45

p In anti-communist literature dealing with socialist economy, eloquently-worded and often mutually excluding views are offered on practically every question. These views are constantly modified and corrected to fit in with the aims of the ideological struggle and the requirements of current policy.

p At the same time, the views of the vast majority of bourgeois economists have features in common. The modern anti-communist theories dealing with the economy of socialism pursue the common purpose of misrepresenting the social content and popular character of the socialist system. They employ idealistic and metaphysical methods.

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p In the attitude common to most bourgeois economists there are several main orientations. These are, first, the so-called neo-classical orientation, whose proponents regard some general economic principles of the socialist economy as functional forms inherent in society at all stages of development, regardless of the socio-economic system.

p The second orientation may be characterised as neoliberal. It preaches that objective economic categories and laws cannot exist in a planned, consciously directed socialist economy.

p Lastly, the number of economists occupying an intermediate position, as it were, between the two above-mentioned orientations has been growing in recent years. They acknowledge the objective character of some categories of socialism. Moreover, they transplant these laws into an “ideal” society that is, of course, fundamentally non-socialist. This is the view of many of the proponents of socio-economic “convergence”.

p Revisionist theories that claim to uphold “true” socialism form a group by themselves.

p Among the proponents of the so-called neo-classical orientation there are many champions of “economic psychology”, a relatively new scientific school that has been winning adherents in the USA, France and other capitalist countries. The theorists of this school use the scientific and technological revolution, which is enhancing the significance of social psychology, to psychologise the basic categories of political economy. They declare that they are free of the moral and political influences of any social clans or groups. They argue that socialism simply does not have specific categories and laws on the grounds that economic categories spring from human psychology which does not depend on the specifics of a socio-economic system. In his The Generalised Economy and the Degree of Growth, Pierre-Louis Reynaud asserts that because they are laws of “economic psychology”, economic laws do not depend on the social system and the relations of production. “It is thus the human factor,” he 47 writes, “seen through the laws of economic psychology and understood as a synthesis of certain data of psychology and economy, which constitutes the bond and infrastructure of the various existing regimes.”^^2^^

p The concept of psychical energy, introduced by economico-psychologists to replace the concept of labour in “traditional” political economy, makes the foundation of the general theory of “economic psychology”. To use Reynaud’s words, the “liberals”, especially the socialists, have found that labour is “an essential link between the human factor and wealth”.^^3^^ The concept of psychical energy is much broader than the category of labour.

p In assessing this innovation, note must be taken of the conditional nature of the category of psychical energy. Materialist psychologists hold that the present state of knowledge gives no grounds for assuming that alongside electrical, chemical and other forms of energy there is a special, similar-type psychical energy, although metaphorically this concept is used for characterising the “psycho-energy” of the organism. To counterpose psychical energy to the category of labour signifies virtually reducing labour to physical labour.

p Significantly, the economico-psychologists use the concept of psychical energy to divorce production from exchange, distribution and consumption, which, together with production, comprise the dialectical unity off the process of reproduction. Notwithstanding their specifics, each of these spheres is part of social reproduction, a sphere in which labour activity, which is vital to society, manifests itself.

p The introduction of psychical energy as the “essential link between the human factor and wealth” under the guise of renouncing the “one-sided” approach of “traditional” political economy signifies a transition to the posture of subjectivism. This is most strikingly seen on the example of the economico-psychological theory of value.

