Command heights of the economy
" Commanding heights of the economy " ( English commanding heights ) are the points in the system where the most important decisions for a national economy are taken. Lenin borrowed the term from the language of military strategy and thus justified the reorientation from war communism to the new economic policy . The new economic policy orientation in no way represents a departure from the goal of a communist society, since despite the introduction of market economy elements (especially in agriculture at the time) the state retains control over the key industries and thus the state-controlled economic sector still has the economic preponderance. The foreign trade monopoly was expressly one of these “heights of command” .
Between the two world wars, the term was picked up in Great Britain by the Fabian Society and the Labor Party , as well as by Jawaharlal Nehru and the Indian Congress Party .
To date, this term plays a role in the debate on a mixed economy ( "mixed economy"; economic order ) or a "third way" between capitalism and socialism .
On the current use of the term in the debate about the nationalization of banks, a quote from Paul Krugman , referring to an opinion of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan :
" Comrade Greenspan wants us to seize the economy's commanding heights. " "
Single receipts
- ^ Hubert Schneider: The Soviet foreign trade monopoly 1920–1925 , Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1973, p. 54
- ^ Translation: "Comrade Greenspan wants us to take over the commanding heights of the economy." Paul Krugman: Banking on the Brink New York Times February 22, 2009
literature
- Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw: State or Market. The key question of our century . Frankfurt / New York 1999, ISBN 3-593-36269-4 , Commanding Heights
- Oliver Schmidt (Ed.): The new command heights. Research on globalization and politics. Berlin 2003, ISBN 978-3-89700-392-7