In the last two decades major measures have been instituted in an effort to orient the economic mechanism toward the continuous renovation of production and toward the acceleration of scientific-technical progress. The economic mechanism has for the most part been improved in two directions: (1) in encouraging enterprises and associations to couple all their economic production activity to the continuous renovation of production; and (2) in the gradual development of a relatively autonomous subsystem (within the economic mechanism) for the management of scientific-technical progress. The subsystem logically culminated in a cost-accounting system that organizes work on the development and introduction of new technology. In the process there was a clearly discernible striving to orient the economic mechanism not only toward the renovation of production as such but also toward its end result the maximum economic effect.' In this regard we deem it important to examine the question of whether technical progress is increasing the effectiveness of social production with due regard to all the measures that have been taken to improve the economic mechanism.
