Harris Asserts Marxists Will Get Space to Refute Report

Seymour E. Harris '20, professor of Economics, said yesterday that two leading Marxist economists will have the opportunity to answer his contentions, front-paged by the New York Times yesterday, that current Soviet economic strength has been exaggerated by official statistics.

In an advance release, the New York morning daily summarized the report of five leading statisticians, directed by Harris, which will appear complete next month in the University's Review of Economic Statistics.

As yet unidentified, the two sympathizers of state economic planning will reply in the following issue of the Review. The conclusions of the report picture the U.S.S.R. as a poverty-stricken nation with an average standard of living slightly better than one sixth the American level.

"Russian achievements have been large," declared Harris yesterday, "but the plain fact is that they haven't been quite as large as they say they've been." The international trade expert does not contend that the Soviet Government manipulates its statistics.

Soviet Price Error

He does suggest that the Russian failure to make use of their 1926-27 price level measurements as they claim they are doing leads to many serious distortions. Because of war devastation, and the resulting inflation of the ruble, evaluation of new production has "a substantial upward bias," in the report's wording.

"We mustn't be too smug about these revelations," commented Harris yesterday, "and it's important to note that you can't judge military preparedness merely by national income." As the report points out, before the Nazi invasion one third of the total output went to capital goods and armament production.

"In total war," Harris added, "it is conceivable that a nation's aggregate output might have a deciding effect on a long drawn out conflict."