ABSTRACT
To evaluate the impact of different levels of income and consumption on the quality of life in the Soviet Union is a difficult task. In the Soviet Union, collectivist principles should favor social services and non-material welfare arrangements. Soviet families try to maintain their etatist lifestyles by laying claim to specific goods and services and displaying a reluctance to purchase other items also distributed in the economy. Soviet endeavors to make services more efficient are based on economic criteria that indicate improvements are more costly in regions where earnings are high, for instance in the Northern parts of the Soviet Union. Therefore, economic rationality, which is supposed to foster production and high returns, necessitates that planners and managers try to cut down on services and live with consumer complaints as long as people stay in these areas.
