Original scientific paper
Limits of Reforms in Socialism
Mladen Lazić
; Institute for Social Research, University of Zagreb
Abstract
The author analyzes the basic conditions in which reforms in socialist countries are possible. The nature of dominant social relations represents the limit for any attempted reform. Planned regulation of the totality of social reproduction, executed by the class of collective owners, is the central element of these relations. All reforms of the system are accordingly mediated by the ruling class. Socialism is basically a static system and the stimulation for a change comes in the first place from the outside — from competition with historically dominant capitalist mode of production. Intrinsic antagonism, interclass and inside the ruling class are inner causes of reforms. Basic forms of changes are further analyzed too. In economics it means decentralization, that is redistribution of command authority between higher and lower levels of the ruling hierarchy (the autonomy of enterprises is in principle excluded). In politics real control could not be ceded to lower layers (especially not to »people«) as this would destroy the hierarchy of the class of collective owners. In culture the limit of »liberalization« is represented by the maintenance of the legitimacy of class domination.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
155662
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1988.
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