Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of maps
- Preface
- Guide to pronunciation
- 1 The lands of the South Slavs
- 2 The early Slav settlers
- 3 The early Slav kingdoms
- 4 The South Slavs under foreign rule
- 5 The development of independence
- 6 The First World War
- 7 The kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
- 8 The kingdom of Yugoslavia
- 9 Yugoslavia and the Second World War
- 10 The transition to socialism
- 11 The beginnings of self-management
- 12 The 1960s – a decade of reform
- 13 Tito's last ten years
- 14 Yugoslavia after Tito
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - The 1960s – a decade of reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of maps
- Preface
- Guide to pronunciation
- 1 The lands of the South Slavs
- 2 The early Slav settlers
- 3 The early Slav kingdoms
- 4 The South Slavs under foreign rule
- 5 The development of independence
- 6 The First World War
- 7 The kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
- 8 The kingdom of Yugoslavia
- 9 Yugoslavia and the Second World War
- 10 The transition to socialism
- 11 The beginnings of self-management
- 12 The 1960s – a decade of reform
- 13 Tito's last ten years
- 14 Yugoslavia after Tito
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the early 1960s Yugoslavia was faced with the consequences of the unbalanced economic growth of the previous decade. The crisis in the overheated economy which caused the abandonment in 1962 of the third Five Year Plan compelled the planners to make a fundamental reassessment of the situation. A resolution of the LCY in 1962 pointed to the direction which the new course would take. It called for improvements in productivity to enable Yugoslavia to enter into free competition in world markets, and for the use of market forces as the yardstick with which to measure economic performance. The phrase ‘entering the international division of labour’ was used to describe this process. It implied the removal of the protective barriers behind which the spectacular growth of the 1950s had been achieved, and the withdrawal of the state from interference in the economy through subsidies, price fixing and cheap credit. At home, it was hoped that competition among autonomous worker-managed enterprises would act as a spur to greater efficiency and would shake out surplus labour, which was being hoarded because it was politically easier to keep semi-skilled and unskilled workers on the payroll in comparative idleness than to make them redundant.
The first steps towards ‘market socialism’ had been taken during a limited economic reform in 1961, but they were too piecemeal and uncoordinated to be successful. In fact, they made the position worse. The abolition of income controls led to inflationary wage payments. The liberalisation of foreign trade led to an increase in imports, but as Yugoslav industry was not able to secure a corresponding increase in export earnings, the balance-of-payments position worsened.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples , pp. 240 - 254Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1985