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Crime was allowed to hijack important parts of the post-communist economic agenda, such as the privatization of state assets. Kleptocracies subsumed the newborn states. Social safety nets crumbled.
Transition in Context By: Dr. Sam Vaknin Also Read Lessons in Transition Is Transition Possible? The Rip van Winkle Institutions The Author of this Article is a Racist The Eureka Connection Women in Transition: From Post Feminism to Past Femininity Axes to Grind The Taxonomy of Political Conflict The Solow Paradox Forward to the Past Capitalism in Post-Communist Europe
The order they sought to establish, propagate and perpetuate conflicted with basic human drives and desires. It failed and when it unravelled, it revealed a landscape of toxic devastation, frozen in time, an ossified natural order bereft of content and adherents. The post-communist countries have to pick up where it left them, centuries ago.
Consider central Europe's most advanced post-communist economy. One third of Hungary's GDP, one half of its industrial production, three quarters of industrial sales and nine tenths of its exports are generated by multinationals. Three quarters of the industrial sector is foreign-owned. One third of all foreign direct investment is German. France is the third largest investor.
Others in both Old Europe and its post-communist east harbor sizable and growing Islamic minorities. Waves of immigration and birth rates three times as high as the indigenous population increase their share of the population in virtually every European polity from Russia to Macedonia and from Bulgaria to Britain. One in seven Russians is Muslim over 20 million people.
As central Europe matures into fully functioning capitalistic liberal democracies, proper leftwing parties and their rightwing adversaries are bound to emerge. But this is still in the future. Forward to the Past Capitalism in Post-Communist Europe By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
They feed off market failures, market imbalances, arbitrage opportunities, shortages and inefficiencies. Many post-Communist countries have either made the provision of such services a part of their economic life or are about to do so. Free zones, off shore havens, off shore banking and transshipment ports proliferate, from Macedonia to Archangelsk.
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