Abram Bergson has devoted much of his life as a scholar to probing the efficiency of socialism. As he has taught us, such a complex matter must be analyzed at several levels – growth performance, “working arrangements” for allocating resources, and the theoretic consistency of idealized systems for operating an economy with social ownership of the means of production. Conclusions at one of these levels draw support from those on others. Moreover, Bergson has always insisted that systems be compared on like levels. Unlike other nonsocialists, he has never tendentiously held actual Soviet shortages and waste up to scorn against the purity of general equilibrium market models. Rather, the Lange, “computopia,” or other models are to be tried by the same procedures as the Walrasian or other parables of how capitalist economies work.

This chapter attempts to follow Bergson's lead by examining the question of product quality under socialism at the theoretic level. What should be the quality of goods under socialism? Can a mechanism be designed to secure those results efficiently?

The most trenchant critics of socialism have long asserted that only a free capitalist market can produce the right goods at the right time and place. Although one may concede Stalin's superiority in mobilizing resources and forcing through major structural changes, nearly all Western economists would agree that the delicate adjustment of product quality to the precise needs of producers and to changing demands of consumers constitutes a critical test of any developed socialist economy.