Cleveland, OH–The current economic restructuring, or peristroika, presently taking place in the Soviet Union, represents a large-scale, naturalistic experiment in the relationship between environmental engineering, individual behavior, and the products of that behavior, according to Cleveland State professor Richard F. Rakos.

The old socialist system was ineffective because control was done centrally, and because the primary goal was increased production. Power was reserved for the elite of the Communist Party, according to Rakos. The ultimate goal of Peristroika, said Rakos, who made his comments at the recent meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis, is to increase the efficiency of material production while maintaining the essential elements of socialist society in the Soviet Union. If it is to work, Peristroika will depend first on the success of glasnost and second, upon improved international cooperation.

Glasnost, or openness, has been heralded by western leaders as signifying the death of socialism. Professor Rakos warned, however, that is not the case. Rather, Glasnost merely signifies the recognition that people must be directly involved in that which they own (for example, the country’s resources). Glasnost also recognizes that people must be able to emit controlling and counter-controlling responses within their environment so that effective discrimitive stimuli are established and potent reinforcers are selected.

Rakos pointed out that under the old socialist system the Soviet Union’s bureaucratic interests resisted changes that would have had widespread benefits, if those were potentially disadvantageous to a sub group, such as a ministry. Thus, technology was underutilized, efficiency was meaningless because an enterprise that lost money or produced useless goods was bailed out by the state, and workers got paid independent of the quantity and quality of output. These conditions resulted in a cycle of shortages of desired goods, lackadaisical management in work forces, money as a rather weak reinforcer (there was very little to spend it on), and little value in work even if it was rather weakly related to the acquisition of money.

Glasnost represents an effort to enhance worker’s self-management so as to produce feelings of ownership. One example of that is election of managers on Soviet collectives, in contrast to its western use to elect political leaders.

Glasnost thus provides the discrimitive stimuli to prompt controlling and counter-controlling responses which produce a variety of positive reinforcers.

The second requirement for the success of Peristroika is increased international cooperation. Up to now the Soviet Union’s isolation has resulted in too many resources allocated to armament production and too little international cooperation so as to maximize reinforcers for everyone. More international cooperation can produce hard currency, raw materials, scientific knowledge, technological sophistication, and other factors that will add to the reinforcers for individual citizens in ways that will tend to keep them working, producing high quality consumer and social goods.

Perhaps ironically, Rakos feels that all of this can result in a partial success for socialism, However, it is clear that moral incentives will only be conditioned through direct experience with material and social reinforcers, and not through the proclamation of various rules, slogans, and propaganda.

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