Socialist economic reforms with special reference to structural changes in Hungarian agriculture∗

This article was commissioned by the editors of Development Southern Africa. The reform proposals of the fifteen‐odd opposition parties, and possible lessons for restructuring in Southern Africa, will be addressed in a subsequent article.

Present‐day Hungarian agriculture was remade in the image of Marx in the early post— World War II years, followed by a period of reform which started in the late 1960s. The reforms affected the structure of agriculture, and concomitantly farm output. The purpose of this article is to describe the link between farm structure and output and the reform process.

Notes

Professor of Economics, Vista University Mamelodi, Pretoria. For the preparation of this paper, I benefited from recent discussions held at the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences, Budapest, with the Rector, Prof Csaba Csaki, and Professors Ferenc Fekete and Aladar Sipos, as well as from the observations of my travelling companions, Drs Johan van Rooyen and Nick Vink.

This article was commissioned by the editors of Development Southern Africa. The reform proposals of the fifteen‐odd opposition parties, and possible lessons for restructuring in Southern Africa, will be addressed in a subsequent article.