title: Socialist economics

text: Left-wing market anarchism strongly affirm the classical liberal ideas of self-ownership and free markets, while maintaining that, taken to their logical conclusions, these ideas support strongly anti-corporatist, anti-hierarchical, pro-labor positions and anti-capitalism in economics and anti-imperialism in foreign policy.


title: Socialist economics

text: Non-revolutionary socialists were inspired by the writings of John Stuart Mill, and later John Maynard Keynes and the Keynesians, who provided theoretical justification for state involvement in existing market economies. According to the Keynesians, if business cycles could be smoothed out by national ownership of key industries and state direction of their investment, class antagonism would be effectively tamed.They argue that a compact would form between labour and the capitalist class and that there would be no need for revolution. Joan Robinson and Michael Kalecki formed the basis of a critical post-Keynesian economics that at times went well beyond liberal reformism.


title: Socialist economics

text: Marxist economists developed different tendencies based on conflicting interpretations of Marx's ideas, such as the 'Law of Value' and crisis theory. The monopoly capitalist school saw Paul A. Baran and Paul Sweezy attempt to modify Marx's theory of capitalist development—which was based upon the assumption of price competition—to reflect evolution to a stage where both economy and state were subject to the dominating influence of giant corporations.


title: Socialist economics

text: World-systems analysis restated Marx's ideas about the worldwide division of labour and the drive to accumulate from the holistic perspective of capitalism's historical development as a global system. In 1979, Immanuel Wallerstein wrote:


title: Socialist economics

text: There are today no socialist systems in the world-economy any more than there are feudal systems because there is only "one" world-system. It is a world-economy and it is by definition capitalist in form. Socialism involves the creation of a new kind of world-system, neither a redistributive world-empire nor a capitalist world-economy but a socialist world-government. I don't see this projection as being in the least utopian but I also don't feel its institution is imminent. It will be the outcome of a long social struggle in forms that may be familiar and perhaps in very few forms, that will take place in "all" the areas of the world-economy.


title: Socialist economics

text: Piero Sraffa attempted to construct a value theory that was an explanation of the normal distribution of prices in an economy, as well that of income and economic growth. He found that the net product or surplus in the sphere of production was determined by the balance of bargaining power between workers and capitalists, which was subject to the influence of non-economic, presumably social and political, factors.


title: Socialist economics

text: The mutualist tendency associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon also continued, influencing the development of libertarian socialism, anarchist communism, syndicalism and distributivism.


title: Socialist economics

text: A socialist economy is a system of production where goods and services are produced directly for use, in contrast to a capitalist economic system, where goods and services are produced to generate profit (and therefore indirectly for use). "Production under socialism would be directly and solely for use. With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs." Goods and services would be produced for their usefulness, or for their use-value, eliminating the need for market-induced needs to ensure a sufficient amount of demand for products to be sold at a profit. Production in a socialist economy is therefore "planned" or "coordinated", and does not suffer from the business cycle inherent to capitalism. In most socialist theories, economic planning only applies to the factors of production and not to the allocation of goods and services produced for consumption, which would be distributed through a market. Karl Marx stated that "lower-stage communism" would consist of compensation based on the amount of labor one contributes to the social product.


title: Socialist economics

text: The ownership of the means of production varies in different socialist theories. It can either be based on public ownership by a state apparatus; direct ownership by the users of the productive property through worker cooperative; or commonly owned by all of society with management and control delegated to those who operate/use the means of production.


title: Socialist economics

text: Management and control over the activities of enterprises is based on self-management and self-governance, with equal power-relations in the workplace to maximize occupational autonomy. A socialist form of organization would eliminate controlling hierarchies so that only a hierarchy based on technical knowledge in the workplace remains. Every member would have decision-making power in the firm and would be able to participate in establishing its overall policy objectives. The policies/goals would be carried out by the technical specialists that form the coordinating hierarchy of the firm, who would establish plans or directives for the work community to accomplish these goals.


title: Socialist economics

text: However, the economies of the former Socialist states, excluding Yugoslavia, were based on bureaucratic, top-down administration of economic directives and micromanagement of the worker in the workplace inspired by capitalist models of scientific management. As a result, some socialist movements have argued that said economies were not socialist due to the lack of equal power-relations in the workplace, the presence of a new "elite", and because of the commodity production that took place in these economies. These economic and social systems have been classified as being either "bureaucratic collectivist", "state capitalist" or "deformed workers' states" by its critics. The exact nature of the USSR "et al." remains unresolved within said socialist movements. However, other socialist movements defend the systems that were in place in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, remembering, as said above, that public ownership of the means of production can signify many variants. In the case of the Soviet Union and its satellites, it was the State which controlled and managed almost all of the economy as a single huge enterprise. Furthermore, the products that were manufactured in Soviet-type economies were not produced directly for use, given the fact that all of them were sold to the public at below-market prices (i.e. they were sold in deficit to satisfy the needs of the population).


title: Socialist economics

text: I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate (the) grave evils (of capitalism), namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.


title: Socialist economics

text: Economic planning is a mechanism for the allocation of economic inputs and decision-making based on direct allocation, in contrast to the market mechanism, which is based on indirect allocation. An economy based on economic planning appropriates its resources as needed, so that allocation comes in the form of internal transfers rather than market transactions involving the purchasing of assets by one government agency or firm by another. Decision-making is carried out by workers and consumers on the enterprise-level.


title: Socialist economics

text: Economic planning is not synonymous with the concept of a "command economy", which existed in the Soviet Union, and was based on a highly bureaucratic administration of the entire economy in accordance to a comprehensive plan formulated by a central planning agency, which specified output requirements for productive units and tried to micromanage the decisions and policies of enterprises. The command economy is based on the organizational model of a capitalist firm, but applies it to the entire economy.


title: Socialist economics

text: Various advocates of economic planning have been staunch critics of command economies and centralized planning. For example, Leon Trotsky believed that central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, operated without the input and participation of the millions of people who participate in the economy and understand the local conditions and rapid changes in the economy. Therefore, central planners would be unable to effectively coordinate all economic activity because they lacked this informal information.


title: Socialist economics

text: Economic planning in socialism takes a different form than economic planning in capitalist mixed economies (such as dirigisme, central banking and indicative planning); in the former case planning refers to production of use-value directly (planning of production), while in the latter case planning refers to the planning of capital accumulation in order to stabilize or increase the efficiency of this process.


title: Socialist economics

text: The goal of socialist economics is to neutralize capital, or in the case of market socialism to subject investment and capital to social planning, to coordinate the production of goods and services to directly satisfy demand (as opposed to market-induced needs) and to eliminate the business cycle and crises of overproduction that occur as a result of an economy based on capital accumulation and private property in the means of production.


title: Socialist economics

text: Socialists generally aim to achieve greater equality in decision-making and economic affairs, grant workers greater control of the means of production and their workplace and to eliminate exploitation by directing the surplus value to employees. Free access to the means of subsistence is a requisite for liberty because it ensures that all work is voluntary and no class or individual has the power to coerce others into performing alienating work.


title: Socialist economics

text: The ultimate goal for Marxist socialists is the emancipation of labor from alienating work and therefore freedom from having to perform such labor to receive access to the material necessities for life. It is argued that freedom from necessity would maximize individual liberty as individuals would be able to pursue their own interests and develop their own talents without being coerced into performing labor for others (the power-elite or ruling class in this case) via mechanisms of social control such as the labor market and the state. The stage of economic development in which this is possible is contingent upon advances in the productive capabilities of society. This advanced stage of social relations and economic organization is called "pure communism".


title: Socialist economics

text: Socialist economic theories base the value of a good or service on its use value, rather than its cost of production (labor theory of value) or its exchange value (marginal utility). Other socialist theories, such as mutualism and market socialism, attempt to apply the labor theory of value to socialism, so that the price of a good or service is adjusted to equal the amount of labor time expended in its production. The labor-time expended by each worker would correspond to labor credits, which would be used as a currency to acquire goods and services. Market socialists that base their models on neoclassical economics, and thus marginal utility, such as Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner, have proposed that publicly owned enterprises set their price to equal marginal cost, thereby achieving pareto efficiency. Anarcho-communism as defended by Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta rejected the labor theory of value and exchange value itself, advocated a gift economy and to base distribution on need.


title: Socialist economics

text: Socialism can be divided into market socialism and planned socialism based on their dominant mechanism of resource allocation. Another distinction can be made between the type of property structures of different socialist systems (public, cooperative or common) and on the dominant form of economic management within the economy (hierarchical or self-managed).


