The concept of scarcity is the cornerstone of economics as a discipline. After all, "Economics is the study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different groups" (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 1989, p. 5). What is more, the economics profession is rather particular in distinguishing absolute from relative scarcity, and quick in emphasizing that it is relative scarcity which defines economics. Most of the current economic theory is derived from the law of (relative) scarcity which "states that goods are scarce because there are not enough resources to produce all the goods that people want to consume" (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 1989, p. 26). Furthermore, scarcity "exists simply because it is human nature for people to want more than they have" (Ruffin and Gregory, 1993, p. 3).As self-evident as these statements appear to be, further consideration of the underlying precepts reveals that the self-evidence is in part based on deliberate simplification by economists of certain (philosophical, behavioural, ethical and psychological) issues surrounding the concepts of needs and wants. This simplification is due to the economists' tendency to "reduce" problems to their "essence", as a starting point in economic analysis. The following statement illustrates rather well how economists view and treat the concepts of "needs" and "wants": economics must reckon with consumer wants and needs whether they are genuine or contrived. Shakespeare's King Lear said, "Reason not the need" -and economists do not; rather they analyze how limited goods get rationed among whatever wants a society generates (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 1989, p. 26).

Was the October Revolution inevitable? If yes, what was its real character? If not, could it have been avoided or taken a different course? What was the role played in it by Lenin? Using the dialectical method of analysis, an attempt is made to provide answers to these questions. The following points are stressed: (1) Given the general and particular conditions of Russian life created by the First World War and the February Revolution, the break with the old democratic mixed capitalist form and the establishment of the new totalitarian state capitalist form of the social development were inevitable. (2) The fact that this process was headed by Lenin was accidental and, hence, avoidable. (3) But Lenin individualised the general and particular features of the October Revolution in terms of the names of the events associated with the revolution, of the time of its occurrence, of its participants and of their positions during and after the revolution.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the soundness of equating Stalinism and Nazism (Hitlerism), expressed in a resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on July 1, 2009.Design/methodology/approachThe paper compares the two movements from three different angles: first, in their basic intentions; second, in their basic accomplishments; third, in the correlation between their basic intentions and their basic results.FindingsThe paper finds that: in their proclaimed short‐ and long‐term goals, Stalinism and Hitlerism have nothing in common; in their actual short‐term (there was no long‐term) results, they were similar in content but different in form; it was their very nature that doomed their efforts to translate their basic intentions into basic results.Originality/valueThe paper shows that a similarity or dissimilarity of the two movements can be ascertained not in their total but in their parts such as, for instance, the goals they achieved and the methods they employed.

Attempts to discover an internal logic in the high‐speed events taking place in the former Soviet Union. In addressing the problems of the country′s disintegration, examines the issue in its socioeconomic, political and territorial‐administrative aspects. Analyses, for this purpose, the nature of Soviet society prior to Gorbachev′s reforms, its present transitional stage and its probable direction in the near future.

The fate of a country like the Soviet Union concerns not only its leaders and its population. Whatever happens to the Soviet system, the directions which that nation follows will affect the whole world. Therefore, an understanding of the Soviet regime, its limitations and potentials, and the options available to that country, would give the rest of the world the intellectual weapon necessary to meet challenges presented by Soviet development. The stakes may be very high; if the full productive capacity of the Soviet Union were developed, the Japanese economic miracle and the serious problems it has created for the United States might fade into relative insignificance.