Dictatorship over Needs: An Analysis of Soviet Societies

The emotional and intellectual motivation for writing this book was the exact obverse of the French maxim: tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. By contrast, and without intending to write a political pamphlet, we sought to understand the whole of ‘real socialism’ in order critically to expose this new and formidable system of internal and external oppression, to dissipate such illusions as exist about its genuine physiognomy. This process of ‘total understanding’ has necessitated, of course, an unreserved criticism of our own earlier self-deceptions. In actual fact, this book derives from the process of our own self-enlightenment on the subject of ‘real socialism’. [...] Gyorgy Markus wrote the first part dealing with theories analysing Soviet societies, their economy and ‘class’ structure. The second part,‘PoliticalDominationanditsConsequences’, is the work of Agnes Heller. Ferenc Feher wrote the third part: ‘The Functioning of the System: Conflicts and Perspectives’. We have discussed each part repeatedly and made corrections as a result of these vehement but always friendly discussions. In this sense each author bears moral, political and scholarly responsibility for the parts of the two others. [from the Forward] Foreword vii Acknowledgement xiv Part I Economic and Social Structure 1 Eastern European Societies and the Western Left 1 2 Corporate Property and Command Economy 45 3 Inequality and Domination in a ‘Classless’ Society 106 Part II Political Domination and its Consequences 4 Legitimation 137 5 The System of Domination 156 6 The Structure of Power 167 7 Ideology, Dogma, Culture 187 8 Morality and Psychology 205 Part III The Functioning of the System: Conflicts and Perspectives 9 Why is Dictatorship over Needs not Socialism? 221 10 Hyperrationalist Preferences and Social Irrationality in a Planned Society 237 11 Market and Fragmented Market in Soviet Societies 264 12 The Crisis of Dictatorship over Needs 280 Index 301 Ensayo que intenta responder si habr que concluir que el socialismo ha fracasado irreversiblemente. Analiza las dictaduras socialistas y de sus respectivas particularidades, filiaciones, influencias y hegemonas, realizados por una terna de slidos y prestigiados crticos marxistas.