Convergent political economy of the “New socialism” by J. K. Galbraith

Abstract

In the evolution of Western-type and Soviet-type economies after World War II, there were many common points that prompted scientists to talk about the convergence of two ideologically alternative political and economic systems. Remarkable examples of a comparative analysis of both vectors of the development of national economies, based on the same conceptual premises, are the books of J. K. Galbraith “The new industrial state” and “Economics and the public purpose”. The inability of the neoclassical and neo-Keynesian theory to explain the socio-economic changes that took place initiated a scientifi c search in the Western economy for the properties of the Soviet socialist system of regulation, the planned organization of the national economy. The need for planning was predetermined by the nature of the use of time and capital in modern production, the specialization of enterprises, the needs of large corporate organizations, the problems of unstable functioning of the market in conditions of advanced engineering and technology. There are reasons to assume that J. K. Galbraith’s concept of the state-corporate economy contains a reminiscence of the theory of state-monopolistic capitalism, set forth in the most famous works of V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin “Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism” and “About food tax”. J. K. Galbraith outlined a logically holistic conceptual understanding of the objective conditionality of convergence in the development of Western-type and Soviet-type economic models. Decentralization in Soviet-style economic systems meant not a return to the market, but the transfer of some planned functions from the state to the fi rm. The convergence of the Soviet and Western systems cannot be understood as the return of the fi rst system to the market. Both systems have outgrown the market. There was a clear convergence in the direction of the same forms of planning. J.K. Galbraith discussed the possibility of reforming the American economy on the basis of the model of “new socialism”.

Keywords

• convergent political economy
• planned system
• new socialism
• j. k. galbraith
• v. i. ulyanov-lenin