ABSTRACT
The historical juncture offers us an opportunity to briefly reflect on the socialist economic system from the evidence accumulated up to this point. It is hoped that by now our reader has developed a better-informed understanding of the massive scale of the post-WWII system with all its vastness of pre-history and contemporary complexities. Transplanted onto Central and Eastern European economies, the Soviet "economic miracle" continued to evolve along the ISI paradigm. Leveraging the initial industrialization push, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Romania outperformed the bulk of the socialist group adapting the central planning policies to their national economies. Janos Kornai develops a logical argument illustrating that once administrative policy measures are employed to support a failing enterprise or provide investment, or any other type of material guarantees, in the absence of competitive market pressures. The idea of market socialism is often attributed to Oskar Lange's response to Ludwig von Mises's critique of the socialist system.