title: Socialist economics

text: Economic democracy is a model of market socialism primarily developed by the American economist David Schweickart. In Schweickart's model, enterprises and natural resources are owned by society in the form of public banking, and management is elected by the workers within each firm. Profits would be distributed among the workers of the respective enterprise.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Lange–Lerner model involves public ownership of the means of production and the utilization of a trial-and-error approach to achieving equilibrium prices by a central planning board. The Central Planning Board would be responsible for setting prices through a trial-and-error approach to establish equilibrium prices, effectively acting as the abstract "Walrasian auctioneer" in Walrasian economics. Managers of the state-owned firms would be instructed to set prices to equal marginal cost (P=MC), so that economic equilibrium and Pareto efficiency would be achieved. The Lange model was expanded upon by the American economist Abba Lerner and became known as the Lange–Lerner theorem, particularly the role of the social dividend. Forerunners of the Lange model include the neoclassical economists Enrico Barone and Fred M. Taylor.


title: Socialist economics

text: The self-managed economy is a form of socialism where enterprises are owned and managed by their employees, effectively negating the employer-employee (or wage labor) dynamic of capitalism and emphasizing the opposition to alienation, self-managing and cooperative aspect of socialism. Members of cooperative firms are relatively free to manage their own affairs and work schedules. This model was developed most extensively by the Yugoslav economists Branko Horvat, Jaroslav Vanek and the American economist Benjamin Ward.


title: Socialist economics

text: Worker self-directed enterprise is a recent proposal advocated by the American Marxian economist Richard D. Wolff. This model shares many similarities with the model of socialist self-management in that employees own and direct their enterprises, but places a greater role on democratically elected management within a market economy.


title: Socialist economics

text: Feasible socialism was the name Alec Nove gave his outline for socialism in his work "The Economics of Feasible Socialism". According to Nove, this model of socialism is "feasible" because it can be realized within the lifetime of anyone living today. It involves a combination of publicly owned and centrally directed enterprises for large-scale industries, autonomous publicly owned enterprises, consumer and worker-owned cooperatives for the majority of the economy, and private ownership for small businesses. It is a market-based mixed economy that includes a substantial role for macroeconomic interventionism and indicative economic planning.


title: Socialist economics

text: The American economist James Yunker detailed a model where social ownership of the means of production is achieved the same way private ownership is achieved in modern capitalism through the shareholder system that separates management functions from ownership. Yunker posits that social ownership can be achieved by having a public body, designated the Bureau of Public Ownership (BPO), owning the shares of publicly listed firms without affecting market-based allocation of capital inputs. Yunker termed this model pragmatic market socialism because it does not require massive changes to society and would leave the existing management system intact, and would be at least as efficient as modern-day capitalism while providing superior social outcomes as public ownership of large and established enterprises would enable profits to be distributed among the entire population in a social dividend rather than going largely to a class of inheriting rentiers.


title: Socialist economics

text: Participatory economics utilizes participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the production, consumption and allocation of resources in a given society.


title: Socialist economics

text: Proposals for utilizing computer-based coordination and information technology for the coordination and optimization of resource allocation (also known as cybernetics) within an economy have been outlined by various socialists, economists and computer scientists, including Oskar Lange, the Soviet engineer Viktor Glushkov, and more recently Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell.


title: Socialist economics

text: The "networked information age" has enabled the development and emergence of new forms of organizing the production of value in non-market arrangements that have been termed commons-based peer production along with the negation of ownership and the concept of property in the development of software in the form of open source and open design.


title: Socialist economics

text: Economist Pat Devine has created a model of coordination called "negotiated coordination", which is based upon social ownership by those affected by the use of the assets involved, with decisions made by those at the most localised level of production.


title: Socialist economics

text: Although a number of economic systems have existed with various socialist attributes, or have been deemed socialist by their proponents, almost all of the economic systems listed below have largely retained elements of capitalism such as wage labor, the accumulation of capital, and commodity production. Nonetheless, various elements of a socialist economy have been implemented or experimented with in various economies throughout history.


title: Socialist economics

text: Various forms of socialist organizational attributes have existed as minor modes of production within the context of a capitalist economy throughout history—examples of this include cooperative enterprises in a capitalist economy, and the emerging free-software movement based on social peer-to-peer production.


title: Socialist economics

text: A centrally planned economy combines public ownership of the means of production with centralized state planning. This model is usually associated with the Soviet-type command economy. In a centrally planned economy, decisions regarding the quantity of goods and services to be produced are planned in advance by a planning agency. In the early years of Soviet central planning, the planning process was based upon a selected number of physical flows with inputs mobilized to meet explicit production targets measured in natural or technical units. This material balances method of achieving plan coherence was later complemented and replaced by value planning, with money provided to enterprises so that they could recruit labour and procure materials and intermediate production goods and services. The Soviet economy was brought to balance by the interlocking of three sets of calculation, namely the setting up of a model incorporating balances of production, manpower and finance. The exercise was undertaken annually and involved a process of iteration (the "method of successive approximation"). Although nominally a "centrally planned" economy, in reality formulation of the plan took place on a more local level of the production process as information was relayed from enterprises to planning ministries. Aside from the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc economies, this economic model was also utilized by the People's Republic of China, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Republic of Cuba and North Korea.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Soviet Union and some of its European satellites aimed for a fully centrally-planned economy. While they dispensed almost entirely with private ownership over the means of production, workers still effectively received a wage for their labour. Some believe that according to Marxist theory this should have been a step towards a genuine workers' state. However, some Marxists consider this a misunderstanding of Marx's views on historical materialism and of his views on the process of socialization.


title: Socialist economics

text: The planning system in the Soviet Union developed under Stalin between 1928 and 1934. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the seven countries with communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe introduced central planning with five- (or six-) year plans on the Soviet model by 1951. The common features included the nationalization of industry, transport and trade, compulsory procurement in farming (but not collectivization) and government monopolies on foreign trade.


title: Socialist economics

text: Prices were largely determined on the basis of the costs of inputs, a method derived from the labour theory of value. Prices did not therefore incentivize production enterprises, whose inputs were instead purposely rationed by the central plan. This "taut planning" began around 1930 in the Soviet Union and only became attenuated after the economic reforms in 1966–1968, when enterprises were encouraged to make profits.


title: Socialist economics

text: According to communist doctrine, planning had the stated purpose of enabling the people - through the communist party and state institutions - to undertake activities that would have been frustrated by a market economy, including the rapid expansion of universal education and health care, urban development with mass good-quality housing, and industrial development of all regions of the country. Nevertheless, markets continued to exist in Soviet-type planned economies. Even after the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, members of collective farms and anyone with a private garden plot were free to sell their own produce (farm workers were often paid in kind). Licensed markets operated in every town and city borough where non-state-owned enterprises (such as cooperatives and collective farms) were able to offer their products and services. From 1956 and 1959 onwards, all wartime controls over manpower were removed and people could apply for and quit jobs freely in the Soviet Union. The use of market mechanisms went furthest in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. From 1975, Soviet citizens had the right to engage in private handicraft; collective farmers could raise and sell livestock privately from 1981. Note that households were free to dispose of their income as they chose, and incomes were lightly taxed.


title: Socialist economics

text: Various scholars and political economists have criticized the claim that the centrally-planned economy - and specifically the Soviet model of economic development - constitutes a form of socialism. They argue that the Soviet economy was structured upon the accumulation of capital and the extraction of surplus value from the working class by the planning agency in order to reinvest this surplus into the economy and to distribute to managers and senior officials, indicating the Soviet Union and other Soviet-style economies were state-capitalist and unplanned administrative-command economies. More fundamentally, these economies were structured around the dynamic of capitalism, i.e. the accumulation of capital, production for profit (as opposed to being based on production for use—the defining criterion for socialism) and the law of value, having not yet transcended the system of capitalism, but being in fact a variation of capitalism based on a process of state-directed accumulation.


title: Socialist economics

text: On the other side of the argument, economists contend that no surplus value was generated from labour activity or from commodity markets in the socialist planned economies; they therefore claim that there was no exploiting class, even if inequalities existed. Since prices were controlled and set below market-clearing levels, there was no element of value added at the point of sale - as occurs in capitalist market economies. Prices were built up from the average cost of inputs, including wages, taxes, interest on stocks and working capital as well as allowances to cover the recoupment of investment and for depreciation, so there was no profit margin in the price charged to customers. Wages did not reflect the purchase price of labour, since labour was not a commodity traded in a market and the employing organizations did not own the means of production. Wages were set at a level that permitted a decent standard of living; they rewarded specialist skills and educational qualifications. In macroeconomic terms, the plan allocated the whole national product to workers in the form of wages for the workers' own use, with a fraction withheld for investment and for imports from abroad. The difference between the average value of wages and the value of national output per worker did not imply the existence of surplus value since it was part of a consciously formulated plan for the development of society. The presence of inequality in the socialist planned economies did not imply that an exploiting class existed. In the Soviet Union, communist-party members were able to buy scarce goods in special shops and the leadership elite took advantage of state property to live in more spacious accommodation - and sometimes in luxury. Although they received privileges not commonly available and some additional income in kind, there was no difference in their official remuneration in comparison to their non-party peers. Enterprise managers and workers received only the wages and bonuses related to the production targets that the planning authorities had set. Outside of the cooperative sector - which enjoyed greater economic freedoms and whose profits were shared among all members of the cooperative - there was no profit-taking class. Other analysts maintain that workers in the Soviet Union and in other Marxist–Leninist states had genuine control over the means of production through institutions such as trade unions.


