Atlas / Comparisons / Soviet Bureaucratic Socialism vs Neoliberalism
Soviet Bureaucratic Socialism and Neoliberalism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on CU. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, AU, SC.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Brezhnev era | Mont Pèlerin, Chicago | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | −10 | +09 | 19 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +04 | +01 | 3 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +09 | −02 | 11 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +10 | +02 | 8 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +02 | −02 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | −06 | −02 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Brezhnev era · EC −10
At the floor: comprehensive planning with no legal private enterprise.
- ScholarshipPrivate economic activity remained criminal; the second economy operated illegally at scale.
Mont Pèlerin, Chicago · EC +09
Far market pole on doctrine, with the important caveat that most named exponents rejected pure laissez-faire.
- Programme textThe 1947 Mont Pèlerin statement of aims defends the market order and also the rule of law and a competitive framework.
Brezhnev era · AU +09
Coded +9: party monopoly with terror replaced by administrative and psychiatric sanction.
- Documented act or statuteArticle 6 of the 1977 constitution named the party the leading force of society.
- ScholarshipDissidents were confined in psychiatric hospitals under diagnoses created for the purpose.
Mont Pèlerin, Chicago · AU −02
Coded slightly negative: the doctrine constrains majorities through rules and independent bodies, which disperses rather than concentrates authority.
- ScholarshipCentral bank independence, fiscal rules and treaty commitments remove decisions from ordinary majority revision.
- ScholarshipThis is delegation, not concentration; the entry for technocratic centrism is coded positive on the same reasoning and separates the two.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Soviet Bureaucratic Socialism
1964–1985 · USSR
Stability of cadres, guaranteed employment and subsidised necessities, in exchange for total political passivity.
Neoliberalism
1947– · International
Market competition as the organising principle of policy, insulated from democratic interference by rules and independent institutions.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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