Administrative-command system
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The administrative-command system (ACS) Template:Lang-ru, also command-administrative system is the system of management of an economy of a state characterized by the rigid centralization of economic planning and distribution of goods, based on the state ownership of the means of production and carried out by the governmental and Communist Party bureaucracies in absence of economic freedom.
The term is used to describe the economy of the Soviet Union and the economies of Soviet Bloc, which closely followed the Soviet model.[1] Paul Roderick Gregory in his book The Political Economy of Stalinism: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives argues that the collapse of the Soviet Union was due to the inherent drawbacks of the ACS: poor planning, low expertise of planners, unreliable supply lines, conflict between planners and producers, and the dictatorial chain of command (Gregory writes: "the system was managed by thousands of 'Stalins' in a nested dictatorship"). Once the enterprizes gained some freedom during perestroika, the rigid system of ACS imploded.[2]
History of the term
The term "administrative system" was introduced by Russian economist Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov during the perestroika period in the Soviet Union as the title of a section in his 1987 article "From the Point of View of an Economist", [3][4] which analyzed the novel of Alexander Bek, New Assignment banned in the Soviet Union. It was published in Russian in 1986, with the beginning of perestroika, and was widely discussed in the society.[5] The term was picked up by Mikhail Gorbachev, who used the expression "administrative-command system" in his November 2, 1987 speech.[3] The concept was further expounded in Popov's 1990 book Блеск и нищета административной системы [The Splendors and Miseries of the Administrative System].[6]
See also
- Cameralism, German science of administration in the 18th and early 19th centuries that aimed at strong management of a centralized economy for mainly the state's benefit, closely associated with the development of bureaucracy.[7]
References
- ^ Wilhelm, John Howard (1985). "The Soviet Union Has an Administered, Not a Planned, Economy". Soviet Studies. 37 (1): 118–130. doi:10.1080/09668138508411571.
{{cite journal}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - ^ "The Political Economy of Stalinism", a Hoover Institution press-release about Paul Gregory's book, January 23, 2004
- ^ a b Словарь современных цитат [Dictionary of Modern Quotations], 2020, ISBN 5425049846 p. 821
- ^ Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov "From the Point of View of an Economist" ([S tochki zreniya ekonomista]), Science and Life, no. 4, 1987
- ^ Олейник А.Н, "Экономика как триллер. О книге Ю.Л. Латыниной «Промзона»", Mir Rossii [The World of Russia], no.4., 2003
- ^ Note: The title The Splendors and Miseries of the Administrative System is a pun with The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans .
- ^ Wakefield, Andre (2005-05-01). "Books, Bureaus, and the Historiography of Cameralism". European Journal of Law and Economics. 19 (3): 310–312, 318–319. doi:10.1007/s10657-005-6640-z. ISSN 0929-1261.