title: Socialist economics

text: Some socialist critics point to the lack of socialist social relations in Soviet-style economies (specifically the lack of self-management), to a bureaucratic elite based on hierarchical and centralized powers of authority as well as to the lack of genuine worker control over the means of production. Such factors lead them to conclude that Soviet economies were not socialist, but examples either of bureaucratic collectivism or of state capitalism. Trotskyists regard mature Soviet systems as neither socialist nor capitalist—but as deformed workers' states. This analysis is consistent with the April Theses of 1917, in which Lenin stated that the prospective Bolshevik revolution aimed not to introduce socialism (which could only be established on a worldwide scale), but to bring production and the state under the control of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. Furthermore, communist states often do not claim to have achieved socialism in their countries; on the contrary, they claim to be building and working toward the establishment of socialism in their countries. For example, the preamble to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's constitution states that Vietnam only entered a transition stage between capitalism and socialism after the country was re-unified under the Communist party in 1976, and the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Cuba states that the role of the Communist Party is to "guide the common effort toward the goals and construction of socialism".


title: Socialist economics

text: Stalinists and their followers challenge this view - they claim that socialism was established in the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin came to power in the late 1920s and instituted the system of five-year plans in 1928. The 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union, known as the Fundamental Law of Victorious Socialism, embodied the claim that the foundations for socialism had been laid. In 1924 Stalin introduced the theory of socialism in one country, which argued that socialism can be built in a single country, despite existing within a global capitalist economic system. Nevertheless, it was recognized that the stage during which developed socialism would be built would be a lengthy one and would not be achieved by the Soviet Union on its own. According to the official textbooks, the first stage of the transition period from capitalism to socialism had been completed by the 1970s in the European socialist countries (except Poland and Yugoslavia) and in Mongolia and Cuba. The next stage of developed socialism would not be reached until "the economic integration of the socialist states becomes a major factor of their economic progress" and social relations had been reconstructed on "collectivist principles". Communist writers accepted that during the earlier stages in constructing socialism the exchange of commodities on the basis of the average socially necessary labour embodied within them occurred and involved the mediation of money. Socialist planned economies were systems of commodity production, but this was directed in a conscious way towards meeting the needs of the people and not left to the "anarchy of the market". At the stage of developed socialism, "the state of dictatorship of the proletariat changes into a state of all people reflecting the increasing homogeneity of society" and the "evening out of economic development levels" within and between socialist countries. It would provide the foundations for a further stage of perfected socialist society, where an abundance of goods permitted their distribution according to need. Only then could the world socialist system progress towards the higher phase of communism.


title: Socialist economics

text: By the 1980s, the world economic socialist system embraced one-third of the world's population but generated no more than 15 percent of global economic output. At its height in the mid-1980s, the world socialist system could be said to comprise the following countries with a "socialist orientation", though not all were allies of the Soviet Union: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Mozambique, Nicaragua, North Korea, Laos, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Vietnam, South Yemen, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The system co-existed alongside the world capitalist system but was founded upon the principles of cooperation and mutual assistance rather than upon competition and rivalry. The countries involved aimed to even-out the level of economic development and to play an equal part in the international division of labour. An important role was played by the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) or Comecon, an international body set up to promote economic development. It involved joint planning activity, the establishment of international economic, scientific and technical bodies and methods of cooperation between state agencies and enterprises, including joint ventures and projects. Allied to the CMEA were the International Development Bank, established in 1971; and the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, founded in 1963, which had their counterparts in the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund in the non-socialist world.


title: Socialist economics

text: The main tasks of the CMEA were plan coordination, production specialization and regional trade. In 1961 Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, put forward proposals for establishing an integrated, centrally-planned socialist commonwealth in which each geographic region would specialize production in line with its set of natural and human resources. The resulting document, the "Basic Principles of the International Socialist Division of Labour" was adopted at the end of 1961, despite objections from Romania on certain aspects. The "Basic Principles" were never implemented fully and were replaced in 1971 by the adoption of the "Comprehensive Programme for Further Extension and Improvement of Cooperation and Development of Socialist Economic Integration". As a result, many specialization agreements were made between CMEA member states for investment programmes and projects. The importing country pledged to rely on the exporting country for its consumption of the product in question. Production specialization occurred in engineering, automotive, chemicals, computers and automation, telecommunications and biotechnology. Scientific and technical cooperation between CMEA member states was facilitated by the establishment in 1969 of the International Centre for Scientific and Technical Information in Moscow.


title: Socialist economics

text: Trade between CMEA member states was divided into "hard goods" and "soft goods". The former could be sold on world markets and the latter could not. Commodities such as food, energy products and raw materials tended to be hard goods and were traded within the CMEA area at world market prices. Manufactures tended to be soft goods—their prices were negotiable and often adjusted to make bilateral payment flows balance.


title: Socialist economics

text: Other countries with privileged affiliation with the CMEA included Algeria, Benin, Burma, Congo, Finland, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico, Nigeria, Seychelles, Syria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The Soviet Union also provided substantial economic aid and technical assistance to developing countries including Egypt, India, Iraq, Iran, Somalia and Turkey. It supported developing countries in calling for a New International Economic Order and backed the UN Charter of Economic Rights and Obligations of States adopted by the General Assembly in 1974.


title: Socialist economics

text: In the officially sanctioned textbooks describing the socialist planned economies as they existed in the 1980s, it was claimed as follows:


title: Socialist economics

text: Data collected by the United Nations of indicators of human development in the early 1990s show that a high level of social development was achieved in the former socialist planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS). Life expectancy in the CEE/CIS area in the period 1985–1990 was 68 years, while for the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) it was 75 years. Infant mortality in the CEE/CIS area was 25 for every 1,000 live births in 1990, compared to 13 in the OECD area. In terms of education, the two areas enjoyed universal adult literacy and full enrolment of children in primary and secondary schools. For tertiary education, the CEE/CIS had 2,600 university students per 100,000 population, while in the OECD the comparable figure was 3,550 students. Overall enrolment at primary, secondary and tertiary levels was 75 percent in the CEE/CIS region and 82 percent in the OECD countries.


title: Socialist economics

text: On housing the main problem was over-crowding rather than homelessness in the socialist planned economies. In the USSR the area of residential accommodation was 15.5 square meters per person by 1990 in urban areas but 15 percent of the population were without their own separate accommodation and had to live in communal apartments according to the 1989 census. Housing was generally of good quality in both the CEE/CIS region and in the OECD countries: 98 and 99 percent of the population in the OECD countries had access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation respectively, compared to 93 and 85 percent in the CEE/CIS area by 1990.


title: Socialist economics

text: Unemployment did not exist officially in the socialist planned economies, though there were people between jobs and a fraction of unemployable people as a result of illness, disability or other problems, such as alcoholism. The proportion of people changing jobs was between 6 and 13 percent of the labour force a year according to employment data during the 1970s and 1980s in Central and Eastern Europe and the USSR. Labour exchanges were established in the USSR in 1967 to help enterprises re-allocate workers and provide information on job vacancies. Compulsory unemployment insurance schemes operated in Bulgaria, Eastern Germany and Hungary but the numbers claiming support as a result of losing their job through no fault of their own numbered a few hundred a year.


title: Socialist economics

text: By 1988, GDP per person, measured at purchasing power parity in US dollars, was $7,519 in Russia and $6,304 for the USSR. The highest income was to be found in Slovenia ($10,663) and Estonia ($9,078) and the lowest in Albania ($1,386) and Tajikistan ($2,730). Across the whole CEE/CIS area, GDP per person was estimated at $6,162. This compared to the US with $20,651 and $16,006 for Germany in the same year. For the OECD area as a whole estimated GDP per person was $14,385. Thus, on the basis of IMF estimates, national income (GDP) per person in the CEE/CIS area was 43 percent of that in the OECD area.


title: Socialist economics

text: From the 1960s onwards, CMEA countries, beginning with East Germany, attempted "intensive" growth strategies, aiming to raise the productivity of labour and capital. However, in practice this meant that investment was shifted towards new branches of industry, including the electronics, computing, automotive and nuclear power sectors, leaving the traditional heavy industries dependent upon older technologies. Despite the rhetoric about modernization, innovation remained weak as enterprise managers preferred routine production that was easier to plan and brought them predictable bonuses. Embargoes on high technology exports organized through the US-supported CoCom arrangement hampered technology transfer. Enterprise managers also ignored inducements to introduce labour-saving measures as they wished to retain a reserve of personnel to be available to meet their production target by working at top speed when supplies were delayed.


