The book Socialist Economics in Yugoslavia: A Critical History is the outcome of a joint research endeavor by Marko Grdešić and Mislav Žitko on the evolution of economic science in Yugoslavia during the socialist era. Grdešić and Žitko focus on strands of thought within Yugoslav economics, whose approach to the analysis of worker self-management is grounded in Marxist theory. Those strands of thought gave rise to the income school and the profit school. Grdešić and Žitko rediscover these two schools’ distinct theoretical starting points that lead to diverging views on how Yugoslav self-management has developed and how it ought to evolve.

The development of Yugoslav economics takes place in extraordinary circumstances: on the world politics stage, Yugoslavia is moving away from the Soviet Union, the leader of the socialist world, while rejecting the Soviet economic model and turning to a new concept i. e., worker self-management. This is why Yugoslav economics presents a rare occurrence where a scientific discipline evolves parallel to its research subject.

Mislav Žitko, one of the authors, will open the discussion. After his remarks, the discussion participants will have the opportunity for brief interventions, which will be followed by questions from the audience.

Participants:

• Mislav Žitko (author, Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb)
• Aleksandra Kanjuo-Mrčela (Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana, Institute for Economic Democracy)
• Danilo Šuković (economist)
• Srđan Đurović (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory)
• Ivan Lakićević (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory)

Moderator: Ivica Mladenović (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory)