ABSTRACT
A common thread running through all strands of socialism is the concern for as decent a living standard for the toiling masses as possible within the limitations of an existing society, capitalist or socialist. One corollary is the attempt to make the basic ‘means of subsistence’ affordable to one and all, whether in the USSR, or in social democratic western and northern Europe. Control, even in times of peace, over the prices of food items, rent, utilities, etc. has been clamped over short or long stretches of time in all these countries. In the USSR it was carried to an excess over the decades, which shook the very foundations of the planned economy, leading to its ultimate collapse. This paper seeks to develop this theme.
