A hiány újratermelése (The reproduction of shortage)

Sporadic lack of consumer articles, the housing shortage, disturbances of material supply, and shortages of investment goods and of labour may be traced back to a common main cause. Shortage is constantly reproduced by specific features of the economic mechanism. The first part of the article consists of micro-analysis, mainly of the productive enterprise. Efforts to increase production may run up against ceilings of three kinds: constraints on physical resources, constraints on demand, and the budget constraint on enterprises. It is an important feature of a system which of these constraints takes effect. Resource-constrained systems can be distinguished from demand-constrained ones here. In the former, production is limited by production bottlenecks, in the latter by buyer demand. The socialist economy in its "classical" form belongs to the former type. It is related to whether the budget constraint on the enterprise is "hard" or "soft". If hard, enterprise spending is limited by its financial scope, if soft (its losses offset almost automatically) its demand becomes almost insatiable. The second part performs a macro-analysis, showing the mechanism of "suction" with the aid of a hydraulic analogy. The enterprise sector "pumps away" reserves and surpluses of the system, mainly due to the "investment hunger" that appears in the wake of expansionist efforts. Finally the article discusses briefly the interrelations between shortage and inflation.