Abstract
It is impossible in one chapter to cover all aspects of welfare and forms of income. The education system, for example, will not be dealt with here, despite the fact that consumption of education resources could be considered a part of the real income of the Soviet population, and certainly constitutes a part of the social consumption funds for the purposes of the Soviet state budget. The areas which will be covered here will be housing, health and social security, all of which affect family budgets. These aspects of welfare and income are useful indications of living standards and show the effects of social policies. As indicated in the previous chapter, while there is very little direct evidence available on the course of political struggles, the operation of social policies can be treated as an outcome of struggle, indicating to some extent the ‘state of play’. In addition, the operation of social policies can be considered as part of the process of struggle, since the implementation of policy can itself be thought of as a ‘strategy of power’, a means of affecting the balance offerees within the social formation.
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Notes
See G. Littlejohn, ‘State, Plan and Market in the Transition to Socialism: The Legacy of Bukharin’, Economy and Society, vol. 8, no. 2, May 1979, where it is argued that among the ‘needs’ which have to be specified are the conditions of existence of agents of plan implementation, and that such agents could be organisations rather than human individuals.
For a discussion of these and other problems confronting socialist attempts to specify ‘appropriate’ social policies, see N. Rose, ‘Socialism and Social Policy: The Problems of Inequality’, in Politics and Power 2, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980, pp. 111–35.
V. George and N. Manning, Socialism, Social Welfare and the Soviet Union, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1980, p. 133.
E. M. Jacobs, ‘Urban Housing in the Soviet Union’, in Economic Aspects of Life in the USSR, NATO Directorate of Economic Affairs, Brussels, 1975, pp.65–90.
S. Sternheimer, ‘Running Soviet Cities: Bureaucratic Degeneration, Bureaucratic Politics, or Urban Management?’, in G. B. Smith (ed.), Public Policy and Administration in the Soviet Union, Praeger, New York, 1980, pp.79–108.
A. Katsenelinboigen, ‘Coloured Markets in the Soviet Union’, Soviet Studies, vol. XXIX, no. 1, January 1977, pp.62–85.
A. McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union, Allen & Unwin, London, 1979, p.93, provides evidence on housing subsidies.
For an extensive (roughly half the book) and sympathetic examination of the history of the Soviet health service, see G. Hyde, The Soviet Health Service: A Historical and Comparative Study, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1974.
M. Kaser, Health Care in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Croom Helm, London. 1976, pp.36–44.
The role of mass screening is made clear by G. A. Popov, Principles of Health Planning in the USSR, World Health Organisation, Geneva, 1971, pp.38–44.
M. E. Ruben, ‘The Soviet Pensioner: An Element in the Labour Supply’, in Economic Aspects of Life in the USSR, NATO Directorate of Economic Affairs, Brussels, 1975, pp. 197–205.
H. Vogel, ‘Social Security and Medicare’, in Economic Aspects of Life in the USSR, NATO Directorate of Economic Affairs, Brussels, 1975, pp. 207–33; this argument appears on p.215.
See K. Bush, ‘Soviet Living Standards: Some Salient Data’, in Economic Aspects of Life in the USSR, NATO Directorate of Economic Affairs, Brussels, 1975, p.59.
M. Lavigne, Les Economies Socialistes: Soviétique et Européennes, Armand Colin, Paris, 1979, points out (on p.307) that despite a tendency in this area to an equalisation between town and country, the state only covers 80 per cent of the social needs of the collective farmers as against 90 per cent of workers and employees.
Thus M. Matthews, Class and Society in Soviet Russia, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, 1972, p.75, figure 6, notes a substantial equalisation of wages between 1946 and 1966.
L. Rzhanitsyna, Soviet Family Budgets, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 129, table 24, suggests that the minimum wage since then has gone up to 70 roubles in many occupations.
P. Wiles, ‘Recent Data on Soviet Income Distribution’, in Economic Aspects of Life in the USSR, NATO Directorate of Economic Affairs, Brussels, 1975, p. 125.
M. Lavigne, The Socialist Economies of the Soviet Union and Europe, Martin Robertson, London, 1974, p.284.
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© 1984 Gary Littlejohn
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Littlejohn, G. (1984). Welfare and Consumption: Relations of Distribution. In: A Sociology of the Soviet Union. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17358-7_6
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