one a number of published and unpublished papers over the last few years the author has offered a series of similar but never identical sets of models which might be used to describe the Russian economy. 1 Here yet another similar but nevertheless different, and hopefully final, set is proposed. Whether or not a particular model is appropriate is determined both by which combination of policy-making actors dominate economic policy-making and the way in which they exercise that dominance. The definitionof the models is therefore based on political and administrative relation-ships between members of society, individual and collective, as they de-velop policies, procedures and practice for the allocation and exploitation of economic resources. Reality is probably some combination of models - a different one dominating at different times and in different parts of the economy. However, the author believes it both desirable and possible to decide which single model is generally dominant and defining, and will attempt to do so by the end of the book.