1 In the source, the 3000-6000 ruble class is omitted without explanation. One wonders whether in fact there were no persons in this class, or whether alternatively this was simply a typographical error.

2 Account is taken here of both the Income Tax, so-called, and the tax for Housing and Cultural Construction, which so far as the payer is concerned is essentially an income tax. The tax for workers is computed without taking account of dependency allowances made in the case where there are more than three dependents; according to Soviet tax law at the time considered, there was no allowance for dependents made in any case in reference to authors, etc. Finally, it should be noted that there is a separate tax schedule in the USSR for royalty and other special types of income, with heavier rates than those levied on wages and salaries.

3 See Bergson, Abram, “Russian Defense Expenditures,” Foreign Affairs (January, 1948), p. 374, n. 4.Google Scholar As the comparison suggests, the Soviet no less than capitalist economies was subject to a wartime inflation; in the USSR, however, inflation has been chronic from the beginning of the five-year plans.

4 As of 1936, for editions subsequent to the first, the rate was reduced to 60 rubles per “printers sheet“; as of 1947, the rates are reduced according to a sliding scale until for the eighth and later editions the rate is 40 per cent of that for the first.

The Soviet royalty arrangements evidently are a good deal more complex than those prevailing in this country. Here a fixed percentage of the selling prices seems to be standard, and the total royalty thus depends simply on this aspect and on sales. It should be noted, however, that insofar as the size and quality of the work are taken into account in the USSR, there might be some relationship between the flat royalty rate and the selling price. Also, in view of the reported intensity of demand in relation to supply in the USSR, the number of editions probably serves as a reasonably satisfactory index of sales.

For the royalty scales referred to, see Fogelevič, A. G., ed., Osnovnye direktivy i zakonodatel'stvo o pečati (Basic Directives and Law on the Press) (Moscow 1937), pp. 60 ff.Google Scholar; Sobranie postanovlenie i rasporjaženii pravitel'stva RSFSR (Collected Laws and Decrees of the Government of the RSFSR), September 10, 1947, No. 9, Article 31.

5 The evolution of Soviet income distribution policy, as it applied particularly to wages, is traced up to the middle thirties in Abram Bergson, The Structure of Soviet Wages (Cambridge, 1944). Since these lines were written my attention has been drawn to the fact of a significant reduction in Soviet money wage differentials in the early post-war period. In preparation for the eventual restoration of the open market, the Government in September, 1946, increased ration prices several fold, and concomitantly increased the pay of the lower paid workers in order to provide partial compensation. See Manevič, E., “Novye stimuly trudu i zarobotnaja plata pri socializmu” (New Incentives to Labor and Wages under Socialism), Voprosy ekonomiki (Problems of Economics), No. 10, 1948, 27 Google Scholar; Schwartz, H., Russia's Soviet Economy, New York, 1950, p. 466.Google Scholar Whether and to what extent the resultant greater equality has persisted in the face of more recent price reductions is not known to the writer. A parallel development associated with derationing in 1935 apparently did not have any lasting effect.

6 The information on the number of persons earning £ 6000 after taxes and on total wage bill after taxes is taken from National Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom 193$ to 1946, presented to Parliament April, 1947 (cmd. 7099), pp. 11, 58, 59. For purposes of calculating average wages after taxes, reference is made to data on the insured labor force in Central Statistical Office, Annual Abstract of Statistics, No. 85, 1937-1947 (London, 1948), pp. 95 ff. It should be noted that the figure on average wages that has been cited for the USSR, 2776 rubles, represents the average earnings of both wage earners and salaried workers, while that computed here for the United Kingdom represents the average earnings of wage earners only. The result, of course, is that the comparison somewhat exaggerates the inequality in the United Kingdom in relation to that in the USSR.

7 While we are concerned here only with the inequality, in a complete appraisal, I suppose, attention must be given also to differences as between the USSR and the United Kingdom in the general level of “real” income. Thus, while a differential of 100 per cent over average money wages might buy less goods in the USSR than elsewhere, it might still mean much more there because of the generally low living standards.