ABSTRACT
How should socialist industry be organized? Two organizational principles are in contradiction: centralization and decentralization. Discussion on these principles, which has been under way for a long time in our country, has recently begun in the other socialist countries of Europe as well. In a broader sense, a permanent discussion is in process within every social organization. Centralization and decentralization interpenetrate one another and have very diverse aspects; the apparent simplicity of the terms is deceptive. An obvious historical comparison is enough to bring out this fact. Under feudalism, for example, there was the strictest centralization for the fiefs of the feudal lords, and extreme decentralization and looseness in the economy of a country as a whole. Capitalist development completely reversed these relationships. The feudal centralisms were broken up and replaced by individualism, which found its Characteristic expression in industry in the form of free competition. However, this individualism led, by way of the market, to strong concentration of production within national boundaries, and then more and more to worldwide industrial integration.
