ABSTRACT
The present-day economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is still easily recognisable as a command economy, with political power lying in the hands of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the dominance of social ownership of the means of production and central guidance of the economy, including foreign trade. The state monopoly of foreign trade shielded the production unit from the world economy, foreign trade being handled by separate foreign trade enterprises. This was aggravated by the separation of research and production units. In a classic command economy the basic production unit is state-owned, operates on the principle of one-man responsibility and control by a manager appointed by the state and is given the task of fulfilling the state plan expressed in the form of obligatory indicators, output typically predominating. The state monopoly of foreign trade shielded the production unit from the world economy, foreign trade being handled by separate foreign trade enterprises.
