Acta Oeconomica 45. (1993)
1993 / 1-2. szám - Szamuely László: Transition from State Socialism: Whereto and Hon? (Comments on the Inquiry Conducted by Acta Oeconomica)
2 L. SZAMUELY: TRANSITION FROM STATE SOCIALISM not valid, of course, for the waxring successor states of former Yugoslavia). Yet this is still not the end of the story. At the time of writing this article (in January 1993) we cannot but hope that the bottom of the trough will at last be reached this year—at least in Poland and Hungary; the situation in the recently separated territory of Czecho-Slovakia is at present unpredictable. The real dimensions of this economic disaster were already perceptible when the editors of Acta Oeconomica prepared a questionnaire that was sent out in the first quarter of 1992. Nevertheless, while formulating the two questions1 they apparently followed the then-prevailing neo-liberal approach to the problems of the transformation of the centrally planned economies (CPEs). According to this rather simplistic and reductionist view the essence of the transformation process is a systemic change (i.e. change-over to political democracy and market economy), and the whole mess will be cleared up when a proper set of institutional changes is introduced. So, the task is to find this set of measures and techniques and to implement them as quickly as possible. The present author has to admit that he refused to take part in the inquiry because he considered this approach to be futile in solving real problems that were already taking tragic proportions even at that time. Concerning the questionnaire itself, he thought that it was misleading and doing disservice to the international community of scholars who influence decision-makers both in the East and in the West. Having read the answers of respondents—that were published in the previous volume of Acta Oeconomica (Debate ...1992)—the author can now say that his misgivings have only been partly justified. They proved to be justified inasmuch as a great number of contributors also disagreed with the reductionist approach that inspired the inquiry. However, this fact also shows that the scholars and experts had learned a lot from the experience of the past two or three years. Thus a great many of them showed in their replies that they are not at all enthusiastic about the simplistic solutions suggested by the adherents of the neo-liberal school. In fact, the inquiry turned out to be useful because it has provided a variety of different but generally well-founded views, sharp-minded analyses, or simply guesses concerning the present developments or possible outcomes of transformation that is taking place on the ruins of the greatest—and bloodiest—socio-economic experiment in the history of mankind, which was called (rightly or wrongly) Socialism. This article is not going to summarize or evaluate the thirty different contributions. Its aim is simply to draw attention to some crucial issues of transformation of the former CPEs raised by the respondents to the Acta Oeconomica inquiry. The view expressed in the present article is strictly personal. The author, however, 1 1 “What do you regard as the main barriers of the transition to a market economy in the post-communist countries? 2. What measures and techniques do you suggest to accelerate the transition process?” Ada Oeconomica Jt5, 1993