Labor Productivity In Soviet And American Industry

Columbia. Very Good/Good. 1955. Hard Cover. 4to The continued growth of Soviet industry depends in large part on whether output per man can be increased in the future as it has been in the past. Here for the first time is a careful analysis of how the efficiency of the Soviet worker measures up to that of his American counterpart. Industries considered include extractive, heavy manufacturing, and consumer goods. Much of the information comes from Soviet technical journals not fully exploited before. Part I discusses the productivity concepts employed and the problems involved in statistical comparisons. A careful analysis is made of the significance and the limitations of the productivity concept, of Soviet statistics and their comparability with American statistics. The industries are presented in Part II, with figures on productivity in the two countries. Separate chapters describe coal mining, iron-ore mining, crude oil and natural gas, iron and steel, machinery, cotton textile manufacturing, shoe manufacturing, and beet sugar processing. In the last part, the author summarizes and evaluates his findings and speculates on the future trends in Soviet productivity. He says, for instance, "Even if Soviet productivity rose at what I should regard as the outside limit of 6 percent per annum for twenty years, and if U.S. productivity continued at the normal rate of 2 percent, there would still be a difference between the levels of the two countries at the end of twenty years. The projections bring home the magnitude of the task facing the Russians in their quest for a level of industrial efficiency equal to that of the United States." The book teems with facts and figures, all of them from sources difficult to locate except herein, and many of them are presented in illuminating tables. .