ABSTRACT
Hierarchy has its purely economic aspect too. Let us take as an example a product which appeared on Brezhnev’s list of so-called melochi (minor items) in short supply: toothbrushes. In capitalism the firms which make toothbrushes do so because it is profitable. In the Soviet model they are made because a planning office so decides. Who, then, is responsible for toothbrushes? One must suppose that the official is a fairly junior one. So, under conditions of shortage, in the competition for scarce resources he or she carried less weight than a more senior official in charge of, say, wool cloth or electronics. With too many items to handle, the planning mechanism inevitably tends to identify some as priority. Indeed, the production and delivery obligations imposed on management specify what is called vazhneishaya produktsiya, the most important products. An influential Soviet economist, D. Valovoi, has pointed out that some items not on the ‘most important’ list are in fact complementary to those that are. And some figure on the list of those that Brezhnev described as melochi.