title: Socialist economics

text: Under conditions of "taut planning", the economy was expected to produce a volume of output higher than the reported capacity of enterprises and there was no "slack" in the system. Enterprises faced a resource constraint and hoarded labour and other inputs and avoided sub-contracting intermediate production activities, preferring to retain the work in-house. The enterprise, according to the theory promulgated by János Kornai, was constrained by its resources not by the demand for its goods and services; nor was it constrained by its finances since the government was not likely to shut it down if it failed to meet its financial targets. Enterprises in socialist planned economies operated within a "soft" budget constraint, unlike enterprises in capitalist market economies which are demand-constrained and operate within "hard" budget constraints, as they face bankruptcy if their costs exceed their sales. As all producers were working in a resource-constrained economy they were perpetually in short supply and the shortages could never be eliminated, leading to chronic disruption of production schedules. The effect of this was to preserve a high level of employment.


title: Socialist economics

text: As the supply of consumer goods failed to match rising incomes (because workers still received their pay even if they were not fully productive), household savings accumulated, indicating, in the official terminology, "postponed demand". Western economists called this "monetary overhang" or "repressed inflation". Prices on the black market were several times higher than in the official price-controlled outlets, reflecting the scarcity and possible illegality of the sale of these items. Therefore, although consumer welfare was reduced by shortages, the prices households paid for their regular consumption were lower than would have been the case had prices been set at market-clearing levels.


title: Socialist economics

text: Over the course of the 1980s it became clear that the CMEA area was "in crisis", although it remained viable economically and was not expected to collapse. The "extensive" growth model was retarding growth in the CMEA as a whole, with member countries dependent upon supplies of raw materials from the USSR and upon the Soviet market for sales of goods. The decline in growth rates reflected a combination of diminishing returns to capital accumulation and low innovation as well as micro-economic inefficiencies, which a high rate of saving and investment was unable to counter. The CMEA was supposed to ensure coordination of national plans but it failed even to develop a common methodology for planning which could be adopted by its member states. As each member state was reluctant to give up national self-sufficiency the CMEA's efforts to encourage specialization was thwarted. There were very few joint ventures and therefore little intra-enterprise technology transfer and trade, which in the capitalist world was often undertaken by trans-national corporations. The International Bank for Economic Cooperation had no means of converting a country's trade surplus into an option to buy goods and services from other CMEA members.


title: Socialist economics

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, many of the remaining socialist states presiding over centrally planned economies began introducing reforms that shifted their economies away from centralized planning. In Central and Eastern Europe and the USSR the transition from a planned economy to a market economy was accompanied by the transformation of the socialist mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. In Asia (China, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam) and in Cuba market mechanisms were introduced by the ruling communist parties and the planning system was reformed without systemic transformation.


title: Socialist economics

text: The transformation from socialism to capitalism involved a political shift: from a people's democracy (see People's Republic and Communist state) with a constitutionally entrenched "leading role" for the communist and workers' parties in society to a liberal representative democracy with a separation of legislative, executive and judicial authorities and centres of private power that can act as a brake on the state's activity.


title: Socialist economics

text: Vietnam adopted an economic model it formally titled the "socialist-oriented market economy". This economic system is a form of mixed-economy consisting of state, private, co-operative and individual enterprises coordinated by the market mechanism. This system is intended to be transitional stage in the development of socialism.


title: Socialist economics

text: The transformation of an economic system from a socialist planned economy to a capitalist market economy in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Mongolia in the 1990s involved a series of institutional changes. These included:


title: Socialist economics

text: China embraced a socialist planned economy after the Communist victory in its Civil War. Private property and private ownership of capital were abolished, and various forms of wealth made subject to state control or to workers' councils. The Chinese economy broadly adopted a similar system of production quotas and full employment by fiat to the Russian model. The Great Leap Forward saw a remarkably large-scale experiment with rapid collectivisation of agriculture and other ambitious goals. Results were less than expected (e.g. there were food shortages and mass starvation) and the program was abandoned after three years. In the common program set up by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 1949, in effect the country's interim constitution, state capitalism meant an economic system of corporatism. It provided as follows: "Whenever necessary and possible, private capital shall be encouraged to develop in the direction of state capitalism".


title: Socialist economics

text: In recent decades, China has opened its economy to foreign investment and to market-based trade, and has continued to experience strong economic growth. It has carefully managed the transition from a socialist planned economy to a market economy, officially referred to as the "socialist commodity market economy" which has been likened to state capitalism by some outside observers. The current Chinese economic system is characterized by state ownership combined with a strong private sector that privately owned enterprises that generate about 33% (People's Daily Online 2005) to over 50% of GDP in 2005, with a BusinessWeek article estimating 70% of GDP, a figure that might be even greater considering the Chengbao system. Some western observers note that the private sector is likely underestimated by state officials in calculation of GDP due to its propensity to ignore small private enterprises that are not registered. Most of the state and private sectors of economy are governed by free market practices, including a stock exchange for trading equity. The free-market is the arbitrator for most economic activity, which is left to the management of both state and private firms. A significant amount of privately owned firms exist, especially in the consumer service sector.


title: Socialist economics

text: The state sector is concentrated in the commanding heights of the economy with a growing private sector engaged primarily in commodity production and light industry. Centralized directive planning based on mandatory output requirements and production quotas has been superseded by the free-market mechanism for most of the economy and directive planning is utilized in some large state industries. A major difference from the old planned economy is the privatization of state institutions. 150 state-owned enterprises remain and report directly to the central government, most having a number of subsidiaries. By 2008, these state-owned corporations had become increasingly dynamic largely contributing to the increase in revenue for the state. The state-sector led the economic recovery process and increased economic growth in 2009 after the financial crises.


title: Socialist economics

text: Proponents of this model distinguish themselves from market socialists who believe that economic planning is unattainable, undesirable or ineffective at distributing goods, viewing the market as the solution rather than a temporary phase in development of a socialist planned economy. This type of economic system is defended from a Marxist–Leninist perspective which states that a socialist planned economy can only be possible after first establishing the necessary comprehensive commodity market economy, letting it fully develop until it exhausts its historical stage and gradually transforms itself into a planned economy.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Republic of Cuba under the leadership of Raul Castro began from 2006 to encourage co-operatives, worker-ownership and self-employment in a move to reduce the central role of state enterprise and state management within the economy, with the goal of building a "deeper" or more co-operative form of socialism. By 2018, there were 429 co-operatives in Cuba, many of which were previously state-owned enterprises.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has pursued similar economic reforms to China, though less extensively, resulting in a socialist-oriented market economy, a mixed economy in which the state plays a dominant role intended to be a transitional phase in establishment of a socialist economy.


title: Socialist economics

text: Many of the industrialized, open countries of Western Europe experimented with one form of social democratic mixed economies or another during the 20th century. These include Britain (mixed economy and welfare state) from 1945 to 1979, France (state capitalism and indicative planning) from 1945 to 1982 under dirigisme, Sweden (social democratic welfare state) and Norway (state social democratic mixed economy) to the present. They are regarded as social democratic and reformist socialist experiments because they universally retained a wage-based economy and private ownership and control of the decisive means of production.


title: Socialist economics

text: Nevertheless, these western European countries tried to restructure their economies away from a purely private capitalist model. Variations range from social democratic welfare states such as in Sweden to mixed economies where a major percentage of GDP comes from the state sector such as in Norway which ranks among the highest countries in quality of life and equality of opportunity for its citizens. Elements of these efforts persist throughout Europe, even if they have repealed some aspects of public control and ownership. They are typically characterized by the following features:


title: Socialist economics

text: Various social democratic mixed economies are state capitalist, consisting of large commercial state enterprises that operate according to the laws of capitalism and pursue profits, that have evolved in countries which have been influenced by various elected socialist political parties and their economic reforms. While these policies and reforms did not change the fundamental aspect of capitalism and non-socialist elements within these countries supported or often implemented many of these reforms themselves, the result has been a set of economic institutions that were at least partly influenced by socialist ideology.


title: Socialist economics

text: After gaining independence from Britain, India adopted a broadly socialist-inspired approach to economic growth. Like other countries with a democratic transition to a mixed economy, it did not abolish private property in capital. India proceeded by nationalizing various large privately run firms, creating state-owned enterprises and redistributing income through progressive taxation in a manner similar to social democratic Western European nations than to planned economies such as the Soviet Union or China. Today, India is often characterized as having a free-market economy that combines economic planning with the free market. However, it did adopt a very firm focus on national planning with a series of broad five-year plans.


title: Socialist economics

text: Modern Norwegian state capitalism has its origins in public ownership of the country's oil reserves and in the country's post-World War II social democratic reforms. The government of Norway has ownership stakes in many of the country's largest publicly listed companies, owning 37% of the Oslo stockmarket and operates the country's largest non-listed companies including Statoil and Statkraft. The government also operates a sovereign wealth fund, the Government Pension Fund of Norway, whose partial objective is to prepare Norway for a post-oil future.