p The economico-psychologists level their heaviest criticism 48 at the labour theory of value in Marxist-Leninist political economy. Had this theory been consonant with reality, Reynaud declares, there would have been material and moral justification for the communist regime and the dictatorship of the proletariat.^^4^^ Indeed, in the opinion of the economico-psychologists the labour theory is no less onesided than any other. They regard it as an expression of “workshop psychology”.^^5^^ While recognising that many workers, who are not Marxists, spontaneously accept the labour theory of value, Reynaud sees this as an indication of the . .. narrowness of Marxism, allegedly expressing the interests of only the factory proletariat.^^6^^

p In place of what they describe as “obsolete” and “ onesided” conceptual patterns, the economico-psychologists offer the theory of “final value”. They depict the genesis of economic value as the result of the “opposition of different social strata and their psychological influence on each other”. “Each stratum defends its theoretical conceptions and the final value cannot be but the result of these various currents.”^^5^^ They regard value as “absolutely rational and not ideological”.^^4^^

p This negation of the labour theory of value through the “deideologisation” of political economy serves as a means of attacking the central Marxist-Leninist idea, namely, that of the historic role of the working class as the leading force capable, in alliance with the other working people, of destroying capitalism and building a new, genuinely humane and just society.

p On the basis of their concepts of “psychical energy” and “final value”, the economico-psychologists maintain that “the mental progress of the individual, and not the class factor”^^6^^ is the basic law of economic development, arguing that the only way to resolve all social and economic problems is to raise “the mental level”^^7^^ of the individual.

p The bourgeois economists and sociologists who propound “economic psychology” and other neo-classical concepts portray the economic categories of capitalism and socialism 49 as being qualitatively identical. They contend that these categories carry out the same functions in the economic world which has limited resources. They therefore advise a functional analysis of these categories on the basis of the socalled fundamental economic science that rejects the specifics of economic relations.

p The existence of some common externally similar economic categories is used to prove that the socialist and the capitalist economies are identical. But in offering this “ argument” the bourgeois ideologists forget the main thing, namely, the qualitative content of these categories and how these categories manifest themselves in each of the opposing systems. Thus, objectively, wage, interest and profit are forms of the realisation of economic interests under both socialism and capitalism. But the content of these forms and categories and their role and functions differ fundamentally in the socialist and the capitalist economy. For instance, under socialism profit is a concrete form of the movement of the surplus product and has a content that differs essentially from that under capitalism. It materially expresses collective, rather than private economic interests that are intrinsic exclusively to the new social system, to socialism. Under socialism profit is not the principal aim of economic development or the basic regulator of its proportions as in the capitalist system. For that reason, the efforts to “draw together” the economy of capitalism and socialism on this basis are quite untenable.

The proponents of the second, so-called neo-liberal, school altogether reject the possibility of using a number of economic categories and forms in the socialist economy, maintaining that in socialist economy categories such as price and profit are purely relative. In the vast majority of cases they entirely deny the objective character of commoditymoney relations under socialism. In their writings the socialist economy is described as a “command economy” deprived of “objective economic expediency”. As a means of enhancing its efficacy they recommend the renunciation

50 of the “etatist principle” and the adoption of a “market socialism” structure that bears a striking resemblance to the ij state-monopoly structure of the West.

p In the arsenal of the neo-liberal theorists, as indeed in that of the proponents of other anti-communist theories, a major place is occupied by deliberately spurious interpretations of the economic reforms carried out in the socialist countries. The new methods of economic management, the improved planning and larger material incentives are seen by these theorists as a “retreat from the model of socialism”.

p The use of economic levers to stimulate labour productivity in keeping with the principles of socialist distribution according to work is portrayed by the anti-communists as a “departure from doctrine”. The use of commodity-money relations is depicted as a borrowed specific of capitalism, while the considerable attention devoted in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries to achieving a further rise in the living standard—a natural development in socialist society in keeping with its basic laws—is characterised as the implementation of the bourgeois theory of converting socialist society into a “consumer society”.

p In misrepresenting the substance of the economic reform, the champions of bourgeois methods of economic management seek to depict it as a factor stimulating “convergence”. A typical example is the attitude of Revue economique, an economic magazine which in September 1967 asserted that in order to put the economic reform into effect successfully the socialist countries had to move to free prices and to free private enterprise.^^8^^

p The “convergence” theory was a typical theoretical expression of how the minds of a large segment of the bourgeois intelligentsia work. Great hopes were pinned on this theory by the anti-communist academic representatives of monopoly capital and by the liberal bourgeois scholars who sincerely desire peaceful coexistence among nations.

