With regard to Yugoslavia, market socialism, in combination with political decentralization (i.e. weakening the federal powers & augmenting the powers of the republics), basically laid the material foundations (i.e. centrifugal tendencies and entrenched regional interests) that the USA & European powers could exploit. Although autonomy was a Kosovo-Albanian demand, increasing autonomy certainly didn't improve their economic circumstances. In fact, the opposite may be true, especially in that richer republics like Slovenia didn't see the point in continuing to funnel federal aids to the depressed areas, thus further fueling separatist tendencies in Slovenia & Croatia. I think it's very difficult to reconcile the market (however socialized it may be) with the goal of decreasing economic disparities between richer & poorer regions.
Also, I venture to say that market socialism & political decentralization were not good for women in economically depressed areas such as Kosovo (and elsewhere in Yugoslavia). It is distressing to learn that, after _decades_ of socialism, the former Yugoslavia achieved _so little_ in helping Kosovo-Albanian women break free from the kind of oppression that can be called pre-modern. I think that decentralization strengthened the hands of patriarchs. (Not that Yugo communists were very feminist at the federal level, though.) In turn, the _low status of women_ in Kosovo (and Yugoslavia in general) helped _nationalist demagogues of all republics_.
That said, Doug says that the Diane Elson article on the socialized market (in New Left Review 172, Nov-Dec 1988), cited & criticized in the Radical Chains review of Bhaskar, is very persuasively argued. Have you read it? (I haven't.) I wonder Elson addresses the above questions in her article.
Yoshie