ABSTRACT
In most areas of Soviet planning of economic life, as indeed in the west also, it is important to distinguish between formal principles and actuality. Nowhere is this more important than in the field of wages and salaries. The system appears to be far more centralized and far more tightly controlled than it really is. It would appear at first sight that wages can be systematically adjusted to conform to some set of desiderata, that the total level of disposable money incomes can deliberately be made to conform to the value of goods and services available, and that the government's authority over wage payments, in a totalitarian state in which independent trade unions do not exist, can readily eliminate anomalies and illogicalities. It will be seen that the truth is very different. However, it is first necessary to describe the formal structure.
