Editor's Introduction

Abstract

One of the striking features of recent economic discussion in the Soviet Union is that some of the boldest challenges to traditional views on the economy are at least as likely to appear in a journal like Kommunist, the "theoretical and political" organ of the party's Central Committee, as in Voprosy ekonomiki, the principal "academic" economics journal. The pace-setting role of Kommunist is illustrated by its publication of Vladimir G. Kostakov's "Employment: Scarcity or Surplus?"—the lead article in this issue of Problems of Economics.