Planning Labour

Time and the Foundations of Industrial Socialism in Romania

By: Alina-Sandra Cucu

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eBook | 15 April 2019 | Edition Number 1

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Impoverished, indebted, and underdeveloped at the close of World War II, Romania underwent dramatic changes as part of its transition to a centrally planned economy. As with the Soviet experience, it pursued a policy of "primitive socialist accumulation" whereby the state appropriated agricultural surplus and restricted workers' consumption in support of industrial growth. Focusing on the daily operations of planning in the ethnically mixed city of Cluj from 1945 to 1955, this book argues that socialist accumulation was deeply contradictory: it not only inherited some of the classical tensions of capital accumulation, but also generated its own, which derived from the multivocal nature of the state socialist worker as a creator of value, as living labour, and as a subject of emancipatory politics.

Industry Reviews

"By digging out less known and therefore more valuable archive information and combining it with an ethnographic study, the book powerfully demonstrates the importance of the local context. The dystopia of communism and socialism is addressed through the lenses of anthropology and sociology... Without this excellent contribution delivered by Alina-Sandra Cucu, one can get only piecemeal information about planning labour and eventually daily life in socialist Romania. Therefore, this book is a must-read." ? Eurasian Geography and Economics

"An important addition to the history and understanding of socialist transformation. Alina-Sandra Cucu covers in much detail territories that have been largely excluded from the literature of the socialist transformation of Romania, if not Eastern Europe itself." ? David A. Kideckel, Central Connecticut State University

"Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this volume provides the reader with a sophisticated and timely perspective on socialist accumulation. It is a valuable contribution to scholarship in labour history." ? Mara M?rginean, Romanian Academy