ABSTRACT
The weakness of the centrally planned economies in comparison to the market economies was proved by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the fall of the iron curtain at the end of the 1980s. By the 1970s, it was clear that the systems were inefficient, unstable, and significantly lagging behind the performance of the market economies. The arms race during Reagan’s presidency just accelerated such development. In the book, we reveal microeconomic reasons for economic performance in socialist Czechoslovakia by presenting the results of our unique research that was based foremost on interviews with top managers from the 1970s and 1980s. We concentrate on the last two decades of the system mostly for practical reasons, namely ability to reach respondents. The main goal of the book is to give the readers an idea about everyday economic reality in the socialist totalitarian system. The authors continue in previous research into central planning, but the novel method of research interviews brings a new insight into the functioning and development of the system. The results generally break the common view that individual companies (at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid) without hesitation followed the orders of the centre. The everyday reality was more complicated and foremost full of paradoxes, pretence, and negotiations. The practice was far remote from textbook theory dealing with central planning.
