Accidental Occidental: Economics and Culture of Transition in Mitteleuropa, the Baltic and the Balkan Area

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ao Accidental Occidental Accidental Occidental Accidental Occidental Accidental Occidental Lajos Bokros Table of Contents About the Author Lajos Bokros Economics and Culture of Transition in Mitteleuropa, the Baltic and the Balkan Area Foreword Introduction Chapter 1. Communism as an Economic and Societal System in the Twentieth Century 1.1. The theoretical model of the command economy and society 1.2. The historical evolution of Soviet communism 1.3. Three basic models of communism in Central and Eastern Europe Chapter 2. Transition to Market and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe 2.1. The matrix of structural reforms in transition 2.2. Business sector liberalization 2.3. Macroeconomic stabilization 2.4. Competitive privatization 2.5. Public utility and financial sector privatization 2.6. Restructuring public utilities and financial institutions 2.7. Regulation and supervision of public utilities and financial Institutions 2.8. Public finance and administration 2.9. Subsovereign governments 2.10. Legal and judicial reform 2.11. Matrix reloaded Chapter 3. Transition for the Twenty-First Century References Index Lajos Bokros is a Member of the European Parliament , former Minister of Finance of Hungary, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Central European University, Budapest. coverdesign & coverphoto by sebastian stachowski Central European University Press Budapest – New York Sales and information: ceupress@ceu.hu Website: http://www.ceupress.com If political economy, i.e. the interdisciplinary study of interrelationships between political institutions and economic systems, has ever made sense, it is exactly now. Hardly any better example of mutual influence and co-determination between political action and economic behavior can be conceived than the historic transformation of a politically supercharged and embedded system into an economically more autonomous and predisposed one. While in communism the political sphere was more important than the economic one, it is not to say that in capitalism it is exactly the other way round. The interplay between politics and economics in capitalism is more subtle, stochastic, nuanced and balanced. What is important here is that transition, as a process of transforming a closed and exclusionary totalitarian system into an open and more inclusive, democratic polity, involves the restoration of relative autonomy for institutions in all spheres of societal existence, economy, politics, science, education, culture, law, religion, ethics, etc. Structural reforms, implemented throughout the protracted and still ongoing period of transition, have been aiming at achieving this delicate separation by a tremendous amount of deliberate institution building which requires highly professional and deeply political societal governance.” Excerpt from the book Lajos Bokros is a prominent academic economist and an extremely experienced practitioneroffiscalandmarketreforms,notonlyinhisnativeHungarybutalso— as an advisor—in many other transition countries. This rare combination of skills has allowed him to write a very interesting book, based on a massive knowledge and a clear analysis. I recommend it not only to the readers in the post-socialist countries but also to those in the West as his book contains important lessons about the value of free markets and the dangers of statism.” Leszek Balcerowicz, Warsaw School of Economics “ “        acc__cs55.indd 1 2012-11-06 00:23:37 ...