AID pushes Bosnian bank to collapse

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Wed Aug 18 09:51:23 PDT 1999


At 10:56 AM 8/18/99 -0400, Doug Henwood quoted:
>U.S. officials have long complained that Bosnian corruption, combined
>with an unfavorable business and investment environment left over
>from Yugoslavia's communist past, has inhibited the foreign
>investment the country needs to recover from the war's damage. That
>assessment has not changed, senior officials said yesterday.
>

That sounds like scapegoating. the probloem is much more complicated and ceratinly not limited to Bosnia - it is prevalent in the entire Eastern Europe and was further exacerbated by the clumsiness of Western (especially American) aid policies; see Janine Wedel, _Collision and Collusion: The Starnge Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe 1989-1998_, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1998, which provides more details.

While American arrogance and ideological zeal were contributory factors, the main problem is the institutional culture that developed in that part of the world, and which state socialism unsuccessfully tried to change. It can be perhaps best summarized by the Russian word "boyarschina" (boyars were Rusian noblemen who enjoyed a great deal of political autonomy). The problem is that the latter days "boyars" - factory managers, local public offcials, ngo leaders treat their offices as private empires and fiercely resist any attempt of outside control (e.g. through central planning). The key to that autonomy is control of resources and information - and these have traditionally been the most fiercely fought battles between plant managers and central authorities under central planning (cf. George Feiwel, _The Economic of a Socialist Enterprise_ New York: Praeger, 1965; see also George Konrad and Ivan Szelenyi, _The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power_, New York: Haracourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979 and Michael Kennedy, _Professionals, Power and Solidarity in Poland_, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.)

Wheraass under central planning the middle layer managers and officials were lequired by law to provide all relevant information and routinely lied and colluded to avoid that responsibility -- the 1989 "reform" brought them a long awaited relief. With the abolition of central planning they can legally avoid disclosing anything. So the "velvet revolution" was a big win for the later days "boyars" (especially managers and intellectuals conncented to Western aid and NGOs) run their private empires any way they see it fit, with little puiblic oversights, and no rules of disclosure. Public information is a bad joke, and even tax exempt of publicly supported entities refuse to disclose any information about their operations and finances.

So what we see in Bosnia is "boyarschina" at its peak. The stupid Washington bureaucrats stepped into it without even knowing what animal they are facing, and in their usual combination of self-righteousness and stupidity - they now blame "communism" for it. Morons! Central planning was the best thing that happened in that part of the world since the beginning of history, because it systematically tried to break the backbone of "boyarschina" (which explains Stalin's treatment of the middle class) - too bad that it was back-stabbed by the class it created: intellectuals and managers.

wojtek



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list