ABSTRACT
The ability to adapt to structural changes in the world is a more reliable criterion for deciding a country's place on the ladder of world economies than, for example, figures for cement output. The administrative system of planned management that evolved in the Soviet Union in the late twenties and early thirties proved, quite simply, to be unsuited to conditions in Czechoslovakia. It was so difficult to find producers in Czechoslovakia who were ready to apply new discoveries — often really revolutionary inventions. As a typical example, one can cite the jet loom, a machine that revolutionized textile technology by substituting a drop of water or a current of air for the shuttle. It was years before Czechoslovakia entered the world market with this striking technological innovation. The gross output index, which, as the yardstick for labor productivity, governed wage and bonus levels, led not only to technological stagnation but also to a shocking waste of materials.
