ABSTRACT
It would be superfluous to summarise for Polish readers either the traditional price-system as it has prevailed in the Soviet Union and in other socialist countries or the discussion of recent years about its merits and defects. As is well known, a central feature of this traditional system is the so-called Dual Price-System under which the prices of consumption goods sold retail to individual consumers are generally constructed on a different principle from those of producers’ goods passing between industrial enterprises within the socialist sector. The crucial weakness of the traditional price-system would seem to be its failure to encourage a proper and sufficient economy of capital equipment. The prices at which products pass between socialist organisations and enterprises are purely ‘transfer prices’ and have a role and meaning only for purposes of book-keeping and control.
