Knickerbocker Hubert Renfro. Soviet Trade And World Depression

London: John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd, 1931. — 302 p.Suffering from an economic crisis of unexampled intensity, the capitalist world today has turned its eyes upon the Soviet Union with more curiosity than ever before. What effect has the world depression had upon the Soviet Union and what effect has the Soviet Union had upon the world depression? Never in modem history has the international struggle for markets been so severe. In this struggle, what are the advantages and what the disadvantages of the sort of planned national economy obtaining in the Soviet Union, with its Foreign Trade Monopoly, as compared With the unplanned private capitalist economies of the outside world, with their mutually competitive producers and traders? Free Trade versus protection once more has become a prime topic of political debate and conflict. As the economic crisis increases in severity, this debate assumes wider boundaries and especially on the Continent. There, practical politicians, as well as academic economists, are coming to realize that the conflict between a free economy and State-controlled economy is the decisive conflict of the world crisis. In this conflict, the determining factor may prove to be the fact that there already exists in the world one system of the completely controlled economy — the Soviet Union. Will it be possible in the long run for the non-controlled systems to compete successfully with the controlled system? Does the existence of the one controlled system slowly press the non-controlled systems toward surrender of freedom in favour of efficiency? A study of the two systems at their points of contact, as undertaken in this report, may be of some value in working toward an answer.