Effectiveness Of Social Production Research Articles

Findings of Sociological Studies of Work Behavior of Employed Personnel in Industry

The mobilization of social reserves for improving the effectiveness of social production and for activating the human factor are issues that have been at the center of attention of Party workers, managerial personnel, and social scientists over several decades. However the scale of underutilization of the accumulated labor potential is still considerable. According to the findings of sociological studies conducted in different regions of the country, 70-80% of workers could work more effectively. Moreover, workers' initiative has even decreased lately (in particular, rationalizing initiative has diminished), attitudes to work have deteriorated, etc.

The Strategy of Scientific-Technological Progress

As we know, the leading role in implementing the party's policy of accelerating socioeconomic development belongs to scientific-technological progress. The Twenty-seventh CPSU Congress called for raising the nation's average annual growth rate from 3% during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan to 4% during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan and to 5% or more in the 1990s. At the same time, indicators of effectiveness of social production must accelerate at an even faster rate, because socioeconomic development will have to accelerate under conditions of the diminishing growth of production resources.

Ecological and Economic Evaluation of Scientific-Technological Progress

Technological progress is more and more frequently coming into conflict with the scientific socioeconomic and ecological concepts and goals for the development of social production. These contradictions are of an objective nature, since they are associated with the unbalanced state of development of various branches of science and technology, with the considerable unpredictability involved in the utilization of discoveries and inventions, and with the inert nature of the indicated spheres. It is therefore important to be able to make a comprehensive social, economic, and ecological evaluation that will allow us to judge the real contribution of scientific-technological progress toward increasing the effectiveness of social production.

Cost-Accounting Interest in High Final Results

The broad introduction of advances in scientific-technological progress is the principal means for increasing the long-term effectiveness of social production. But we will not realize the proper effect from the most sophisticated machinery and the most progressive technology if we do not create the corresponding economic and organizational conditions for its use, if the work collective of an association (enterprise) believes that the maximum effect from the introduction of technological progress is not entirely beneficial to the collective.

Scientific-Technical Progress: Economic Problems

The Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress posed the task of subordinating the development of science and technology to the realization of the economic and social tasks of Soviet society, to accelerating the conversion of the economy to the path of intensive development, and to increasing the effectiveness of social production to an ever greater degree. At the extraordinary February (1984) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Comrade K. U. Chernenko stated: "Intensification, the accelerated introduction of advances of science and technology into production, and the implementation of large-scale, integrated programs must ultimately raise our society's productive forces to a qualitatively new level."

National Income: Growth Factors

National income is one of the general indicators of the level of a nation's economic development. It reflects the results of society's economic activity to a much greater degree than many other indicators and is a yardstick of the effectiveness of social production. When related to the work force in material production for a number of years, it attests to the dynamics of growth of the productivity of social labor. The ratio of its physical volume or increment to resources shows the utilization of the latter expressed through output-capital, output-to materials, fuel-output, and energy-output ratios, etc. Therefore factors of national income growth at a stable level of expenditures are simultaneously also factors in increasing the effectiveness of social production.

Improving the Management of the National Economy

History has irrefutably proven the advantages of the socialist economic system and the methods of all-encompassing planned management of social production that inhere in socialism alone. The stage of developed socialism, in the initial phase of which our country finds itself, opens up new possibilities for increasing the effectiveness of social production in the interest of further improving the well-being and comprehensive development of the Soviet people and is characterized by the rising level of understanding and utilization of economic laws and, on this basis, by the formation of an economic mechanism appropriate to the present.

Development of the Urban Infrastructure

The increased effectiveness of social production presupposes the integral combination of the attainments of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of the socialist economic system, the scientific substantiation of the optimal proportions of development of the productive forces in our country, and the rational location of construction.

The Relationship Between the Growth of Labor Productivity and Wages

Increasing the effectiveness of social production is one of the key issues in CPSU economic policy in the present stage of communist construction. Much has been accomplished in this area in recent years. National income used for consumption and accumulation more than doubled between 1965 and 1980. During the Tenth Five-Year Plan alone, 1.625 billion rubles were allocated from national income for the purpose of improving the people's well-being directly. This was 26% more than during the Ninth Five-Year Plan and was roughly the equivalent of the allocation in the Seventh and Eighth Five-Year Plans combined. The average monthly wage of workers and employees also increased significantly during this time. These successes were for the most part the result of higher labor productivity. At the same time, as statistical data show, capital investments and productive capital have generally grown faster than national income and, accordingly, faster than the resources allocated for these purposes. During the Tenth Fi...