title: Socialist economics

text: Singapore pursued a state-led model of economic development under the People's Action Party which initially adopted a Leninist approach to politics and a broad socialist model of economic development. Originally, there was also infighting between moderates and radicals, including a left-wing and communist wing in the party which saw many imprisoned. The socialist policies practised the PAP during its first few decades in power were of a pragmatic kind as characterized by its rejection of nationalization. Despite this, the PAP was a member of the Socialist International and still claimed to be a socialist party, pointing out its regulation of the private sector, state intervention in the economy and social policies as evidence of this. The prime minister Lee Kuan Yew also stated that he has been influenced by the democratic socialist British Labour Party.


title: Socialist economics

text: Singapore's economy is dominated by state-owned enterprises and government-linked companies through Temasek Holdings which generate 60% of Singapore's GDP. Temasek Holdings operates like any other company in a market economy. Managers of the holding are rewarded according to profits with the explicit intention to cultivate an ownership mindset. The state also provides substantial public housing, free education and health and recreational services as well as comprehensive public transportation. Today, Singapore is often characterized as having a state capitalist economy that combines economic planning with the free market. While government-linked companies generate a majority of Singapore's GDP, moderate state planning in the economy has been reduced in recent decades. Nonetheless, while being the most right-wing of the Singaporean parties, the PAP has been described as centre-left and adopted a left tack in certain areas in order to remain electorally dominant.


title: Socialist economics

text: Taiwan's economy has been classified as a state capitalist system influenced by its Leninist model of political control, with some Taiwanese economists referring to Taiwan's economy model as party-state capitalism, a legacy which still lingers in the decision-making process. Taiwan's economy includes a number of state-owned enterprises, but the Taiwanese state's role in the economy shifted from that of an entrepreneur to a minority investor in companies alongside the democratization agenda of the late 1980s.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Paris Commune was considered to be a prototype mode of economic and political organization for a future socialist society by Karl Marx. Private property in the means of production was abolished so that individuals and co-operative associations of producers owned productive property and introduced democratic measures where elected officials received no more in compensation than the average worker and could be recalled at any time. Anarchists also participated actively in the establishment of the Paris Commune. George Woodcock manifests that "a notable contribution to the activities of the Commune and particularly to the organization of public services was made by members of various anarchist factions, including the mutualists Courbet, Longuet, and Vermorel, the libertarian collectivists Varlin, Malon, and Lefrangais, and the bakuninists Elie and Elisée Reclus and Louise Michel".


title: Socialist economics

text: Various forms of socialist organization based on co-operative decision making, workplace democracy and in some cases, production directly for use, have existed within the broader context of the capitalist mode of production since the Paris Commune. New forms of socialist institutional arrangements began to take form at the end of the 20th century with the advancement and proliferation of the internet and other tools that allow for collaborative decision-making.


title: Socialist economics

text: Michel Bauwens identifies the emergence of the open software movement and peer-to-peer production as an emergent alternative mode of production to the capitalist economy that is based on collaborative self-management, common ownership of resources, and the (direct) production of use-values through the free cooperation of producers who have access to distributed capital.


title: Socialist economics

text: Commons-based peer production generally involves developers who produce goods and services with no aim to profit directly, but freely contribute to a project relying upon an open common pool of resources and software code. In both cases, production is carried out directly for use—software is produced solely for their use-value. Wikipedia, being based on collaboration and cooperation and a freely associated individuals, has been cited as a template for how socialism might operate. This is a modern example of what the Paris Commune—a template for possible future organization—was to Marx in his time.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia pursued a socialist economy based on autogestion or worker self-management. Rather than implementing a centrally planned economy, Yugoslavia developed a market socialist system where enterprises and firms were socially owned rather than publicly owned by the state. In these organizations, the management was elected directly by the workers in each firm, and were later organized according to Edvard Kardelj's theory of associated labor.


title: Socialist economics

text: The Mondragon Corporation, a federation of cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain, organizes itself as an employee-owned, employee-managed enterprise. Similar styles of decentralized management which embrace cooperation and collaboration in place of traditional hierarchical management structures have been adopted by various private corporations such as Cisco Systems. Unlike Mondragon, Cisco remains firmly under private ownership. More fundamentally, employee-owned, self-managed enterprises still operate within the broader context of capitalism and are subject to the accumulation of capital and profit-loss mechanism.


title: Socialist economics

text: In Spain, the national anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo initially refused to join a popular front electoral alliance and abstention by CNT supporters led to a right wing election victory. In 1936, the CNT changed its policy and anarchist votes helped bring the popular front back to power. Months later, the former ruling class responded with an attempted coup causing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain where they collectivised the land.


title: Socialist economics

text: Even before the fascist victory in 1939, the anarchists were losing ground in a bitter struggle with the Stalinists, who controlled the distribution of military aid to the Republican cause from the Soviet Union. The events known as the Spanish Revolution was a workers' social revolution that began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and more broadly libertarian socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of the Levante. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control and in anarchist strongholds such as Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%, although it was lower in areas with heavy Communist Party of Spain influence as the Soviet-allied party actively resisted attempts at collectivization enactment. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivised and run as libertarian communes. Anarchist historian Sam Dolgoff estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution which he claimed "came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history".


title: Socialist economics

text: Criticism of socialist economics comes from market economists such as the classicals, neoclassicals and Austrians as well as from some anarchist economists. Besides this, some socialist economic theories are criticized by other socialists. Libertarian socialist, mutualist and other market socialist economists criticize centralized economic planning and propose participatory economics and decentralized socialism.


title: Socialist economics

text: Market economists generally criticize socialism for eliminating the free market and its price signals which they consider necessary for rational economic calculation. They also consider that it causes a lack of incentive and believe that these problems lead to a slower rate of technological advance and a slower rate of growth of GDP.


title: Socialist economics

text: Austrian School economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises have argued that the elimination of private ownership of the means of production would inevitably create worse economic conditions for the general populace than those that would be found in market economies. They argue that without the price signals of the market it is impossible to calculate rationally how to allocate resources. Mises called this the economic calculation problem. Polish economist Oskar Lange and Abba Lerner responded to Mises' argument by developing the Lange Model during the economic calculation debate. The Lange model argues that an economy in which all production is performed by the state, where there is a functioning price mechanism, has similar properties to a market economy under perfect competition in that it achieves Pareto efficiency.


title: Socialist economics

text: The neoclassical view is that there is a lack of incentive, not a lack of information in a planned economy. They argue that within a socialist planned economy there is a lack of incentive to act on information. Therefore, the crucial missing element is not so much information as the Austrian School argued as it is the motivation to act on information.


title: Snakebite (drink)

text: A snakebite is an alcoholic drink from the United Kingdom. Traditionally, it is made with equal parts lager and cider. If a dash of blackcurrant cordial is added, it is known as a "snakebite & black" or a "diesel". Different regional recipes and names exist. It was first popularized in the UK in the 1980s.


title: Snakebite (drink)

text: A snakebite is typically served in a pint glass. Serving a snakebite from separate cider and lager taps or bottles is legal in the UK, despite sources that suggest otherwise. In 2001, former US President Bill Clinton was refused a snakebite when he ordered one at the Old Bell Tavern in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, with pub manager Jamie Allen incorrectly saying "It's illegal to serve it here in the UK."


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: The Nylon Curtain is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released on September 23, 1982, and produced by Phil Ramone.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: "The Nylon Curtain" peaked at on the "Billboard" albums chart, with two million sales in the U.S. It was one of the first albums to be digitally recorded, mixed, and mastered.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: The album is among Joel's most ambitious efforts, and Joel has openly acknowledged that it is one of his personal favorites, calling it "the recording I'm most proud of and the material I'm most proud of." When he recorded the album, he said in an interview that he wanted to "create a sonic masterpiece." Joel spent more time in the studio, crafting the sound of the album, than he had on any previous album. He said that the process of making the album was "exhausting." Critics have interpreted the album to be, in part, an homage to the music of The Beatles and the then-recently deceased John Lennon.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: Saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Richie Cannata left the band prior to recording, so Joel, bassist Doug Stegmeyer, drummer Liberty DeVitto and guitarists David Brown and Russell Javors recorded the album mostly by themselves, thus making it Joel's first album since "Streetlife Serenade" not to feature a regular saxophonist, although Eddie Daniels plays saxophone on the closing track "Where's the Orchestra?" alongside Charles McCracken on cello and Dominic Cortese on accordion. Saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Rivera, formerly of the band Tycoon, joined the band to replace Cannata for the Nylon Curtain Tour and he remains with the band to this day.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: Regarding the album's themes, Joel has stated "It was during the Reagan years, and the diminishing horizons in America at the time [meant that] all of a sudden you weren't going to be able to inherit [the kind of life] your old man had." This pessimism about the American dream, in Joel's view, permeates most of the songs on the album. Joel also said that the theme of the album was "an American dilemma, specifically of people born after World War II." He said that although he doesn't provide solutions to the dilemma, he "hope[d] the record speaks like someone in that age group, if only just to tie us all together as people, as an entity."


