Balkan next ? | 74 comments (74 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: There's an historical context (none / 1)

"Personality cult", yes it was...Many people hated it...But you have to understand the circumstances after the WWII...it did not look that anything will change EVER in geopolitical sense. People had to live what they were given. In 1968 there was a student protest but it turned ugly after all. Tito was too strong...he was a dictator. Anti capitalism feelings are not that strong I would say (except in older generation) but people did not expect "wild west" type of capitalism that they've been served now. They expected European capitalism with strong social security ...they did not get it. So they now feel betrayed and socialism starts to look like "good old days". They know they can't go back, but they want law and order and some kind of security, but even more they want chance to work and earn for goog living. This is life fool of stress. It's not USA (where people did not care for more security because there were plenty of jobs...not any more).

by vbo on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 04:06:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There's an historical context (none / 0)

vbo:

Anti capitalism feelings are not that strong I would say (except in older generation) but people did not expect "wild west" type of capitalism that they've been served now. They expected European capitalism with strong social security ...they did not get it. ... They know they can't go back, but they want law and order and some kind of security, but even more they want chance to work and earn for goog living. This is life [full] of stress.

I think you're describing the effect that the Reagan/Thatcher revolution has had over everyone since 1980. It's just that some countries started out with a better standard of living than others.

Economics is politics by other means

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 04:31:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There's an historical context (none / 1)

It's just that some countries started out with a better standard of living than others.

Increasingly it looks to me that the capitalism then is more different from the capitalism now than from socialisms then. If economic deterioration for the masses will continue everywhere, the 1970s will look like a golden age for any country. That does not necessarily mean that socialisms were keeping up with improvement of living standards by themselves, as Western technologies "found" various discount ways to the socialist block. But living standards were indeed improving basically everywhere (except perhaps South America), dynamically or "slugishly", sustainably or not.

by das monde on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 05:13:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There's an historical context (none / 0)

das monde:

Increasingly it looks to me that the capitalism then is more different from the capitalism now than from socialisms then.

That's a point made in all its gory detail by John K Gabraith in The New Industrial State. But futurism is hard: the future evolution Galbraith envisaged didn't come to pass, the romantic market worshippers he mocked (including, by name, Milton Friedman) came to dominate economic thought after the crisis of the 1970s, and the technocratic elite Galbraith saw was replaced by a kleptocratic MBA class...

Economics is politics by other means

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 05:18:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: There's an historical context (none / 0)

das monde:

If economic deterioration for the masses will continue everywhere, the 1970s will look like a golden age for any country.

Not for all countries according to Hans Rosling.

Economics is politics by other means

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Apr 5th, 2011 at 05:35:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Which particular graph do you mean? (none / 0)

Of course, the 70s are known in the West as the time of stagflation, the Dutch disease and such things. Never again, right? But on the other hand, no one would claim that the West in the 70s were worse off than the socialist East, so that terrible stagflation must have been peanuts compared with the financial depression we have now. People were not loosing their homes, were able to buy food even without Walmart. It was just that the "investing way of life was neither in high performance or regard.

by das monde on Wed Apr 6th, 2011 at 02:03:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Balkan next ? | 74 comments (74 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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