Income Inequality Under Soviet Socia lism
探讨社会主义国家收入不平等的程度，并与西方混合经济体比较，指出数据获取困难及商品分配复杂性对评估的阻碍，尤其关注苏联的情况。
SOCIALISM, according to its proponents, has diverse virtues, but not least is the notable degree of equity that it is seen as assuring in the assignment of claims to the community's income. With the substantial replacement of private by public ownership of the means of production, it is held, a cardinal source of inequity in incomes under capitalism ceases at once to be operative. Under socialism the intimate relation between income and work done that prevails under the rival system supposedly will also give way soon or late to the alternative principle, proclaimed long ago as the only equitable one, of distributing the community's output simply according to need. In the socialist world today, as no one must be told, incomes hardly conform to need anywhere. The question remains, though, as to how far socialist countries may have progressed toward implementation of that norm. That is a matter of interest even to those who do not subscribe to such an egalitarian principle. What is essentially at issue, however, is the extent of income inequality in socialist countries and how such countries compare in that regard with the mixed economy countries of the West. Those are matters on which socialist countries have not always been especially forthright. That is an interesting fact in itself, but it necessarily obstructs accurate appraisal of income inequality. Even where relevant data on incomes are available, their meaning is often obscured by complexities of prevailing commodity distribution arrangements. Pervasive imbalances in the retail market are the best known but not the only example of such complexities. These difficulties are encountered in inquiring into comparative income inequality under socialism everywhere. They seem especially pronounced, however, in the case of the chief country where that system prevails. The USSR, though, is of particular interest as the country where