Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Wages, Employment and Labour-saving

  • Chapter
Book cover Employment Planning in the Soviet Union

Part of the book series: Studies in Russian and East European History and Society ((SREEHS))

  • 15 Accesses

Abstract

The economic reforms announced under the leadership of Gorbachev have given enterprises greater scope for decision making, as well as greater financial responsibility. Broader wage differentials and labour saving incentives have become the cornerstones of a reformed wage policy based on self-financing. However, new and old features coexist and need to be examined separately, against a background of legacies, ideology and economic constraints which do not favour modernising schemes, and often prevent the seeds of reform from developing to their full potential. This chapter examines the relationship between wages, employment and productivity and presents the main lines of the new wage policy against the background of traditional Soviet wage theory and practice.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes to Chapter 6: Wages, Employment and Labour-Saving

  1. See K. Marx, Il capitale, 3 vols (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1965) 2nd vol., Chapter 21, pp. 522–42.

    Google Scholar 

  2. D. Dyker, The Process of Investment in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) pp. 103–13, shows that the formulas used to estimate capital effectiveness in Soviet planning favour long-term investment projects and excessive capital intensity.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Improvements in the efficiency of production and in commodity circulation help reduce the positive difference required between rates of growth of productivity and wages, but they do not eliminate the need for it. For a comprehensive discussion of these theoretical issues see A. G. Aganbegian and V. F. Maier, Zarabotnaia plata v SSSR (Moskva: Gosplanizdat, 1959) pp. 38–60.

    Google Scholar 

  4. A more sophisticated version of this approach is in A. G. Aganbegian and D. D. Moskovich (eds) Puti povysheniia effektivnosti narodnogo khoziaistva (Moskva: Ekonomika, 1984) pp. 31–5.

    Google Scholar 

  5. See A. Bergson, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928 (Cambridge: Harward University Press, 1961) pp. 249–58.

    Google Scholar 

  6. V. F. Maier, Uroven’ zhizni naseleniia SSSR (Moskva: Mysl’, 1977) pp. 172–8.

    Google Scholar 

  7. See J. G. Chapman, ‘Recent Trends in the Soviet Wage Structure’, in A. Kahan and B. Ruble (eds) Industrial Labour in the U.S.S.R. (N.Y.: Pergamon Press, 1979) pp. 153–6 and 176–7. On the relationship between consumer goods and wage differentials, see also Ekonomicheskaia strategiia sotsializma. Aktualnye ocherki (Moskva: Nauka, 1988) pp. 98–102.

    Google Scholar 

  8. See G. E. Schroeder and B. S. Severin, ‘Soviet Consumption and Income Policies in Perspective’, in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Soviet Economy in a New Perspective (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976) p. 631.

    Google Scholar 

  9. See L. A. Gordon, op. cit., p. 16. See also S. Malle, ‘The Heterogeneity of the Soviet Labour Market as a Limit to Efficiency’, in D. Lane (ed.) Labour and Employment in the USSR (Wheatsheaf Press: 1986) pp. 133–6.

    Google Scholar 

  10. See A. McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union (London: Allen and Unwin, 1977) pp. 202–204.

    Google Scholar 

  11. See J. Kornai, The Economics of Shortage, vols 1 and 2 (North Holland, 1985) and Growth Shortage and Efficiency (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1982) and D. Granick, Job Rights in the Soviet Union: Their Consequences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

    Google Scholar 

  12. P. Hanson, ‘The Serendipitous Soviet Achievement of Full Employment: Labour Shortage and Labour Hoarding in the Soviet Economy’, in D. Lane (ed.) Labour and Employment in the USSR (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books: 1986) pp. 83–111. Hanson’s provocative analysis of Soviet employment records is shared by the Soviet labour expert, K. Minkul’skii, who defines full employment as the ‘perverse’ (izvrashchennyi) outcome of Soviet growth, see ‘Vysvobozhdenie rabotnikov i pravo na trud’, Voprosy ekonomiki (1989) no. 2, p. 54.

    Google Scholar 

  13. See S. N. Zlupko, Teoretiko-upravlencheskie aspekty zaniatosti v razvitom sotsialisticheskom obshchestve (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1985) p. 110 and Ia. I. Fel’dman, Fond zarabotnoi platy v sisteme material’nogo stimulirovaniia proizvodstvennykh kollektivov (Moskva: Nauka, 1987) pp. 122–3.

    Google Scholar 

  14. See A. N. Voronov, Pokupatel’nyi fond naseleniia i tovarooborot (Moskva: Ekonomika, 1981) pp. 12–13, 31–2.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Cf. J. Adam, Employment Policies in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary since 1950 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984) pp. 21–4 and 64–6, and Employment Policies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1982) pp. 126–7, points out, too, that the policy of low wages depends primarily on the Soviet strategy of economic growth based on heavy industry and military spending not only in the USSR but also in other socialist countries.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  16. For an appraisal of such failures, on managerial practice see J. S. Berliner, Soviet Industry from Stalin to Gorbachev (Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Co. Limited, 1988) pp. 269–97, and on the actual operation of the planning system, Ed A. Hewett, Reforming the Soviet Union, Equality versus Efficiency (Washington D.C.: The Brooking Institution, 1988) pp. 182–220.

