Acta Oeconomica 33. (1984)

1984 / 1-2. szám - Falus-Szikra, K.: Distribution According to Work and the Reform in Hungary

1* К. FALUS-SZIKRA: DISTRIBUTION ACCORDING TO WORK 3 capitalist countries markedly differ from one another; the scale in the socialist countries, is, in several dimensions, narrower and more compressed.* In these countries the difference between certain levels of leaders, or between leaders and subordinates, or, respectively, between people with higher and lower qualification, is much less. This is widely known to a degree that it does not even need be proven. This more compressed character of the socialist countries’ wage system may be ascribed to more than one causes. Quite obviously a part is played in it by the fact that the state takes over a very large proportion of the education costs (this decreases the differences according to qualification), and by the spreading of the idea of human equality which may also have such an effect. But the deepest-lying cause which follows from the essence of the system is by all means that, owing to the ceasing or at least decisive decline of the private ownership of the means of production, personal income in the socialist society only serves for one purpose, namely, for personal consumption, i. e., for covering personal needs. Accordingly, the wages of even the highest earning strata must not very much exceed the sum which can — under the given circusmtances — rationally be used for personal or family consumption or investments serving directly for this purpose. The wages of the great masses cannot, even under capitalist circumstances, be more than the amount that can be spent on covering their personal needs. Workers cannot accumulate any significant capital or other source of income from their wages. For a certain minority — primarily those in senior leading position and the highly qualified professionals — this possibility is open. Some of them, for instance, managers who started their career as employees become, after a certain period of time, independent entrepreneurs, i.e., owners of capital. (At the same time a part of the entrepreneurs become managers.) The structure of wages in the socialist countries does not make such things possible. If only because of this, the range of wages is narrower, distances between the extremes are much smaller than in the capitalist countries. The basic function of wages is to cover the costs of reproducing the labour power, to provide for the livelihood of those employed as workers and other employees and of their family members. In Hungary, however, the special situation has emerged that — in a significant number of cases — wages, even together with social benefits, do not cover the reproduction costs of labour. Often the wages (earned either in the state sector or in cooperatives) are not sufficient to satisfy the socially acknowledged needs or generally accepted demands. In order to be able to satisfy the needs relating to the reproduction of their labour power — and here we do not mean individual or subjective demands but only those socially acknowledged, — a considerable part of the working people have to undertake various complementary or subsidiary activities beyond their main job, or, are forced to acquire some kind of extra income connected with their main job (tips, gifts or *This does not apply to every dimension. For instance in the sphere of physical (manual) workers the wage differentials are greater than in several capitalist countries. Acta Oeconomica 33, 1984

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