Common Property under the Transfer to a Market Economy: Lessons of Soviet Practices of Common Property Management

Abstract

"Fascinated by Marx's interpretation of political economy, revolutionaries of the beginning of the twentieth century believed that nationalization of capital, natural and human made, is a better and more efficient way of using all resources for the common good. In the twenties and early thirties there was hardly anybody in Soviet Russia who realized what was going to happen to common property and common good decades later. After the system presumed to be socialistic has collapsed, hardly anybody is likely to consider seriously what is going to happen to the common good and property, when it is denationalized or 'privatized.' There is a strong belief again that changing the proprietorship will make any use of whatever more efficient. Everybody seems to be convinced that a private enterprise is managed more efficiently than a public one just because it is private. Common proprietorship is commonly rejected as being bad and inefficient by definition."