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: The song "Allentown," which brought attention to the plight of America's declining steel industry, spent an unprecedented six weeks at No. 17 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in early 1983.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: Pop-culture journalist Chuck Klosterman praised songs from the album, specifically "Laura" and "Where's the Orchestra?", in his book "".


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: Joel stated in an interview that most of the songs on the album were written in the same sequence in which they appear on the album. The album's production schedule was slightly thrown off near the end of production due to Joel himself getting into a motorcycle accident.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: The album opens with "Allentown", which despite the name is actually about the nearby town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Bethlehem, largely based in the production of steel for automobiles, was experiencing economic difficulties in the midst of the early 1980s recession which impacted the steel industry. Joel wrote the melody for "Allentown" eight years before finishing it, later completing the lyrics in time for inclusion on "The Nylon Curtain". According to Joel, the titular character from the song "Laura" was supposed to represent anyone who knows how to "push your buttons" and make you feel guilty. He also explained that the character, despite having the female-oriented name "Laura", could represent anybody, regardless of sex. "Pressure" is about reaching a certain age and realizing the real-life responsibilities one has to deal with. The song was recorded with eight different overdubbed synthesizer tracks, as well as a segment with four people playing the mandolin. The closing song to Side A, "Goodnight Saigon", is about American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War, and was written by Joel at the request of his veteran peers who fought during the war. Joel wanted to avoid creating a political song that took sides, instead opting to describe things entirely from the soldiers' point-of-view in the midst of the action. Although Joel never fought as a soldier in Vietnam (Joel explained in an interview that he was a draft dodger during the time of the war), he had several peers at the time who did, some of whom never returned, and received input from many of his friends who had served in the army in order to accurately depict what it was like being stationed in Vietnam. The song opens and closes with the sound of the rotors spinning on a Bell UH-1 Iroquois (or "Huey"), a military helicopter which was heavily used during the Vietnam War.


title: The Nylon Curtain

text: The B-side of "The Nylon Curtain" opens with "She's Right On Time", an uplifting love song, to contrast with the more serious tone of the preceding "Goodnight Saigon." The song details the anticipated reunion between two lovers, told from the point-of-view of the man in the relationship waiting for the woman to arrive. Since the song was written by Joel around Christmas time, the preparation of a Christmas tree was used as an analogy throughout the song. "A Room Of Our Own" thematically opposes "She's Right On Time", detailing a couple who needs time away from each other; the song lays out numerous differences between the two. The song "Surprises", described by Joel as a "grand metaphysical statement", is about how one shouldn't be surprised by their inability to control things, though the song is open to several different interpretations according to Joel. The first three songs on side B all display a relationship theme. “She’s Right On Time” describing the reunion, “A Room Of Our Own” describing the decline as the lovers drift apart, and “Surprises” with the inevitable separation. "Scandinavian Skies", which prominently features string parts inspired by the songs "I Am The Walrus" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles, was inspired by a horrifying drug experience Joel went through during a flight trip. The closing song, "Where's The Orchestra?", is about a man who goes to see a live play expecting a musical, only to realize that it's a regular stage show; according to Joel, this is a metaphor for life, specifically the realization that it's not as grand and over-the-top as it is sometimes made out to be. Joel tried to make the song feel reminiscent of musical plays. In the studio recording, Joel's vocals play from the left speaker channel, whereas the orchestral backing is in the right speaker channel, to emulate a man sitting in a theater seat and watching a play. The song closes by reprising the melody of "Allentown", thus bringing the album full-circle.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: Death of a Bachelor is the fifth studio album by Panic! at the Disco, and their first as a solo project, released January 15, 2016 on Fueled by Ramen and DCD2. It is the follow-up to the band's fourth studio album, "Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!" (2013), with the entire album written and recorded by vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Brendon Urie, who collaborated with other writers including Jake Sinclair, Morgan Kibby, Lolo, and Sam Hollander. It is the band's first album to not feature drummer Spencer Smith and also follows bassist Dallon Weekes' departure from the official line-up, subsequently becoming a touring member once again.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: "Death of a Bachelor" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, with 190,000 album units, earning the band its best sales week and first number one album. The album has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of at least 2,000,000 copies. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: In an interview with "Entertainment Tonight", Urie stated that "Death of a Bachelor" was lyrically inspired by his wife Sarah Urie and his lifestyle, stating: "This whole album was written at my house where she and I live and it reflects very much the lifestyle I was living [while writing it], which is so different from who I used to be." In an interview with Alt 98.7 mid-2015, he had to say about the album: "It's going to be a little bit different, it's this mix between Sinatra and Queen, if that makes any sense...Every time we do a new album, for me, it's always evolving and changing—in the best way. There's going to be a new energy live."


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: In April 2015, Urie began recording "Death of a Bachelor". A small studio had been built and a piano was bought specifically for the album's production. Production was handled by Jake Sinclair and Urie. Sinclair, who is a friend of Urie's, helped him view the music in "different ways". Urie said he "loved" working in the studio, often running between that and the piano. He played every instrument minus the horns, which he also "love[d]". His views had "all changed from ["Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!"]", having "different things" he wanted to discuss.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: On October 22, 2015, Brendon Urie released a statement through the band's Facebook page on the background of the album:


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: On January 6, 2016, in an interview with "Mixdown" magazine, Urie commented on bassist Dallon Weekes' move from the official lineup.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: Urie also stated in an interview with "Upset" magazine that he feels that the song is "very jazzy, very Sinatra esque.. but then put it with this beat that sounds like Beyoncé's Drunk in Love". The song is also where Urie got the album title from.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: Only one song was cut from the album, "Night Birds" described as a "...Driving arena-rocker with a flashy guitar solo". Urie described the song as "A little too early Butch Walker, but definitely not as good" in an interview with Alternative Press.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: "Hallelujah" was released as the lead single on April 20, 2015, and serviced to alternative radio. A lyric video was uploaded on the same day and the official music video premiered on July 7, 2015. "Death of a Bachelor" was premiered on Beats 1 on Apple Music by Pete Wentz on September 1, 2015. "Victorious", co-written and produced by CJ Baran, was released for digital download on September 29, 2015, as the second single from the album "Emperor's New Clothes" and its music video was released for digital download on October 21, 2015, as the third official single to coincide with the album's announcement.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: The official music video for "Death of a Bachelor" was released on YouTube on December 24, 2015. On December 31, 2015, the band made "Don't Threaten Me with a Good Time" available for streaming. On January 15, 2016, the band premiered the rest of its tracks on its YouTube channel at the same time the album was released. The band went on the Weezer & Panic! at the Disco Summer Tour 2016 with Weezer to promote both of their new albums. On September 22, 2016, the official music video for LA Devotee was released on the band's YouTube channel to coincide with the announcement of the Death of a Bachelor Tour.


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: "Death of a Bachelor" received generally positive reviews from music critics. It holds an average score of 69/100 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews." In a positive review, "The New York Times" commented on the album's second single, "Victorious", writing that "[Urie] evokes both the flamboyant swagger of Queen and the mechanized gleam of Daft Punk". Evan Lucy in "Alternative Press" writing, "For all of its precocious, borderline bratty moments, "Death of a Bachelor" is a remarkably nuanced affair...it's hard not to break out in goosebumps and marvel at the moving songwriting."


