Affiliations: Department of Economics, Cornell University, Uris Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601, USA
Note: [*] Study presented to the March 1993 Annual Congress of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics.
Abstract: This paper summarizes some ten others (see References) and thus is difficult to abstract further. However, a descriptive parable may be useful. The Russian economy can be likened to one of the two-engine airplanes one flies these days from New York to Moscow. But this plane has only one (Western capitalist) engine being mounted in flight onto a Russian plane body. The argument of this paper is essentially that 1) this is an exceedingly risky situation; and 2) the second engine – a system of democratic economy, more suitable for the Russian plane body – should also be mounted where it belongs, not only to diminish the risk of a catastrophe, but also to make it possible for the Russian nation to compare the merits of the two engines. The body of the paper together with its ten supporting studies noted in the References provides an extensive collection of nuts and bolts for the operation.
Keywords: Economic democracy, democracy, optimal democracy, Russian economic reforms, systems diversification, historical forces, democratic market economy, implementation strategy, institutions for economic democracy, minus sign syndrome, MSS cure through economic democracy
