Market Conditions

Capitalist market conditions. Under capitalism, market conditions are the embodiment of all current phenomena that affect capitalist reproduction in any given concrete historical situation. Within the economy of each capitalist country, scores of sectoral trends and thousands of isolated commercial conditions develop simultaneously. Taken in aggregate, such factors make up the macroeconomic market conditions within each country. These in turn are the components of economic trends of the world capitalist economy. Basic indicators of economic trends include the volume of industrial production and of capital construction, the movement of domestic and foreign trade, the degree of utilization of production capacities, the size of stocks of finished and semifinished articles and raw materials, and the dynamics of prices, profits, interest, rates of securities, numbers of bankruptcies, employment and unemployment trends, and the movement of wages.

The formation and the development of market conditions are based on cyclical factors (such as the scale and rates of the renewal of fixed capital, the demand for consumer goods, and conditions in the credit and monetary sphere). At the same time, market fluctuations are conditioned by the action of many noncyclical constant and temporary factors: scientific and techno-logical progress, concentration and centralization of production and capital, the development of state-monopoly capitalism, militarization of the economy and the arms race, the balance of payments, foreign exchange crises, inflation, seasonal factors in production and consumption, social conflicts, internal political and international crises, wars, natural calamities, and speculation. The most important features of the market are its dynamic character and the continuous and often sharp fluctuations.

At the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism, the scientific and technological revolution is a fundamental influence on economic trends, because it changes the character and rate of economic development in the capitalist countries.

The formation and the development of capitalist market conditions are actively influenced by the rapid development of the world socialist system as well as by the deep changes taking place in the distribution of forces in the capitalist system: the strengthening of the role of the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the integration and disintegration processes among the imperialistic states (throwing together economic groups like the Organization for European Economic Cooperation and military-political blocs), and the intensification of the class struggle and social conflicts.

Socialist market conditions. Under socialism, market conditions are specific conditions of sale of the products of socialist production. The conditions are formed at each specific moment and depend on the course of fulfillment of the nation’s economic plan. The mechanism of the formation of market conditions under socialism is conditioned by the character and the regulari-ties of the socialist market, which is a component of the planned development of the national economy. Market conditions are defined in the first place by the interrelation of supply of and demand for the means of production and consumer goods; they are a result and expression of the dynamics of all processes and phenomena forming or influencing supply and demand. Two of the indexes characterizing the state of the market under socialism are the level of commodity supplies in wholesale and retail trade and the relation between the monetary savings of the population and the volume of retail commodity turnover.

In all socialist countries, special research institutes and indus-trial and trade enterprises systematically study market conditions to get current information on the dynamics of supply and demand, the trends in the supply-demand interrelationship, and the causes of deviations in the fulfillment of target figures. The information received is used to draft the production and sale plans that can be most efficiently fulfilled.