Historical Antecedents: The Soviet, European, and American Experiences with Planning in Agricultural Markets

This chapter features case studies, highlighting past experiences of agricultural market institutions that include elements that constitute supply management writ large. I begin with a focus on the Soviet experience and other socialist economies from the twentieth century. Not only are the examples of state socialist economies critical in terms of empirics, but they are also relevant for theoretical reasons, as scholars detail within the development and practice of communism ways to organize participation within economic affairs—including with cooperatives, unions, and public corporations. I then compare the Soviet case with the US and the European Union. Nowhere near the level of planning and government ownership that are present in the cases of state socialism, these other examples are instructive for detailing how extensive state planning within agriculture emerged in the twentieth century, even within ostensibly free market, capitalist societies.