Acta Oeconomica 1. (1966)
1966 / 3-4. szám - BOOK REVIEWS - Radnóti Éva: Csikós-Nagy, B.: Szocialista árelmélet és árpolitika (Socialist Price Theory and Price Policies) Budapest: Kossuth Kvk., 1966. 416 p. [ismertetés]
BOOK-REVIEWS 395 worker, or production per fixed capital. This latter is again composed of the effects of changes in extensive and intensive utilization. Finally, the paper deserves attention not only for the new series of data and planning methods presents. Excerpts included from other results of the author’s research work over several decades are very interesting to those working in economic planning, to say nothing of economic historians.Gy. Szakolczai Csikós-Nagy, В.: Szocialista ár elmélet és árpolitika. (Socialist Price Theory and Price Policies.) Budapest, 1966. Kossuth Könyvkiadó, p. 416. The author wrote two similar books earlier. In 1958 “Árpolitika az átmeneti gazdaságban” (Price policies in transitional economy) and in 1961 “Szocialista árképzés” (Socialist pricing) were published. These three works differ mainly in that they sum up problems and experiences of price policies prevailing in different periods. The first book analysed the question that arose in the course of preparations for the 1959 industrial producer price adjustments and those which had to be met while replacing the system of compulsory delivery by the state purchasing of agricultural products. In his second book the author could already sum up the experiences of the new price policy both in industry and agriculture. In the third book attention is focussed on the coming price reform of 1968. Since a comprehensive price reform cannot dispense with foundations laid by price theory, in his new book the author deals with price theory on a greater scale than he did in his previous works. This is already reflected by the title: “Socialist price theory and price policies”. The whole book is, however, dealing with price policy. Theory is discussed only so far as it is regarded a starting point for price policy. The close relation of price policy to price theory appears most distinctly when general problems of price policy, affecting the whole national economy are to be solved. The author does not discuss these problems separated from price theory; on the contrary, he investigates them within the section devoted to price theory. This, in turn, enables him to discuss the part dealing with price policies already divided into branches of economy, thus having the possibility to illustrate with many examples, how considerations of price policy must be applied under the specific conditions of the various branches. The author regards the labour theory of value as the starting point, from which considerations of price policies can be deduced, though not in an abstract and unambiguous way. He points out that price policy is closely connected with the whole of economic policy and the optimal solutions of various price problems will be different depending on different conceptions of economic policies. In case of an autarkic economic policy, for example, the national value will be considered by price policies as the basis for pricing, completely separated from international value relations, while in case of an economic concept based on the principle of the international division of labour, domestic prices of export and import goods must be fixed according to their valuation in the international trade. According to the author, practice is the yard-stick for correct price policies. “We can form an opinion of economic policies” — and within it of the price policies as well — “on the basis of the attributes of a rational management of the economy. We consider economic policies to be scientifically founded when various economic categories of control — including prices — are kept functioning by the state in such a way that these categories are most efficient in their specific functions. Socialist planned economy is nothing but the deliberate economic-organizing activity of the socialist state, where the economic objectives Acta Oeconomica Acadevniae Scientiarum Hungaricae 1, 1966