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: Conversely, "The Guardian" called the album "hollow and shapeless", also stating that "Urie affects a Vegas croon, indicating a desire to reinvent himself as an edgy Michael Bublé", and how "it's unlikely to pay off". "Q" wrote, "It's a confusing affair, where [Urie] foolishly tries to croon like Frank Sinatra on the title track and never quite nails down whatever the big idea was supposed to be. Still, there are moments to cherish." AbsolutePunk writer Aaron Mook scored the album a 6/10, noting, "It's been a while since I've heard an album that's so divisive in its quality, so manic on one end and so lazy on the other." "Consequence of Sound" panned the songs "Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time" and "Crazy=Genius", stating that "['Don't Threaten Me With a Good Time'] lazily squashes together a sample of the B-52s' "Rock Lobster" with lackluster lyrics ("Who are these people/ I just woke up in my underwear") out of tune with their surroundings" and that "'Crazy=Genius'...only serves to remind of how many days have gone by and stand in the way of any musical progress".


title: Death of a Bachelor

text: The album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200, with 190,000 album-equivalent units. It also earned Panic! at the Disco its best sales week yet for an album, as it sold 169,000 in pure album sales. In its second week, the album fell to number 5 on the "Billboard" 200 while selling 39,000 equivalent album units (down 79 percent). It was the twelfth best-selling album of 2016 with 506,000 copies sold, which also made it the second best selling rock album of 2016. Including streams and tracks sales, the album has totaled 845,000 units in the United States in 2016. The album was also certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over two million units in the United States.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Island. Its main campus is located in the village of Kingston in southern Rhode Island. Satellite campuses include the Feinstein Campus in Downtown Providence, the Rhode Island Nursing Education Center in Providence's Jewelry District, the Narragansett Bay Campus in Narragansett, and the W. Alton Jones Campus in West Greenwich.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: The university offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees in 80 undergraduate and 49 graduate areas of study through nine academic schools and colleges. These schools and colleges include Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Professional Studies, Engineering, Health Sciences, Environment and Life Sciences, Nursing, Pharmacy and Oceanography. Another college, University College for Academic Success, serves primarily as an advising college for all incoming undergraduates and follows them through their first two years of enrollment at URI. The university is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". As of 2019, the URI enrolled 14,653 undergraduate students, 1,982 graduate students, and 1,339 non-degree students, making it the largest university in the state.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: The University of Rhode Island was first chartered as the Rhode Island State Agricultural School, associated with the state agricultural experiment station, in 1888. The site of the school was originally the Oliver Watson Farm in Kingston, whose original farmhouse is now a small museum. In 1892, the school was reorganized as the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. That year, it extended courses of study from two years to four years; URI reckons 1892 as its founding date. The first class had only seventeen students, each completing their course of study in two years. In 1909, the school's name was again changed to Rhode Island State College as the school's programs were expanded beyond its original agricultural education mandate.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: In 1951 the school was given its current title through an act of the General Assembly following the addition of the College of Arts and Sciences and the offering of doctoral degrees. The Board of Governors for Higher Education, appointed by the governor, became the governing body of the university in 1981 during the presidency of Frank Newman (1974–1983). The Board of Governors was replaced by the Rhode Island Board of Education in 2013, and by a 17-member Board of Trustees in 2019.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: In 2013 the faculty adopted an open-access policy to make its scholarship publicly accessible online.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: Twelve individuals have served as president, and three others have served as acting president of the University of Rhode Island. Marc B. Parlange is the current president, having served since August 2021.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: URI's main campus is located in northern South Kingstown, and is accessed via Rhode Island Route 138 from either the west (Interstate 95) or east (United States Route 1). The campus was mostly farmland when it was purchased by the state in 1888, and still includes the c. 1796 Oliver Watson Farmhouse. The early buildings of the campus are set around its main quadrangle, and were built out of locally quarried granite. The campus master plan was developed by the noted landscape architects Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot in the 1890s. The central portion of the campus, where most of its pre-1950 buildings are located, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: URI is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. The student-faculty ratio at University of Rhode Island is 16:1, and the school has 43.1% of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at University of Rhode Island include: Registered Nursing/Registered Nurse; Psychology, General; Speech Communication and Rhetoric; Kinesiology and Exercise Science; and Health-Related Knowledge and Skills, Other. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 84%.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: "U.S. News & World Report" ranks URI tied for 170th overall among 389 "national universities" and tied for 83rd out of 209 "top public schools" in 2021.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: "Academic Ranking of World Universities" ranks URI for 51-75 globally for <nowiki>"</nowiki>Oceanography<nowiki>"</nowiki> in 2021.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: The average incoming freshman at the Kingston campus for the fall of 2017 had a GPA of 3.54 and an SAT score of 1178 (out of 1600) (with ACT scores converted to SAT scale).


title: University of Rhode Island

text: URI has 18 club sports teams consisting of around 600 athletes. Club sports the school offers include soccer, tennis, equestrian, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, field hockey, wrestling, crew, gymnastics, lacrosse and sailing, amongst others. These teams travel and compete against other intercollegiate programs in the country. URI also has 20+ intramural sports, including volleyball, badminton, dodgeball, and soccer. The intramural sports allow students to compete in tournaments and games with other students on campus.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: URI also has over 300 student organizations and clubs. The university's student newspaper, "The Good Five Cent Cigar", was founded in 1971. It is also home to several Greek-lettered organizations.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: The University of Rhode Island competes in 16 intercollegiate sports. The university is a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference and the Colonial Athletic Association in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: The Rhode Island Rams men's basketball competes in the Atlantic 10 Conference, and has appeared in the NCAA "March Madness” Tournament a total of 10 times since its first appearance in 1961. Two of these ten appearances occurred during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: Athletic facilities include the Ryan Center, Keaney Gymnasium, Meade Stadium, Mackal Field House, Tootell Aquatic Center, Bradford R. Boss Arena, URI Soccer Complex, Bill Beck Field, and URI Softball Complex.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: While 5600 students live in the 25 on campus residence halls, thousands more opt to commute from the surrounding area. Narragansett, an abutting town to Kingston, is made up of hundreds of summer vacation homes which are rented to students for the academic year.


title: University of Rhode Island

text: Notable University of Rhode Island alumni in politics and government include Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (B.Sc. 1981), 38th mayor of Providence Jorge Elorza (B.Sc. 1998), and governors of Rhode Island Lincoln Almond (B.Sc. 1959) and J. Joseph Garrahy (1953).


title: University of Rhode Island

text: Notable graduates in journalism and media include CNN correspondent John King (B.A. 1985), CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour (B.A. 1983), and CBS correspondent Vladimir Duthiers (B.A. 1991).


title: University of Rhode Island

text: Among URI's alumni in the arts and entertainment are actors J. T. Walsh, Peter Frechette (B.F.A.), Amanda Clayton, and Andrew Burnap (recipient of the 2020 Tony Award- Best Actor in a Play, The Inheritance.)


title: University of Rhode Island

text: Notable graduates in business and finance include billionaire Ben Navarro (B.Sc. 1984); former president of American Airlines, Robert Crandall (1960); and former CEO of CVS, Thomas Ryan (1975).


title: Women in space

text: Women have flown and worked in outer space since almost the beginning of human spaceflight. A considerable number of women from a range of countries have worked in space, though overall women are still significantly less often chosen to go to space than men, and by 2020 constitute only 10% of all astronauts who have been to space.


title: Women in space

text: The first woman to fly in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, aboard the Vostok 6 space capsule on June 16-19, 1963. Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker, rather than a pilot like the male cosmonauts flying at the time, chosen for propaganda value, her devotion to the Communist Party, and her years of experience in sport parachuting, which she used on landing after ejecting from her capsule. Women were not qualified as space pilots and workers co-equal to their male counterparts until 1982. By October 2021, most of the 70 women who have been to space have been United States citizens, with missions on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station. Other countries (USSR, Canada, Japan, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, South Korea, Italy) have flown one or two women in human spaceflight programs. Additionally one woman of dual Iranian-US citizenship has participated as a tourist on a US spaceflight.


title: Women in space

text: Women face many of the same physical and psychological difficulties of spaceflight as men. Scientific studies generally show no particular adverse effect from short space missions. It has even been concluded that women might be better suited for longer space missions. Studies have continually indicated that the main obstacle for women to go to space remains gender discrimination.


title: Women in space

text: In the competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States known as the Space Race, both nations chose their first space pilots (known as cosmonauts in the USSR and astronauts in the US) in the late 1950s and early 1960s from the ranks of their military high-speed jet test pilots, who were exclusively men.


title: Women in space

text: In 1959 a group of thirteen female US pilots, dubbed by the American press as the "Mercury 13", wanted the chance to become astronauts and took and passed the health screening tests as the men, supervised by NASA staff. This was funded privately (e.g. by aviation pioneer Jacqueline Cochran) and not by the government; the idea of female astronauts faced a great deal of resistance in the military command and NASA, leaving these women no chance of becoming astronauts. Jerrie Cobb of the "Mercury 13" became a consultant to NASA in 1961 and testified before Congress in July 1962 about the "Mercury 13"'s positive medical results and gender discrimination.


title: Women in space

text: Meanwhile, the USSR's director of cosmonaut training, Nikolai Kamanin, lobbied for having women as cosmonauts, after being inspired in 1961 by repeated questions from the foreign press about women in space. Subsequently Kamanin crucially gained space program leader Sergey Korolev as a supporter, getting approval six months later for women cosmonauts. During a visit to the US in 1962 Kamanin got to know Jerrie Cobb of the then rejected "Mercury 13". At one point Kamanin noted in his diary, "We cannot allow that the first woman in space will be American. This would be an insult to the patriotic feelings of Soviet women." To increase the odds of sending a Soviet woman into space first, the women cosmonauts began their training before the men.


