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From International Socialist Review, Vol.22 No.4, Fall 1961, p.123.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
“Most Americans have been misled by the fact that in the USSR we had to build whole new basic industries from the ground up. Such a thing could not happen in America, where you are already compelled to cut down on your farm area and to reduce your industrial production. As a matter of fact your tremendous technological equipment has been paralyzed by the crisis and already clamors to be put to use. You will be able to make a rapid step-up of consumption by your people the starting point of your economic revival.
“You are prepared to do this as is no other country. Nowhere else has the study of the internal market reached such intensity as in the United States. It has been done by your banks, trusts, Individual business men, merchants, traveling salesmen, and farmers as part of their stock in trade. Your Soviet Government will simply abolish all trade secrets, will combine all the findings of these researches for individual profit, and will transform them into a scientific system of economic planning. In this your government will be helped by the existence of a large class of cultured and critical consumers. By combining the nationalized key industries, your private businesses and democratic consumer co-operation, you will quickly develop a highly flexible system for serving the needs of your population.
“This system will be made to work, not by bureaucracy and not by policemen, but by hard cold cash.
“Your almighty dollar will play a principal part in making your new Soviet system work. It is a great mistake to try to mix a ‘planned economy’ with a ‘managed currency.’ Your money must act as regulator with which to measure the success or failure of your planning.”
— Leon Trotsky, from a 1935 article, If America Should Go Communist.
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Last updated on 8 May 2009