Just before 1989 ended, Poland signed a $710 million economic agreement with the IMF, opening the door for more billions in Western funds for itself and the other restructuring economics of Eastern Europe. Under the pretext that, as the U.S. Agency for International Development recently stated,” an infusion of capital is needed to help the [restructuring countries] weather the storm as the system adapts to the new realities,” new financial agencies and development banks are mushrooming all over the West, often trying to outdo each other in generosity and goodwill.
Under the dubious assumption that socialism's days are numbered, the cry to funnel Western money eastward is getting louder with every new day, both in the East and the West. The latter (where too many businesses see this as an excellent opportunity to get rid of mounting surpluses) is obligingly responding with a new strategy to rescue inefficient socialism.
New strategy? Well, it is new if one conveniently forgets the 1970s. During that time, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Romania (yes, Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania) received, in total, more than $100 billion. The reason for this outpouring of goodwill (beyond the glut to petrodollars in Western banks) was a vague promise that these countries were on the way toward reforming their inefficient, centrally planned economies. Although for some time reform was discussed excitedly among Western intellectuals, especially the Yugoslav experiment in self-management and Hungary's goulash communism, the tinkering with market socialism soon ended in fiasco. Most of the 1980s had to be spent re-centralizing the decision-making process in those countries. (At the end of last year, according to the Wall Street Journal, seven East and Central European countries collectively owed the West $116.8 billion.)
Nevertheless, advocates of Western financial help insist that this time the situation differs totally from that in the 1970s. Because the governing communist parties are changing their names and expressing their willingness to compete with other political parties for power, while offering "radically" different approaches to healing their economies, real change is inevitable. Surely, argue proponents of Western aid, the new governments will decentralize economic decision-making, employ a free market framework, and leave their citizens alone to pursue their own happiness.
And it will follow that economic problems - such as shortages of basic foodstuffs, a lack of decent health care, un payable foreign debts, and total fiscal chaos - will evaporate, enabling these countries to become useful partners in world trade. With such a bright picture in mind, the advocates tell us, Western taxpayers ought to be prepared to sacrifice a few dollars more.
As one coming from one of the "reforming" countries and having been a part of the "reforms" there in the 1960s and 1970s, I hesitate to share that sudden outburst of Western optimism. Although I do see a slight difference from the 1970s (history never repeats itself completely), which makes a different outcome possible, I still think that these governments have a lot to prove before we should flood them with Western currencies again. The difference I see, though, is an important one: This time, most of the reforming countries are rich enough to finance their shift to a free-market economy. The question remains, Are they willing to do
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