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On Satelliteship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

George G. S. Murphy
Affiliation:
Stanford University, (now at University of California, Los Angeles)

Extract

We have had a little over forty years of experience of countries we conventionally dub “satellites.” In looking at this slice of recent history two questions come to mind. Can one fit the type of relationships he finds within the Sino-Soviet bloc into the perspectives which economic history has developed in the debate on colonialism and imperialism? Has Nature made a leap and produced a new historical type, or do we have merely a new subtle change in form?

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1961

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References

1 I am indebted to suggestions by William R. Allen and Goran Ohlin.

2 Lattimore, Owen, Nationalism and Revolution in Mongolia (New York: Oxford Press, 1955), p. 24Google Scholar.

3 Defining growth as growth of gross national product per capita and, failing this measure, gross industrial output per capita.

4 I use organization in the sense of March, James G. and Simon, Herbert A., Organizations (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1958), pp. 47Google Scholar.

5 Leibenstein, Harvey, Economic Theory and Organizational Analysis (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960), pp. 155–60Google Scholar.

6 I took these terms from Kaplan, Morton A., System and Process in International Politics (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1957).Google Scholar However, I use them in the sense defined heretofore.

7 To give some meaning to massive, we might weigh the effect of a given group of sanctions by the importance of the decision level at which the sanction is applied. Thus, one boss fired is worth Z X subordinates fired.

8 Modern corporations tend to specialize factors of production. Decision-makers at intermediate decision levels learn to make decisions about tasks specific to a given corporation and do not have generalized skills at formulation of policy which they can sell as could a company director. Their salaries are thus higher than their opportunity costs. Thus, they will not move until they reach what they consider their opportunity cost minus costs of transferring to another job. Thus, the threat of firing represents a substantial capital loss. I am indebted to Homer Moyer for this point.

9 It is clumsy to say positive or negative before sanctions. Similarly, it is clumsy to say “so-called satellite” and “satellite” to make the distinction between the trivial use of the word and, for instance, Lattimore's use. It is not difficult to interpret the meaning according to the context.

10 Gerschenkron, Alexander, “Comments,” Soviet Economic Growth (Evanston, III.: Row Peterson and Co., 1953), p. 26 ffGoogle Scholar.

11 Robinson, E. A. G., The Structure of Competitive Industry (rev. ed.; London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1953), pp. 5153,Google Scholar explains the size of very large business corporations by random and occasionally appearing talent. The factor of the “Great Man.” is too often underrated.

12 Wittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism, A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

13 Deutsch, Karl W., Political Community at the International Level, Problems of Definition and Measurement (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1954)Google Scholar.

14 Klein, Burton H., Germany's Economic Preparations for War (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1959)Google Scholar.

15 Hirschman, Albert O., National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1945)Google Scholar.

16 Michaely, M., “Concentration of Exports and Imports: An International Comparison,” The Economic Journal, LXVIII (December 1958), 722–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.