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the society of the direct manuał and intellectual workers, and the treatment of human work as labor hired by the State, al-though the economic processes are no longer based on private, capitalist property«.¹⁰

If what has been said above is true, including the ąuoted text, then the conclusion based on the reasoning of Branko Horvat, another economist, would be that unsolved problems in the sphere of work and the position of workers ąuestion the socialist character of the system:¹¹

»If man’s working activity is the essence of his existence as a man, then the monopoly over the conditions of work represents a necessary and sufficient basis of class diffentiation«.

Ali studies confirm the notion that social differentiation has become morę intensive in this country in the recent years, and that there is an active process of segregation of social strata. (Residential area increas-ingly begins to reflect social prestige in this country too: through dif-ferentiated housing development plans, at the expense of all members of the society, areas for the privileged are created, as well as those for the underprivileged.¹² Different criteria for the evaluation of the standard of living are advocated by implicitly allowing the utilization of social means in order to satisfy the increased needs of certain strata with »higher needs« on one hand, while simultaneously the very standard of living of the working class is justified by claiming that there is a lack of social means necessary to solve the workers’ element-ary problems efficiently, although they often live under conditions bordering with the minimum necessary for existence). In this way, the working class continues to have the status of a dependent labor force for hire, »still for sale not only in this country, but also abroad«. Un-employment, the omnipresent companion of hired labor, puts increas-ing pressure on the working class and maintains its dependent status by threatening it daily with increased insecurity.

Therefore, the problem does not only consist of the effects produced by the commodity market and the law of values;¹³ the related part of the problem is that concerned with the role in the Yugoslav system of the mechanisms which stem from the production of commodities, and the regulation of these mechanisms by the basie institutions of the

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¹⁰    I. Maksimović, Socijalizam i ckonomski probierni (Socialism and the economic and ethical problems). Filosofija, 4. 1967, p. 51

¹¹    B. Horvat, Oglcd o }ugoslovcnskom druslvu (Treatise on Yugoslav society). Zagreb: Mladost, 1969, p. 195.

¹²    S. Suvar, in his article *Urbanizacija, socijalna diferencijacija i socijalna se-gregacija u najem druśtvu« (Urbanization, social differentiation, and social segregation in our society), Lica, 7, 1971, emphasizes that »the present distribution of social wealth and power ... gives a deeply class character to urbanization in this

country* (p. 6).

«» Sce I. Maksimović, Op. cit„ M. Marković. .Ekonomizam iii humanizacija ekonomikę- (Economism or the humanization of economy). Filosofija. 4,1967, r. Cer-ne. »Protivrećnosti naieg druśtvcnog sistema u vrednosnoj procem- (Lontradictions

of our social system), Filosofija, 4. 1967, etc.

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