Market Mechanism and Law of Value in Socialist Economy — Evolution of Views

Problems of occurence and utilization of commodity and monetary categories and of law of value in socialism were subjects of long discussions from the beginning of economic thought. They were generally marked by socialist Utopians. Marxist classics also took up those problems on a background of analysis of mechanism of functioning capitalist economy. The second generation of Marxists (besides K. Kautsky) did not carry on deeper theoretical considerations connected with a mechanism of functioning future socialist economy. V. Lenin even after the successful Revolution course did not possess complete and precise idea in that sphere. Only after the Civil War broke out and foreign intervention began the policy of war communism started. It was the policy of liquidation of commodity and monetary relations and introduction of natural and distribution policy. The transition to so called NEP period caused reintroduction of commodity and monetary relations as well as using market mechanism for current effective economy. The transition to the NEP-period caused increased interests of Soviet economists on the problem of plan-market relation and then on planning methods in a socialist economy. Anti-market concepts won in the Soviet Union in the late twenties. In the early fifties an official notion was formulated that two forms of ownership of means of production — state and kolkhoz ones cause existence of commodity production in socialism. The twentieth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 was of great importance for development of theory of socialism. Within so called 'model' discussion the essence of commodity and monetary economy, its reasons as well as role played by market mechanism and law of value in socialism were precised. Utilization of an active role of commodity and monetary categories and of market mechanism and law of value for realization of current economic tasks does not mean functioning law of value in traditional sense. Market mechanism acts then independent on that whether these categories reflect values of goods or not. On the other hand it is impossible to shape proportions of social work division according to law of value without market mechanism. Resources allocation that reflects market situation and ensures supply and demand equilibrium when prices approximate value sets in only under conditions of market mechanism action. Market mechanism starts then adaptative processes on the market and it causes functioning law of value.Digitalizacja i deponowanie archiwalnych zeszytów RPEiS sfinansowane przez MNiSW w ramach realizacji umowy nr 541/P-DUN/201