Le redressement économique, étape naturelle de la transition post-socialiste

Cette note a été rédigée par Yegor Gaidar  en perspective de la conférence internationale « L’Europe après l’élargissement », organisée à Varsovie par le Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE) les 8 et 9 avril prochains.

Complexity of post-socialist transition is unprecedented; at the initial stage no one could forecast precisely within what time-limits and to what extent such objectives would be implemented and foresee all the obstacles and dangers on that way. 

For instance, when the Solidarity’s victory at the 1989 elections had opened up a ‘window of opportunities’ for Polish reformers it was impossible to assess the extent of problems which needed to be solved and foresee the difficulties which would arise in the period of adaptation to market conditions. At present, however, the stage of transformational recession, as well as debates on the causes and consequences thereof are mostly left behind. Economies of post-socialist countries are characterized to a great extent by a sustained growth and effective market mechanisms. 

Generally, transformational recession can be explained as follows: collapse of the socialist economic structure has revealed a regrettable factor that most economic activities which were carried out under a command economy would never be required in market conditions and democracy. Reallocation of labor resources concentrated in those activities cannot be done overnight. Processes which took place at the stage of post-socialist recession were similar to those defined by J. Schumpeter as ‘creative destruction’. However, their scale has been unprecedented for market economies. It is to be realized that both post-socialist recession (adaptive recession) and subsequent recovery are a single process which consists in structural transformation of the economy. 

In different countries that process has taken different forms.

To read the paper in full, visit the Center for Social and Economic Research website.