Alec Nove

Alec Nove The Economics of Feasible Socialism is reviewed in this issue. He was Professor of Economics at Glasgow University until his retirement.

Subsidising the Academician

Alec Nove, 1 March 1984

This is a well-documented, thought-provoking monograph, much of it written when the author was still in Hungary, but reinforced by a fascinating introduction which makes the whole argument accessible to ‘bourgeois’ readers. Among the book’s many merits is its dry ironic humour. Szelenyi now lives in America, but, unlike some other émigrés, he has not swung from one extreme to the other. He does not believe that market forces left to themselves are likely to solve the housing problem, or that state-planning as such is wrong. This makes his critical analysis of how such problems are handled in Eastern Europe all the more effective. While his detailed research was based on the situation in two Hungarian provincial cities, and in Budapest, he has satisfied himself that the same tendencies exist in the Soviet Union and in other countries which he calls ‘state socialist’, though with important local variations.

Russians and the Russian Past

John Barber, 9 November 1989

Observers of Soviet politics in recent months might be forgiven for having a sense of déjà vu. The summer began with the first sessions of the Congress of People’s Deputies and...

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What would socialism be like?

Geoffrey Hawthorn, 1 March 1984

Joseph Schumpeter had a refreshing sense of socialism. For him, it had almost no fixed sense at all. ‘A society may be fully and truly socialist and yet be led by an absolute ruler or be...

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