    Google Scholar 

  17. See V. Kostakov, Proizvodstvo i liudi (Moskva: Izd.vo Polit. Literatury, 1971) p. 7.

    Google Scholar 

  18. See S. I. Shkurko, Stimulirovanie kachestva i effektivnosti proizvodstva (Moskva: Mysl’, 1977) pp. 117–22.

    Google Scholar 

  19. See G. I. Grotseskul, ‘Shchekinskii metod okhvatyvaet territoriiu’, EKO (1985) no. 6, p. 147, V. Fil’ev, op. cit., pp. 59–60 and Sotsialisti-cheskaia industriia, 30 July 1985, p. 1. According to P. G. Bunich (Samofinansirovanie (Moskva: 1988) pp. 23–4) transport staff cuts affected comfort and safety standards.

    Google Scholar 

  20. See also W. J. Conyngham, The Modernization of Soviet Industrial Management (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) pp. 160–62.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  21. See V. F. Garbusov, O gosudarstvennom biudgete SSSR na 1985 god i ob ispolnenii gosudarstvennogo biudzheta SSSR za 1983 god (Moskva: 1985) p. 34.

    Google Scholar 

  22. The main source is V. Rzheshevskii, ‘Povyshenie zainteresovannost’ trudovykh kollektivov v rabote s menshei chislennost’iu’, Sotsialisticheskii trud (1984) no. 5, pp. 60–9, and V. D. Rakoty, Stimuly k trudu v novykh usloviiakh khoziaistvovaniia (Moskva: Profizdat, 1986) pp. 53–70.

    Google Scholar 

  23. V. N. Mosin (ed.) Planirovanie narodnogo khoziaistva (Moskva: Vysshaia shkola, 1982) p. 329.

    Google Scholar 

  24. See Zh. Sidorova and A. Gol’dman, ‘Formirovanie fondov oplaty po trudu’, op. cit., p. 102 and N. A. Smirnova, Zarabotnaia plata v sistema khoziaistvennogo rascheta (Moskva: Nauka, 1987) p. 75.

    Google Scholar 

  25. This indicator is mentioned for the first time with the 1987 State Enterprise Statute. According to P. G. Bunich (Samofinansirovanie (Moskva: Finansy i statistika, 1988) p. 25) if the enterprises calculate their net output over the total range of their products, the gross revenue is equal to net output.

    Google Scholar 

  26. See G. V. Bazarova (ed.) Rol’ finansov v sotsial’no-ekonomicheskom razvitii strany (Moskva: Finansy i statistika, 1986) pp. 133–5 and V. D. Belkin and V. V. Ivanter, Planovaia sbalansirovannost’. Ustanovlenie, poderzhanie, effektivnost’ (Moskva: Ekonomika, 1983) pp. 55–7.

    Google Scholar 

  27. See L. Kostin, ‘Perestroika sistemy oplaty truda’, Voprosy ekonomiki (1987) no. 11, p. 41. On inequalities depending on the structure of production rather than on individual work effort, see M. Yanowitch, Social and Economic Inequality in the Soviet Union (White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1977), pp. 11–14.

    Google Scholar 

  28. See I. L. Batukhtin, Sovershenstvovanie metodov analiza truda i zarabotnoi platy (Moskva: Ekonomika, 1975) pp. 213–14.

    Google Scholar 

  29. According to S. Shkurko, Sovershenstvovanie form i sistem zarabotnoi platy (Moskva: 1975) pp. 133–5, this differential was too low to ensure parity of work intensity between the two groups of workers.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Iu. P. Batalin, Dvenadtsataia piatiletka (Moskva: 1986) p. 80, reports a 0.31 rate of increase for piece-wages and 0.21 for time-wages. The estimated wage differential in 1984 is based on the total blue collar workers wage fund in 1975 and 1984 and assumes an actual 1.05 wage differential in 1975. Estimates thus obtained on piece-workers and time-workers respective wage funds in 1984 are the closest to the official estimates of the total blue collar workers wage fund. The formula used to estimated wages in 1975 is Wb/Lt = (Lp/Ltwp/wt + 1) wt, where Wb is the total blue collar workers wage fund in 1975, estimated by the product of the number of blue collar workers and their average wages. Lp and Lt are respectively the number of piece-workers and the numbers of time-workers. wp/wt is the ratio of their respective wages.

    Google Scholar 

  31. See E. K. Smirnitskii, Dvenadtsataia piatiletka. Slovar’ — spravochnik 1986–1990 (Moskva: 1986) p. 86, 150.

    Google Scholar 

  32. On the utilisation of the MIF, see S. I. Shkurko, Stimulirovanie kachestva i effektivnosti proizvodstva (Moskva: Ekonomika, 1977) p. 231 and S. I. Shkurko, ‘O povyshenii stimuliruiushchei roli tarifov i okladov v zarabotnoi plata’, Planovoe khoziaistvo (1983) no. 8, p. 75.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Verona, Italy

    Silvana Malle (Professor of Comparative Economic Systems)

Authors
  1. Silvana Malle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 1990 Silvana Malle

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Malle, S. (1990). Wages, Employment and Labour-saving. In: Employment Planning in the Soviet Union. Studies in Russian and East European History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11588-4_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation