[lbo-talk] RE: Soviet nomenklatura privileges

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Thu Jun 12 11:05:25 PDT 2003


http://hi.rutgers.edu/szelenyi60/rona-tas.html Path-Dependence and Capital Theory: Sociology of the Post-Communist Economic Transformation Ákos Róna-Tas University of California, San Diego
> ...Members of the nomenklatura used public enterprises for their private
> profit. They took advantage of the highly segregated markets of the late
> socialist economy and profited from brokering between segments. They
> mediated between domestic and foreign markets by exploiting the weakness
> and rigidity of socialist foreign trade. They acted as middlemen between
> isolated segments of the domestic market, selling state companies capital
> goods, such as computer equipment, available on the consumer market. In
> production, they spun off certain functions of state enterprises and
> created private companies. 24 These private companies took know-how,
> clients and even equipment from the state enterprises. In other cases,
> state enterprises were leased to nomenklatura members at favorable terms.
> The Communist Party and trade unions also grabbed property as
> organizations. 25 In most cases, private capital accumulation was
> facilitated by shifting costs to state enterprises and the state budget.
> The big winners of political capitalism were the nomenklatura, the old
> Communist leadership.

Staniszkis gave a detailed picture of the conversion of political to economic capital in the early years of the post-Communist transformation. What is less clear in her account is the extent to which political capitalism is a temporary phase that will pass once new property relations are established. In Poland, just as in most countries in East and Central Europe, the first incoming non-Communist political leadership made an effort to put a stop to these practices by establishing some central agency responsible for privatization.



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