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This paper attempts to analyze the mechanism of land rent distribution under the Soviet and post‐Soviet conditions. The subject is examined from a purely theoretical point of view. The procedure is as follows: first, the socioeconomic meaning of the word “Soviet” is defined. Second, the difference between land rent production and land rent distribution is examined. Finally, Soviet land rent distribution is investigated. Also, changes which the collapse of the Soviet system brought to the process of land rent distribution during the post‐Soviet period are examined. Within this framework, the role of Soviet turnover taxes versus post‐Soviet value‐added taxes is discussed.

The major objective of Aganbegyan′s book is to enhance arguments made by Gorbachev in the latter′s Perestroika. New Thinking for Our Country and the World. Like his leader, Aganbegyan asserts that the ultimate purpose of perestroika is people′s welfare and that the policy of the acceleration of the Soviet economic development is the principal means to achieve the goal. This article challenges Aganbegyan′s claim. It argues that: (1) given the inefficient and wasteful character of the Soviet system, the projected increase in the standard of living of the Soviet population could be accomplished now, and not in the future; (2) the acceleration of the economic growth and restructuring of Soviet society contradict one another and, thus, make the attainment of the proclaimed goal impossible even in the future, and (3) the forthcoming reform of retail prices more than anything else reveals the true, anti‐consumerist nature of the policies of the Soviet leadership.

The traditional analysis of the Soviet‐type economies denies the existence of markets to these economies. The usual argument is that these economies lack freedom and are characterized by the absence of private property. Additionally, the conventional analysis implies that theory of markets is a theory of free markets, one characterized by free economic interaction among economic units (individuals or businesses) regardless of the degree of market perfection. Argues that the conventional economic analysis is wrong in denying the existence of markets and capitalism to certain modern societies (e.g. the former Soviet bloc countries). The central thesis is that the environment in which buyers and sellers interact does not have to be free in the Western sense to be considered as a market. Points out that the economic systems of the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba and others may be characterized as totalitarian state capitalism.

This article, making standard assumptions, tests the effect that cross price elasticity of demand has on consumer (directly) and producer (indirectly) behaviour. Two classes of utility functions are employed: one is U = X⊃nY⊃m, which is asymptotically convex and, hence, conventional; another is U = X⊃n + Y⊃m, which is nonasymptotically convex and, therefore, unconventional. As a result, the rationally intended consumer of the conventional function behaves irrationally, questioning the marginal base of the analysis of the firm. The irrationally contemplating consumer of the unconventional function acts rationally, upholding such marginal analysis. Thus, the validity of the direct relation between intentions and actions is doubted.

Since the time of Adam Smith, classical and Marxist economists have made a distinction between productive and unproductive labor. According to Smith, productive is that “labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed” (Smith, 1937, 314).

The analysis of the standard balanced‐budget multiplier is based on the suppositions that the general price level and interest rates are fixed and that the equal changes in government expenditures and taxes are autonomous. However, no explicit assumption is made about the timing of the dynamic adjustments. This article does just this. It concentrates on the time periods within which government revenues and expenditures vary either simultaneously or iteratively. It stresses the importance of the timing “menu” for the makers of fiscal policy in their pursuit of manipulating the changes in the national product and in the level of employment.

In the epigraph of the paper, Aristotle reminds us that confusion and inconsistency arise when people attach more than one meaning to any particular term (“name”). It seems that Aristotle could not have better described the situation with the connotation of Jewishness in the contemporary world.

Depending on the circumstances, modern capitalism wraps itself in totalitarian, authoritarian, and democratic dresses. But it is widely believed that (representative) democracy is the only political form that allows the majority of the country's citizens to exercise their freedom of choice in selecting their representatives. By dealing exclusively with the questions of democracy in choosing U.S. presidents, this chapter makes an attempt to analyze the soundness of this assertion.

Events are in the saddle and tend to ride mankind.Ralph Waldo Emerson

The purpose of this paper is to examine the soundness of equating Stalinism and Nazism (Hitlerism), expressed in a resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on July 1, 2009.

The paper compares the two movements from three different angles: first, in their basic intentions; second, in their basic accomplishments; third, in the correlation between their basic intentions and their basic results.

The paper finds that: in their proclaimed short‐ and long‐term goals, Stalinism and Hitlerism have nothing in common; in their actual short‐term (there was no long‐term) results, they were similar in content but different in form; it was their very nature that doomed their efforts to translate their basic intentions into basic results.

The paper shows that a similarity or dissimilarity of the two movements can be ascertained not in their total but in their parts such as, for instance, the goals they achieved and the methods they employed.

Dacha is a Russian term for a country house (cottage, shack) used for summer habitation by Russian town-dwellers, or dachniki. With the societal changes that have brought lower and lower levels of society into the field of the dachniki, the dacha has been playing an increasing role in channeling Russian people's energy away from the political sphere. Being a repository of enjoyment and entertainment for the relatively few and serving as economic and spiritual escapism for the many, the dacha, consequently, could be hampering the creation of a civil society in Russia.