ABSTRACT
But an order aggregated (e.g. in tonne-kilometres) incites the recipient to act in a particular way. If the measure is tonnes, this rewards weight and penalises economy of materials. If the measure is gross value in roubles there is benefit to be derived from making expensive goods, using expensive materials. Tonne-kilometres incite transport undertakings to carry heavy goods over long distances. Examples of wasteful or otherwise irrational practices designed to fulfil plans (in Russia the phrase is delat’ plan, literally ‘do the plan’) could fill several bound volumes, all the examples being taken from Soviet publications. That so well-known and well-studied a problem still resists solution is proof enough that it is genuinely difficult to solve. The basic contradiction arises from the simple fact that the centre cannot know in full detail what is in fact needed by the customer, and yet the entire logic of the
Soviet system rests upon the proposition that it is the duty of all subordinate management to obey the plan-instructions of the centre because these supposedly embody the needs of society. In practice, the detailed specifications can generally only be determined in negotiation between producer and user, with or without the intermediacy of trading organs. But instead of the plan being the sum total of the detailed requirements, the detailed requirements have to be made to add up to the predetermined aggregated total. As Brezhnev (among others) has noted, the user has insufficient influence on production - and the ‘user’ is not only the consumercitizen but also industrial, agricultural and other state enterprises.
