Related resources
Full-text held externally
- DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12121
Search for item elsewhere
University researcher(s)
Academic department(s)
Theft under Stalin: A Property Rights Analysis
Yoram Gorlizki
The Economic History Review. 2015;:1-26.
Access to files
Abstract
Recent work on dictatorship has focused on how repression is used by dictators to eradicate political opposition. This paper examines evidence from one of the most important dictatorships of the twentieth century to suggest that this may tell only half the story. As Stalinâs dictatorship progressed, repression was increasingly administered neither by the secret police nor the militaryâas in most dictatorshipsâbut through the ordinary courts. The paper proposes an explanation, one broadly consistent with Mancur Olsonâs hypothesis that Stalin was a âproprietary dictatorâ, an autocrat with a long time horizon who made major investments in public goods. Stalinâs new form of propertyââsocialist propertyââwas one such public good. To legitimize the new form of ownership Stalin ruled that it should be enforced through the ordinary justice system, albeit initially with high levels of repression. The paper also makes two further contributions. It shows, first, how Stalinâs theft campaigns are a striking historical example of what happens when an unpopular law clashes with social norms, and of how it might backfire. Secondly, it demonstrates how, as property rights theorists would predict, the main objects of theft legislation are generic or homogeneous goods with few property attributes.
Bibliographic metadata
- This has now appeared on early view.