title: Women in space

text: The Soviet government really had no interest in using women as cosmonaut pilots, but Premier Nikita Khrushchev was extremely interested in the propaganda value of proving Soviet superiority over the US in women's equality. The first woman to fly in space was Valentina Tereshkova, a textile factory worker who was a staunch Communist Party supporter, the daughter of a collective farm worker who died in the Soviet-Finnish War. She also was an avid amateur parachutist, which gave her an advantage on the Earth landing which was made outside the Vostok capsules. Kamanin framed her as "Gagarin in a skirt". Tereshkova flew aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, completing a 70.8 hour flight making a total of 48 orbits before returning to Earth. Kamanin hoped to fly two other women on the Voskhod 3 and 4 flights, despite the opposition of Yuri Gagarin and the other male cosmonauts. These plans were canceled in 1965, leaving the women with Soviet Air Force officer commissions.


title: Women in space

text: Five months after her flight, Tereshkova married Vostok 3 cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev on November 3, 1963 at the Moscow Wedding Palace, with Khrushchev presiding at the wedding party together with top government and space program leaders. Kamanin described the marriage as "probably useful for politics and science". On 8 June 1964, nearly one year after her space flight, she gave birth to their daughter Elena Andrianovna Nikolaeva-Tereshkova, the first person with a mother and father who had both traveled into space.


title: Women in space

text: The American Apollo program to land a man on the Moon included only male astronauts. Neither the USSR nor US launched another woman into space until women were admitted to the astronaut and cosmonaut corps in the 1980s.


title: Women in space

text: By 1976, Actor Nichelle Nichols, who played Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek franchise, was using her public standing to speak against the exclusion of women and people of color from the US human spaceflight program. NASA decided that their next group of astronaut recruits would include women and people of color, and employed Nichols to assist in finding candidates. One of the recruits was mission specialist Sally Ride, who in 1983 became the first US woman to fly in space, in the seventh Space Shuttle mission., and the third woman to fly in space. Since then more than 50 of the several hundred American astronauts who have entered space have been women. Most served on the various Space Shuttle flights from 1983 to 2011.


title: Women in space

text: On January 16, 1978, NASA announced the selection of its eighth group of astronaut candidates, which included the first women, six Mission specialists (not pilots): Anna L. Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Judith A. Resnik, Sally K. Ride, Margaret Rhea Seddon, and Kathryn D. Sullivan. All flew is space at least once; Ride became the first in June 1983 on Space Shuttle mission STS-7.


title: Women in space

text: NASA's first female pilot was Eileen Collins from group 13, who first flew in February 1995 on STS-63 and became the first female US mission commander in July 1999 on STS-93.


title: Women in space

text: The first US woman to perform Extravehicular activity (EVA) was Kathryn D. Sullivan on the STS-41-G, which launched on October 11, 1984. Mae Jemison became the first woman of color in space in 1992. The first woman on an ISS expedition crew was Susan Helms on Expedition 2, which lasted from March 2001 until August 2001.


title: Women in space

text: In 2007 Peggy Whitson became the first woman to command the International Space Station. In October 2009, Whitson became NASA's first female Chief of the Astronaut Office, but retired from this post to return to active service in July 2012.


title: Women in space

text: The 2013 NASA Astronaut Group 21 was the first astronaut class with an equal amount of women, with the subsequent and current Group 22 having a lower number again.


title: Women in space

text: On October 18, 2019, the first all female spacewalk was conducted by Jessica Meir and Christina Koch.


title: Women in space

text: Despite this, women still represent only about 10% of all people who have gone to space, being less chosen and enabled.


title: Women in space

text: Only 12 humans, all men, have ever walked on the Moon; all human Moon missions were part of the U.S. Apollo program between 1969 and 1972. No woman has ever walked on the Moon. In 2020, NASA's communication director reported that NASA planned to land astronauts on the Moon, including possibly a woman astronaut or astronauts, as part of the U.S. Artemis program. Of the 18 candidates in the Artemis program, nine are women: Nicole Aunapu Mann, Kayla Barron, Christina Koch, Kate Rubins, Stephanie Wilson, Jessica Meir, Jasmin Moghbeli, Anne McClain and Jessica Watkins. No astronaut has yet been assigned to any specific Artemis mission.


title: Women in space

text: In 1978 Tereshkova and Tatyana Kuznetsova pushed for a new cosmonaut program for women. The USSR chose its first cosmonaut group to include nine women in addition to four men, in July 1980. The women were: Svetlana Savitskaya, Galina Amelkina, Yelena Dobrokvashina, Larisa Pozharskaya, Tamara Zakharova, Yekaterina Ivanova, Natalya Kuleshova, Irina Pronina, and Irina Latysheva.


title: Women in space

text: Savitskaya was the only test pilot among the nine women, and the daughter of Yevgeny Savitsky, a highly decorated World War II fighter pilot and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Defense Forces. She first flew as a research cosmonaut aboard the Soyuz T-7 to the space station Salyut 7 in August 1982 and became the first woman to walk in space (extravehicular activity, EVA) outside the Salyut 7 space station on that mission.


title: Women in space

text: After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Soviet space program was inherited by the Roscosmos state corporation, and has hosted two women. Originally chosen as cosmonaut during Soviet times, Yelena V. Kondakova became the first woman cosmonaut for the Russian Federation in 1994, and the first woman to travel for both the Soyuz program and on the Space Shuttle. Twenty years later, Yelena Serova became the first Russian woman cosmonaut to visit the International Space Station on September 26, 2014.


title: Women in space

text: Russia’s only current woman cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, was admitted to the Russian cosmonaut corps in 2012. In 2019 Roscosmos announced changes to their space suits to accommodate women and announced in 2020 that Kikina was selected for a flight to the International Space Station in 2022.


title: Women in space

text: NASA announced a Teacher in Space Project (TISP) in 1984, to send teachers aboard the Space Shuttle as payload specialists to inspire interest in space exploration in school children. The first participant, Christa McAuliffe, along with mission specialist Judith Resnik, became the first women to die on a space mission when the Space Shuttle "Challenger" exploded on January 28, 1986, less than two minutes after launch, along with all hands. This led to the cancelation of TISP in 1990 and its replacement with the Educator Astronaut Project in 1998.


title: Women in space

text: In February 2003, mission specialists Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark were killed on re-entry in the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster.


title: Women in space

text: Roberta Bondar was the first Canadian woman to fly in space, on the Space Shuttle "Discovery" in January 1992.


title: Women in space

text: The second Canadian woman astronaut is Julie Payette from Montreal. Payette was part of the crew of STS-96, on the Space Shuttle "Discovery" from May 27 to June 6, 1999. During the mission, the crew performed the first manual docking of the Shuttle to the International Space Station, and delivered four tons of logistics and supplies to the station. On "Endeavour" in 2009 for STS-127, Payette served as a mission specialist. Her main responsibility was to operate the Canadarm robotic arm from the space station. Payette was sworn in as the 29th Governor-General of Canada on October 2, 2017.


title: Women in space

text: In July 2017, Dr. Jennifer Sidey-Gibbons was selected by the Canadian Space Agency to receive astronaut training at Johnson Space Center. She completed the two-year Astronaut Candidate Training Program and obtained the official title of astronaut in January 2020.


title: Women in space

text: In 1985, Chiaki Mukai was selected as one of three Japanese Payload Specialist candidates for the First Material Processing Test (Spacelab-J) that flew aboard STS-47 in 1992. She also served as a back-up payload specialist for the Neurolab (STS-90) mission. Mukai has logged over 566 hours in space. She flew aboard STS-65 in 1994 and STS-95 in 1998. She is the first Japanese and Asian woman to fly in space, and the first Japanese citizen to fly twice.


title: Women in space

text: Naoko Yamazaki became the second Japanese woman to fly into space with her launch on April 5, 2010. Yamazaki entered space on the shuttle "Discovery" as part of mission STS-131. She returned to Earth on April 20, 2010. Yamazaki worked on ISS hardware development projects in the 1990s. She is an aerospace engineer and also holds a master's degree in that field. She was selected for astronaut training in 1999 and was certified by 2001. She was a mission specialist on her 2010 space shuttle flight, and spent 362 hours in space. Yamazaki worked on robotics and transitioned through the reorganization of Japanese spaceflight organization in 2003 when NASDA (National Space Development Agency) merged with ISAS (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science) and NAL (National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan). The new organization was called JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).


title: Women in space

text: The first Western European woman and British citizen flying to space was Helen Sharman in 1991, but she was not sent by a state funded human spaceflight program, but as privately funded space flight participant of the Project Juno on a Soviet mission.


title: Women in space

text: The first Western European and French woman sent by a state space agency CNES and ESA was Claudie Haigneré in 1996. Since then the only other woman sent by a European agency ASI and ESA has been Italian Samantha Cristoforetti launched on Soyuz TMA-15M in November 2014.


title: Women in space

text: The 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group has specifically invited women to join. They also extended the first invitation to people with disabilities ("parastronauts") to apply for the group.


title: Women in space

text: In 2012, the Chinese space program sent their first woman Liu Yang to space aboard Shenzhou 9 to dock with Tiangong-1.