No.4452
Khozraschet concepts can be grouped based on relation of these concepts to:
1) commodity production under socialism
2) economic interests, material stimulation and accountability
3) isolation of economic units
4) autonomy of economic units
5) relationship with the owner of the means of production
below is a Morphological Box of the soviet concepts of khozraschet
an asterisk indicates cases when the specified concept does not express an attitude to the above concepts
1) relation to the commodity production under socialism
a) commodity production is compatible with socialism;
b) there is an autonomous turnover of funds, both current and fixed, so business units must operate in the mode of self-financing and self-sufficiency;
c) let's assume autonomous turnover of working capital only - business units must operate in self-financing mode;
d) commodity production under socialism is limited, the law of value is fully or almost completely controlled by the state - cost indicators are necessary for accounting and monitoring efficiency;
2) relation to economic interests and material stimulation and accountability
a) in acts of exchange, business units and economic agents are guided by their own interests, which may or may not coincide with the interests of society;
b) financial reward or punishment depends on the performance of tasks set by the higher organization;
c) the cost parameters, the money is used for the generalized calculation of labor costs;
d) *
3) relation to isolation of economic units
a) there is an economic isolation of economic units due to the social division of labor;
b) there is no objective need for economic isolation of economic units under socialism;
c) *
4) relation to autonomy of economic units
a) the task of an economic unit is to track effective demand - decisions on production planning, pricing, development, labor organization and wages are made by economic units independently;
b) the task of an economic unit is to track demand and perform planned tasks set from above for certain cost indicators, such as profit, profitability, labor productivity growth, and so on, while prices are set centrally;
c) an economic unit must meet the set targets for a number of cost indicators, for the production of main types of products, capital investments and new equipment, as well as for a number of indicators that characterize the technical level of production and product quality;
d) only operational and production independence is allowed in order to reduce production costs when implementing a plan that fully covers the entire production and economic activity of an economic unit;
e) *
5) relationship with the owner of the means of production
a) an economic unit may be the owner of all or part of the means of production assigned to it;
b) an economic unit owns the means of production, paying rent for them to the owner (society), amortization remains in the possession of the economic unit;
c) an economic unit owns the means of production and pays the owner rent, and the rent for fixed assets includes interest and amortization;
d) the economic unit does not own the means of production, but only uses them, the rent is paid and in the case of fixed assets includes amortization;
e) the means of production are provided free of charge and may be withdrawn at the discretion of the owner or his agent;
f) *
This Morphological Box contains 1799 different concepts of Khozraschet. Not all of these definitions and concepts are logically justified (so,naturally, there are correlations between 4 and 5 variables), but we will not argue that the logically unsubstantiated definitions and concepts that fall into this box were not proposed by someone at the time. Some of the concepts and definitions listed above correspond to actual forms of organization of the socialist economy and proposals for their improvement.
It is easy to see that the possible values of variables, with the exception of the "*" value, are ordered. For variable 1, the transition from the value "a" to the value "d" means, as it were, a "decrease in commodification" of the concept of khozraschet; for variable 2, the transition from the value "a" to the value "c" means a decrease in the mismatch of economic interests of various economic units and economic agents, the value "c" corresponds, in particular, to the view that the economic interests of all participants in social reproduction are the same; for a variable 3 transition from "a" to "b" means less need for the economic feasibility of the participants of social reproduction; for variable 4 the transition from "a" to "d" corresponds to the reduction of autonomy of economic units; for variable 5 the transition from values "a" to the value "e" means descending fullness of the function of ownership.
Below are particular ordered systems of interest from this Morphological Box
aaaab - "full khozraschet"
caabc - "khozraschet of the 20s"
bbaeb - "self-sufficiency and self-financing"
cbacc - "khozraschet of the 1965 reform"
dcade - "khozraschet of the 30s-50s"
Let's make some explanations. Transition from aaaaa to the dcbde is a reduction of the "commodification" of the concept of khozraschet: the system dcbde corresponds to the administrative controls and uses value indicators only as accounting indicators, practically it is a natural economy in value garments; the aaaaa system corresponds to unlimited by administrative methods commodity economy under socialism. It may seem that any system ****a falls out of the many forms of organization of the national economy under socialism, since the variable "relations with the owner…" here takes the value: "an economic unit can be the owner of the means of production" - does this situation not correspond to private ownership of the means of production? In the general case of commodity production, this possibility is not excluded; in the particular case of socialist commodity production, this situation corresponds to the existence of many forms of public property.
Some confusion may be caused by the fact that in the table "full khozrashet" turned out to be "more complete" than the "khozraschet of the 20s". The fact is that the khozraschet of the NEP period assumed independence of economic units - of Trusts, mainly in the management of working capital, while decisions on the management of fixed assets were usually made by the councils of the national economy; in addition, although the Trusts were focused on maximizing profits, profits were withdrawn almost entirely to the state budget and local budgets, so that the Trust had at its disposal up to 10% of the profits directed to a strictly targeted Fund for improving the life of workers and employees - to the Fund for improving the life of workers, and not to the bonus Fund; direct material interest of the Trust collective in maximizing profits, as a rule, was not assumed.
Khozraschet of the aaaaa type is the most complete, the types of khozraschet that are close to aaaaa are called full khozraschet. Khozraschet of the dcbde type is the least complete, it is almost a subsistence economy, in which value indicators are used for accounting purposes. Types of khozraschet that are close to dcbde are called formal khozraschet - it corresponds to the accounting concept of khozraschet.
Now, what kind of khozraschet is socialist?