comparative shockology

Russell Grinker grinker at mweb.co.za
Mon Aug 23 00:44:17 PDT 1999



>Does anyone know a good article about why shock treatment worked in Poland
>but not in Russia? I mean in the most basic sense -- Poland went through
>three horrible years, and then she came out of it with a functioning free
>market that produced things. Which Russia still doesn't seem to have.

I don't know a good article but I would think that the main reason was that the Poles didn't have to recreate the market from scratch. Market relations were never wholly destroyed in the way they were in the Soviet Union. This was particularly true in rural areas where the Stalinist regime pragmatically tolerated small scale production.

Russell



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list