Location of the Productive Forces and the Effectiveness of Social Production

The November (1982) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU pointed out the need to raise the level of the effort to secure further, comprehensive improvement in economic planning and management and to improve the style and methods of economic management. The further improvement of the location of the productive forces, of regional specialization and cooperation in production, and of plans for economic relations and shipping is an important consideration in resolving these problems.

National Traditions in a Socialist Economy

In determining avenues and proportions of economic development, the analysis of the state of labor resources is of paramount importance. In planning practice (in the compilation of balances of labor resources), sex and age are already taken into account. The experimental methods used by economists and sociologists consider occupational, skill, and educational indicators.1 A significant part is also played by national (ethnic) characteristics of labor resources. In our opinion there are certain hidden reserves in this area for increasing the economic effectiveness of social production not only in the USSR but in all countries in the entire socialist community as well.

The State Bank and the Enterprise: Is the Influence of Bank Credit Effective

In the complex of the problems involved in improving the economic mechanism, an important place belongs to the way in which bank credit is used to influence the effectiveness of social production. The State Bank of the USSR participates in the formation of the productive capital of socialist enterprises, the volume and structure of which determine the dynamics of the output-capital ratio and the rate of turnover of working capital. It monitors the timeliness of transactions and the expenditure of the wage fund. Credit, cash, and transaction services are most closely associated with indicators of the effectiveness of production.

Economic Strategy and Scientific and Technical Progress

The planned introduction of advances of science and technology in the national economy requires improvement of the entire system of economic management and the consistent implementation of the party's economic strategy. Scientific and technical progress occupies a leading place in this process since it is a powerful means of increasing the effectiveness of social production and completing the conversion of industry, agriculture, construction, and other branches to predominantly intensive methods of economic management.

Intensification of the Economy and the Time Factor

Under present conditions of intensification of socialist expanded reproduction, the time factor becomes increasingly important in the economic mechanism, in the planning and management of the economy, and in calculations of the effectiveness of social production and capital investments.

The Effectiveness of Utilization of the Production Potential

The articulation of long-range tasks, the total assessment of the conditions of economic construction, and the scientific substantiation of ways of accelerating economic progress are characteristic of the party's economic policy in the period of developed socialism. As noted at the Twenty-sixth Congress of the CPSU, the highest goal of the party's economic strategy in the '80s is the uninterrupted improvement of the living standard and cultural level of the people, the creation of optimal conditions for the comprehensive development of the individual on the basis of the further increase in the effectiveness of social production and higher labor productivity, and the greater social and labor activism of the Soviet people. The practical attainment of this goal will require vast resources. By the year 1990 national income used for consumption and accumulation must be increased 1.4 times.

The Effectiveness of Nonproductive Capital Investments

The mighty economic and material potential of socialist society has created the necessary prerequisites for performing major economic and social tasks. The development of social production and the growth of its scale underscore the interconnection and interconditionality of their realization. They will be attained on the basis of the higher economic effectiveness of social production and the development of intensive methods of economic management. At the same time, effectiveness cannot be enhanced unless certain social conditions are at hand.

Ways of Reducing Personnel Turnover

The most important task of the party's economic policy in the present stage of communist construction is to increase the effectiveness of social production. In his report at the Twenty-sixth CPSU Congress, L. I. Brezhnev noted: "Under the conditions of the eighties, the thrifty, economical use of labor resources acquires special significance. It is a complex issure that requires the solution of many problems of an economic, technical, social, and educational nature." The task of making economical and more rational use of labor resources is also emphasized in the "Basic Directions of Economic and Social Development of the USSR in 1981-85 and the Period up to 1990."

The Infrastructure and the Effectiveness of Social Production

The infrastructure plays a twofold role in the course of the scientific and technological revolution. On the one hand, while the infrastructure itself does not create a material product, it does play the passive role of a system of "channels" and performs auxiliary, service functions. On the other hand, it directly influences the growth rates of the national economy, actively influences the organization and citing of production, stimulates (or inhibits) its development, and to a significant degree determines the population's way of life.

The Effectiveness of Socialist Social Production

The increase in the effectiveness of social production is a natural concomitant of economic growth under socialism as socialist social relations improve and become communist. At the June (1980) Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, L. I. Brezhnev stated: "We have set ourselves the cardinal task of increasing the effectiveness of production and improving the quality of our work…. We must also give further thought to the acceleration of scientific and technical progress, strengthening labor and state discipline, and assuring real growth in labor productivity."

Production Cooperation: Properties and Potential

The 1970s were characterized by the broad inclusion of socialist countries in the system of international division of labor. Foreign economic relations became an integral part of socialist expanded reproduction, which contributes significantly to the solution of such important economic problems as increasing the effectiveness of social production, accelerating scientific and technological progress, and improving the well-being of the working people.