Part 1 The legacy of Marx: what did Marx mean by socialism?; abundance, scarcity and the New Man; the law of value under socialism; a digression on Marxian economics; Sancta Simplicitas; the Ex Ante illusion; quality and quantity; division of labour; material and moral incentives; the proletariat and productive labour; the legacy of Marx. Part 2 Socialism and the Soviet experience: externalities and "internalities"; shortages and the sellers' market; plan indicators and the evaluation of performance; the "curse of scale", innovation and bureaucratic fragmentation; is it planning?; class structure, labour, wages and trade unions; agriculture and the peasants; investment decisions and criteria in theory and practice; prices in theory and practice; mathematical methods and programming; growth and full employment; foreign trade; the cost of what is missing; centralized planning and democratic socialism; a short digression on "ideology". Part 3 Reform models - Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, China: some "revisionist" critiques; the Hungarian reform; Yugoslavia and workers' self-management; private agriculture in Yugoslavia and Poland; the Polish experience - the road to catastrophe; China - leap forward, Cultural Revolution and reform. Part 4 Transition: from capitalism to socialism; some thoughts on nationalism; "developmental socialism". Part 5 Feasible socialism: some social-political assumptions; enterprises, markets and competition; prices, profits and the theory of value; division of labour, income differentials and self-management; investments and growth; foreign trade; the economic role of democratic politics; is it socialism? Appendices: on contradiction; two critiques; a note on Utopia.
