Challenges in education; Economic growth in the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union has one of the fastest growing economies in the world joining with the Soviet Union taking some United Nations guides Soviet Union is just about entering the family of developed nations. I would say one thing which has impressed us in the West for quite some time is the rate at which you saw that national income is growing. The rate of growth is really not as spectacular as it was 10 or 15 years ago but it definitely one of the fastest growing economy we have in the 20th century. The speaker is Dr. Vladimir Trimble who has been making a study of the Soviet economy at the moment. He talks about their gains. Challenges in education presented by Duke University. Here with today's feature is Charles Bronson. The rate of economic growth of the Soviet Union it is substantially higher than that of European

countries and it has been showing modest gains over the last five years. Dr. Vladimir tremble at associate professor in the Department of Economics at Duke comments. Well the national income is growing at about five and a half percent while the U.S. is growing at a rate slightly higher than five let's say five point one. So they are gaining in this sense. But of course with the national income being less than half of the U.S. national income. It will take many years. Even the present rates of development before they could catch up with the US. But why is the growth not as impressive as it was 20 years ago. Again here is Dr. trouble. Many specialists today use the term stagnation economic stagnation. Just the system. The Soviet system was a lot of pressures a lot of dictatorial command was

rather poorly developed marketing and distribution system. It's just not as efficient as it used to be and they do not get the results they used to get let's say in the thirties. They're desperately trying now to reform the system. But obviously economic arrangements have strong Dion's was the political system and the Central Committee of the party of course which is the ruling body in the Soviet Union is has it now. In addition Dr. trammel says normal growth is retarded by a rise in military expenditure lagging worker productivity and consumer inflationary pressures. What about returns on investment. Again here is Dr. Trumbull. No US is fortunate that the efficiency of our investment is increasing as each year we get more and more art of the dollar invested. Let's say less here. And of course

this. This indicates the basic very healthy situation in the economy. In the Soviet Union just the opposite. A rather alarming trend is observed that each year out of the ruble their currency their money out of each ruble invested they get less and less addition to national income. Which of course is the problem that is even to maintain the same rate to have to increase their investment or fall behind and the Western countries. Another problem is was Labor. They probably. Have claimed since 1930 that they don't have any unemployment whatsoever. But we now have strong evidence that unemployment does indeed exist in the Soviet Union and is becoming quite quite a problem. According to Dr travel the Soviet Union has a very impressive economic potential but reforms are necessary for this potential to become a reality. This is Charles

Braswell with challenges in education from Duke University. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.