From Marx to the Market

Examining socialism's claim to be the only rational economic system, and studying its practical application in the communist bloc, the authors of this work attempt to distinguish between the "real socialism" of communist party orthodoxy and the "market socialism" of Yugoslavia and Hungary.

Both of the authors were themselves involved in the Planning Office of the Polish economy in the 1950s and 1960s, and attempt to present the results of their efforts to develop theoretically a system of economic management which could in practice avoid the worst excesses of both market capitalism and central planning.

Concentrating on common features in the evolution of socialist economic practice rather than on factors peculiar to individual countries, they draw on national experiences to pinpoint the advances that have been made, the flaws in models that have been developed, and the prospects for a feasible synthesis of socialist principles and exigencies of the market.