I believe that in much of Eastern Europe (as well as in East Germany) the rise of populist parties and the decline of democracy is to a large extent due to the experiences the peoples of these countries made after the fall of communism. I am a free-market liberal and a strong believer in globalisation, but when the former Warsaw Pact countries became democracies, the West really screwed up. Based on an unfettered belief in free markets, deregulation and privatization, economic advisers to Eastern European governments (many of which were educated at the University of Chicago, by the way) advocated for a rapid transformation of these economies towards the Western model. Government-owned businesses were privatised, and the new owners did, what had to be done, namely drastically reduce the number of employees and improve productivity. The problem is that at the same time, the social safety nets of these countries were dismantled because they were deemed to be unaffordable and too generous to generate the right incentives for people to seek work.
Ostalgie
Ostalgie
Ostalgie
I believe that in much of Eastern Europe (as well as in East Germany) the rise of populist parties and the decline of democracy is to a large extent due to the experiences the peoples of these countries made after the fall of communism. I am a free-market liberal and a strong believer in globalisation, but when the former Warsaw Pact countries became democracies, the West really screwed up. Based on an unfettered belief in free markets, deregulation and privatization, economic advisers to Eastern European governments (many of which were educated at the University of Chicago, by the way) advocated for a rapid transformation of these economies towards the Western model. Government-owned businesses were privatised, and the new owners did, what had to be done, namely drastically reduce the number of employees and improve productivity. The problem is that at the same time, the social safety nets of these countries were dismantled because they were deemed to be unaffordable and too generous to generate the right incentives for people to seek work.