Poland s Economic Reform Plan Of 1989 - 1711 Words

The year of 1989 is generally regarded as a watershed moment in the history of Eastern Europe—the one which effectively ended the dominance of Communist politics in the region formerly known as the Soviet Bloc. Comprised of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and East Germany, this region was politically and economically depended on the Soviet Union that largely dictated the official ideological orientation of the Soviet Bloc nations. In 1989, the region’s dependence on the Soviet Union effectively came to an end along with the communist hegemony in Eastern Europe. At the same time, Eastern Europeans finally discovered the opportunity to make a transition from centralized socialism to democratic and decentralized form of market economy that was largely modeled on the Western democracies. The following chapter examines the extent to which Western theoretical and institutional trends influenced Poland’s economic reform plan of 1989. At the sam e time, it seeks to account for Poland’s own local tradition of neoliberal thought. In so doing, it aims to dispel the oversimplified interpretation of the transnational exchange between Polish and American economists according to which the former had to learn from scratch while the former assumed the role of educators. As various commentators have observed, the Eastern European transition to market economy took Western neoliberalism as its principal ideological model. It is no secret, for instance, that JeffreyShow MoreRelatedThe Key Principles Of Neoliberalism Essay1052 Words   |  5 Pagesof the package consisted in granting the full responsibility for economic performance to the central administration. The free enterprise characterized by responsibility and autonomy, he insisted, was incompatible with economic coercion by the state (B. KamiÅ„ski 226). 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