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Vanderbilt Law Review

Stephen Szaszy

First Page

393

Abstract

The influence of the state in the organization and control of foreign trade is, as a matter of course, even greater in socialist states than in Western countries. In socialist countries the characteristic features of foreign trade are state monopolization of foreign trade and foreign exchange. The exclusive bearer and performer of international connections is the state itself. By virtue of its foreign trade monopoly, it not only regulates and directs foreign trade, but it is fully responsible for both concluding and executing international agreements. All operative activities of foreign trading are performed in socialist countries by state-created enterprises, established for that specific purpose and entrusted by the state with this task. The monopoly of foreign trade is a monopoly outwards, that is, all economic activities going beyond the frontiers are exclusively performed by institutions and companies qualified for that aim. It is also a monopoly inwards,that is, in the circle of the various goods and services, all foreign trade transactions are concentrated in the hands of a single enterprise or organ functioning as a monopoly. It is in this respect that foreign trade differs from the other branches of the national economy, where the production and distribution in the same sector of the economic activity are performed by several factories, companies, or organs, all of which function collaterally. In the home trade, production is concentrated in one plant only in exceptional cases (e.g.,in Hungary, production of glow-lamps); whereas distribution is never so concentrated. In foreign trade, however, all goods or services have one exclusive purchasing and selling organ.

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