Price, the value of a commodity expressed in money. In commodity production based on private ownership of the means of production, price corresponds to value when the demand for a certain commodity coincides with supply. An insufficient supply of goods results in the price exceeding value, and vice versa, when the market is oversupplied with a certain commodity— the price drops below the value. The price of a commodity depends on three factors: the value of the commodity itself, the value 283 of monetary material (gold), and the relation between supply and demand. Although the prices of certain commodities deviate from their value, on the scale of society as a whole the sum of prices equals the sum of value for all commodities. The law of value finds its expression in the spontaneous fluctuation of prices, in their deviations from the social values of commodities and in the ultimate equality of the sum of prices and the sum of value. "Price is a manifestation of the law of value" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 201). In private ownership, objects which have no value (unfilled land, in which no labour is invested, forests, labour power etc.) become objects of purchase and sale. Prices are set in the process of competition under the effect of spontaneous economic laws, principally, the law of value. In simple commodity production, prices fluctuate around the value; under capitalism, when commodities are exchanged as the products of capital, prices fluctuate around the price of production, which acts as a converted form of value. Under imperialism, two kinds of prices have evolved as a result of monopoly pressure: (1) non-monopoly prices (at which the commodities of non-monopoly or weakly monopolised branches are sold); and (2) monopoly prices ( characterised by a prolonged and stable deviation from the value). The economic policy of the capitalist countries is aimed at regulating commodity prices in the interests of the monopolies. However, state-monopoly interference in price formation does not eliminate its spontaneity. Monopoly and state-monopoly prices serve as a means of additionally exploiting the working people through the circulation sphere; they are used to ruin small independent commodity producers and are instrumental in the imperialist policy of plundering the developing countries. This leads to a further aggravation of the antagonistic contradictions inherent in capitalism and to a deepening of the general crisis of capitalism. Under socialism, the content of price and its socio-economic functions and price formation differ in principle. Prices are set in a planned way with the state consciously applying the economic laws of socialism and, above all, the basic economic law, the law of value, and the law of the planned, balanced development of the economy. Under socialism, there is no free play of prices. At collective farm markets in the Soviet Union supply and demand directly condition prices. But the sale of a sufficient amount of similar products at a firm and stable price by the state or by cooperatives has a great effect on their price. The most important feature of the pricing policy of the socialist countries is the gradual lowering of prices as the social production costs decline and a sufficient amount of products are accumulated. Prices express the result of the interaction of the entire system of socialist economic relations: between social production sectors, between society and enterprises, between the spheres and branches of the economy as regards commodities required by society and the extent of the socially necessary expenditures of labour, as well as distribution of the net income of society between them. The socialist .state uses price formation both for the accounting of the expenditures of social labour and for influencing the economic processes which help to build communism. Deliberate deviation of prices from the value of commodities is used by the communist and workers’ parties of the socialist countries as an economic policy lever. In this way the state influences the supply and demand of commodities, regulating their correspondence, redistributes resources between the branches of the economy and the reproduction spheres, facilitates the formation of progressive economic proportions and the best possible structure of production and consumption. By raising the price of a certain product the state stimulates the development of corresponding branches; by setting preferential prices for new machines and equipment, it makes enterprises economically interested in introducing modern machinery; etc. The USSR’s single system of planned pricing includes wholesale prices, the purchasing prices of products bought from collective and state farms, and retail prices. Under developed socialism, the further 284 streamlining of the scientific foundation of price formation and of pricing practices is extremely important, because it is linked with strengthening and developing cost accounting, raising the economic efficiency of capital investment, introducing new machines, etc.