The Soviet Paradox

by Seweryn Bialer

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394540956
• ISBN13: 9780394540955
• Release Date: June 1986
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 391 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Bialer called it note for note

Thousands of books and PhD disertations chronicled the coming transition from capitalism to communism. A handful, this book being one, mentioned the economic disastor that was the USSR in the 1980's. Remember that Bialer wrote this while the economic textbooks of Paul Samuelson were still held out as the gospel in universities across America. JK Galbraith was also an apologist for the apalling state of communism refering to it as a vibrant and thriving system. And, this, in the 1980's. Bialer gets it right, communism was collapsing of its own weight. The USSR had to use the CIA beige book to project their own crop yields correctly, nobody wanted what they manufactured except weapons, and technological innovation, such as software development was smothered; all in all a vast waste of human capital. A comparative reference book to read would be "Dismantling Utopia" by Scott Shane. This book, published in the mid 90's, catalogues chapter and verse Bialer's book. Too bad the academy doesn't make this required reading, but the fact that they don't shows how far in the sand they have their "collective" heads.