Peter Boettke on _Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy_

April 16 - April 25 2001

Peter Boettke will be hosting a seminar on his recent book _Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy_ between Monday April 16 and Wednesday April 25 on the Hayek-L email list.

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_Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy_ by Peter Boettke. (New York: Routledge).

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Acknowledgments

Preface
1. Why No Austrian Socialists?
1A. Appendix: Is Economics a Moral Science?

The Theoretical Framework
2. Economic Calculation: The Austrian Contribution to Political Economy
3. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom Revisited: Government Failure in the Argument Against Socialism
4. Coase, Communism and Inside the "Black Box" of Soviet-Type Economies

History and Practice of Real Existing Socialism
5. The Soviet Experience with Pure Communism
5A. Appendix: The Soviet Experience with Pure Communism: Rejoinder to Nove
6. The Political Economy of Utopia: Communism in Soviet Russia, 1918-1921
7. Soviet Venality: A rent-seeking model of the communist system

Realism and Reform
8. Credibility, Commitment and Soviet Economic Reform
9. Perestroika and Public Choice: The Economics of Autocratic Succession in a Rent-Seeking Society
10. The Reform Trap in Economics and Politics in the Former Communist Economies
11. Promises Made and Promises Broken in the Russian Transition
12. The Russian Crisis: Perils and Prospects for Post-Soviet Transition
13. The Political Infrastructure of Economic Development
13A. Appendix: The Argument Applied to Post-Perestroika Russia

Political Economy and the Fate of Economies
14. Why Culture Matters: Economics, Politics and the Imprint of History
15. Concluding Remarks
15A. Appendix A: Economic Freedom and Economic Growth
15B. Appendix B: Economic Growth and Human Well-Being

From the publisher:

"Calculation and Coordination explores the founding and failure of socialism, and the attempts to reform and transform it in the twentieth century, focusing on the Soviet experience. It combines the strengths of the Austrian market-process tradition with the political economy of public choice to provide an analytical framework for theoretical and historical examination of socialist practice and post-socialist political economy.

Boettke places particular emphasis on the difficulties of economic calculation in the absence of secure private-property rights, and on the importance of establishing a credible commitment to limited government in smoothing the path from Soviet socialism to a liberal political and economic order in Post-Soviet Russia."

Boettke's book _Calculation and Coordination_ may be purchased at significant discount from Laissez Faire Books, on the web at:

http://laissezfairebooks.com/product.cfm?op=view&pid=EC8302&aid=10097

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