Law And Economic Development In The Soviet Union by Peter B. Maggs

Author:Peter B. Maggs [Maggs, Peter B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780429716201
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Information

Three areas of the law require consideration in connection with the expanded information-handling capabilities created by the development of computers and computer communications. The first is the legal structure for information generated and transmitted in accordance with administrative orders. The second is the legal structure for information bought and sold as an economic product. The third is the structure for control of information flow to prevent the generation or distribution of information threatening the Soviet state.

Information production and transfer has fallen largely outside the system of economic accountability. Managerial information is rarely bought and sold in the Soviet Union; it is generally demanded by higher authorities from lower authorities, or gathered through informal channels. The result has been to create resistance by lower administrative levels to all demands for information. Generating information costs money, and the information may be used by the higher authorities to draw negative conclusions about lower authorities' work. The desire of higher authorities to have the information supplied in a form suitable for computer processing adds to the lower authorities' work without creating any obvious benefits for them.

In addition to the forced unpaid planned transfers of information, there are some beginnings of paid information transfer. Some organizations are contracting to process data and provide the results for agreed fees. There is discussion in the literature of the possibility of paid access data banks. To the extent that information is transferred over public communications lines, payment is being made in accordance with communications ministry tariffs.

In order to keep up with the capitalist countries, the CMEA countries must expand their information gathering and handling capabilities many times. This expansion will bring with it serious problems in the control of information channels to ensure that no information is transmitted that is threatening to the regime. It is no accident that the Solidarity Union in Poland placed the demand for access to information media on a par with its demand for a five-day workweek. Without access to information channels, there can be no challenge to the power of the ruling parties in the CMEA countries. With unrestricted access, the continued rule of those parties must remain in doubt.

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