Eric Nappelbaum
Institute for Systems Analysis
Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
Monday, March 22, 1993, 10:30 a.m.
Marvin Center, Room 406, 800 21st St, NW
Abstract
The economic system still existing in Russian and the newly independent states differs from the Western economic system not in whether one is a market economy while the other is a planned economy, but rather in the type of commodities which are being exchanged. In the Western economy goods and services are exchanged for money. In the Russian economy access to one item in short supply is exchanged for access to another item in short supply. In the Western economy wealth is increased by increasing quantity or quality of supply. In the Russian economy individual wealth is increased by increasing the perception of shortage for any good or service one is in a position to control. The entire population of Russia has an “endowment” of accumulated control over some item potentially in short supply. Consequently each person has a vested interest in conserving a system which creates and maintains shortages. Today we witness in Russia not a collapse of the previous system, but rather a “crisis of overproduction” (of shortages) due both to the natural evolution of the economy and to liberalization, which has made the economy more effective (in producing the perception of shortages).Biography
Eric Nappelbaum is Research Director of Strategic and International Projects in the Russian Institute for Systems Analysis in Moscow and Vice-Chancellor for Curriculum and Programs of the Moscow Institute for Business, Politics, and Law.