Abstract
The debate over the size of the Soviet Union’s “commodity power” has been with us for a long time. The question can hardly be avoided. A nation of 265 million people with a gross national product exceeded only by that of the United States has centralized its decisions on the production, export, and import of its commodities. Few other countries leave such decisions wholly to the vagaries of the market place. But the Soviet Union stands out in two respects. Apart from the People’s Republic of China, it is by a considerable margin the largest of the nations that have made the choice to centralize. And its centralizing controls, with no important exceptions, are the most rigorous on earth.
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Notes
For an extended theoretical discussion of the factors affecting such influence, see A.O. Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), especially pp. 13–52.
See for instance J. Quigley, The Soviet Foreign Trade Monopoly (Columbus, Ohio: State University Press, 1974), pp. 103–107, 127;
L.J. Brainard, “Soviet Foreign Trade Planning” in US Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Soviet Economy in a New Perspective (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1976), pp. 695–708.
See for instance Marshall Goldman, The Enigma of Soviet Petroleum (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980), pp. 68–69, 83;
and A.J. Klinghoffer, The Soviet Union and International Oil Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 66–68.
S.D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 120–121;
C.D. Goodwin (ed.), Energy Policy in Perspective (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute, 1981), pp. 116–117.
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© 1984 M. M. Kostecki
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Vernon, R. (1984). Soviet Commodity Power in International Economic Relations. In: Kostecki, M.M. (eds) The Soviet Impact on Commodity Markets. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06513-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06513-4_2
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