics as K. Veksel and R. Houtri, J. M. Keynes and M. riedman. This article reflects many thoughts of this great economist.
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