Socialist Economics in Yugoslavia

Marko Grdešić is Associate Professor, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia.Mislav Žitko is Assistant Professor, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Croatia.

• 1. Introduction: Socialist economics in Yugoslavia 2. The genealogy of the Yugoslav model 3. The political economy of socialism 4. Workers gonna work it out? 5. Out with the old, in with the new 6. The end of the Yugoslav model Appendix A: The labor-managed firm Appendix B: The Yugoslav economy in data Appendix C: The disciplinary development of Yugoslav economics References Index

Paul StubbsThe Institute of Economics, ZagrebAuthor of The New International Economic Order: Lives and AfterlivesThis comprehensive, nuanced, in-depth study of the history of the field of professional economics in socialist Yugoslavia takes seriously the relative autonomy of the profession as it emerged after the revolution and consolidated its position subsequently. It explores the deep contradictions of Yugoslavia's supposed exceptionalism in terms of in its socio-economic system and insists on the value of a comparative methodology. It is a path-breaking, inter-disciplinary, study, valuable not only because it revisits an important, if relatively neglected, spatio-temporal conjuncture but also because of the lessons it offers for contemporary emancipatory projects. It will become a point of reference for historical analyses of socialist economics, of great interest and value to students, researchers, and activists alike.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Branko MilanovićGraduate Center, City University of New YorkAuthor of Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold WarIn this splendid book, Marko Grdešić and Mislav Žitko trace the intellectual history of the rise and fall of the specifically Yugoslav political economy. It was a unique political economy because the circumstances were unique: companies managed by workers, capital owned by “society”, and goods and services sold under market conditions. Thirty years ago at the apex of neoliberalism that theory seemed unimportant and quaint. But as some forms of labor management, workers’ agency, and shareholder capitalism reemerge, the discussions of Yugoslav political economy may surprisingly become relevant again.