The Socialist-Type Process of Innovation Lessons of Hungarian Agrarian Modernization between 1960 and 1990
The Socialist-Type Process of Innovation Lessons of Hungarian Agrarian Modernization between 1960 and 1990

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the role and the possibilities of innovations in agriculture during the socialist era in Hungary between 1960 and 1990. The introduction of the established industrial-type production systems ushered in significant changes in Hungarian agriculture in the 1960s. The most spectacular changes were increasing outputs and improvements in the food supply. The spreading of high-yield stocks and the adoption of intensive technological procedures helped improve production. The first part of the paper uses J. A. Schumpeter’s basic definitions of innovation as a guideline to examine the particularities and limitations of socialist innovations as illustrated by the example of the introduction of industrial-type production systems. It highlights and analyzes the factors that exerted a particularly decisive influence on the launch and progress of a new and distinctive form of organizing production. Since the innovation had been institutionalized because of political resolve through central control based on the planned economy, I analyze the features of the relationships between politics and the economy, which were shaped by the politicians and the innovators. Finally, I examine how political resolve and the inability to revise policies created a kind of path dependence in the 1970s in the socialist countries, while economic and technological development showed much more flexibility within the capitalist countries during the economic crisis.

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