Impediments to Reform in the Former USSR: Initial Theoretical Reflections

Abstract

Attempts to explain why attempts at reform of post-Soviet agriculture following the demise of the Soviet commando-administrative economic system were so disappointing. Looks briefly at some of the obvious explanations: dependency on subsidies, inadequate physical and social infrastructure, cumbersome regulations, inadequate financing, confiscatory taxes, and responsibility for pensioners. Then turns to deeper and more interesting questions of why it has been so difficult to bring about change in these conditions. Explores the dynamics of such inertia, arguing that its roots of this inertia lie in tradition, and economic and political culture. Social order rests on interdependent systems of habits, norms and beliefs that are transmitted and maintained by largely unconscious processes outside of anyone’s control. Habits of thought and action, acquired over generations provide guidance, order, and comfort, even to those hostile to the social order in which they live. It is precisely the qualities making these habits indispensable that make them so exceedingly difficult to change.