p The polymorphous character of this theory and the 51 apparent credibility of many of its arguments made it a dangerous ideological and theoretical threat to Marxism.

p The bourgeois ideologists, basing themselves on the “ convergence theory”, claim that a new social system free of the shortcomings of capitalism and socialism would arise. However, the advocates of the “convergence” theory see this “new, synthetic” society in modern state-monopoly capitalism. They hold that all the latter needs is some partial improvements. As regards socialism, they suggest “liberalisation”, meaning the gradual weakening of its positions and, ultimately, its degeneration into capitalism, as the means of improvement.

p Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington frankly admit: “.. .most theories of the so-called convergence in reality posit not convergence but submergence of the opposite system.”^^9^^

p In the “convergence” theory one can clearly distinguish two basic aspects: first, camouflage of the nature of capitalism and, second, falsification of the essence of socialism.

p At the same time, there are some disparities among the advocates of this theory as regards, primarily, their way of reasoning and their objectives. Jean Laloy, who has classified the concepts of “convergence”, singles out their main objectives. The adherents of the first concept pin their hopes mainly on the “liberalisation of the Eastern regimes”, as a result of which the distinctions between countries belonging to the two social systems must disappear.

p Laloy calls the second concept “scientific rationalism”. In the opinion of its protagonists the discovery of nuclear energy and other scientific and technological achievements will gradually create a “new type of solidarity”, which will lead to the eradication of the differences between the social systems.

p Laloy characterises the third concept as “supranational” or “European”. It has set its sights on the creation of a “supranational system” whose influence would spread beyond 52 its own boundaries and include the East European coun- tries.^^10^^

p Despite the differences in their views, all the conscious proponents of the “convergence” theory are united by their striving to use it as a means of disproving Marxism- Leninism’s time-tested conclusion that the revolutionary replacement of the capitalist by the socialist system is historically inevitable. The fact that the “convergence” theory has become widespread is evidence of present-day anti- communism’s defensive posture in the face of the mounting achievements of the forces of socialism. In a situation witnessing an aggravation of the ideological struggle, every effort is made to stimulate the activities of various renegades, organise a vociferous campaign to propagate revisionist concepts, use these concepts for ideological subversion in order to undermine the unity of the socialist countries, split the world revolutionary movement and influence a segment of the population in the socialist states themselves and in the capitalist countries.

p Typical in this respect are the activities of Ota Sik. On the pretext of restoring “true” socialism through a “system of democratic economic management” he attacks the socialist nature of Czechoslovakia’s economy and casts aspersions on the Leninist principles of democratic centralism in general. In an article enunciating a positive programme for the attainment of “true socialism”, he repeats the standard set of bourgeois-reformist demands, which, relative to a socialist country, can only signify one thing—a return to capitalism (the introduction of a modern pluralist system of “ competition of interest groups”, the market mechanism, and so on). Small wonder that Sik regards the Soviet Union as the most formidable obstacle to any advance toward a “progressive and humane” socialism.

p Despite its outwardly revolutionary character, present-day “Left” revisionism likewise has primary postulates in common with the anti-communism of the bourgeoisie. A close scrutiny of the Maoist theories about the economy of 53 socialism shows that they resemble some propositions of the neoliberals. Like the latter, the Maoists in fact reject the objective character of the economic laws of socialism. Screened by far-reaching political aims, the nihilism of the Maoists relative to the economic laws of socialism coalesces with the neo-liberal interpretation of the socialist economy as a “command economy”. The theories and practices of Maoism show that ideologically and politically it is a pettybourgeois, nationalistic socio-political school with clearcut anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist leanings. Through their policies the Maoists are directly abetting imperialism.

Lately the concepts about the economy of socialism enunciated by the bourgeois anti-communist theorists and their accomplices—revisionists of all shades and hues—have been increasingly dealing with the problems of the economic efficacy and optimisation of social reproduction.