bankrupt Yugoslavian enterprises

[Greg Nowell]

I read Chossudovsky's  post on the Serbian opposition
web site recently posted.  (
http://welcome.to/freeserbia )  My only comment is that
it makes much of IMF austerity and bankruptcy of
Yugoslavia.   What it does not say is that the fiscal
hemorraging of Yugoslavian enterprise was a chronic
problem and was written about even in books published
in the 1980s (such as the Cambridge History of the
Balkans).  The support for non-productive enterprise
was one of the "imperialist" features of the system
under Tito and immediately after his death, i.e., poor
areas paying to subsidize the maintenance of
unprofitable industry in richer areas.    Poor areas
also had some unprofitable enterprises, but apparently
felt that they the lion's share was sucked towards
Belgrade.  This was one of the durable fissures which
provided a political economic foundation to the ethnic
antagonism of pre-crackup Yugoslavia.  The IMF may have
made a bad situation worse, but that is somewhat
different from saying it made a good situation bad.
-gn.

--
Gregory P. Nowell
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Milne 100
State University of New York
135 Western Ave.
Albany, New York 12222

Fax 518-442-5298