Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Milosevic and privatization

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Phillips wrote:
> ... I would also use this opportunity to respond to some of Chris'
> comments about Serb policy in the late 1980s re the privatization
> of the 'socialist' property system.  First, the pressure for the end of
> the 'social property' system came from western-trained
> economists, many of them Serbs.  I had the dubious pleasure of
> debating with a couple of the most virulent critics of the Yugo
> socialist system at a couple of conferences where I was a speaker
> and they were mere mouthpieces for neoclassical dogma, Kornai
> and Petrojvic et. al.  By the way, this is still true today.  The neo-
> liberal impulse in Slovenia comes almost entirely from the central
> bank and the economics faculty of the University.  It was also true
> in Serbia.  Thus, under pressure from the IMF/WB the 'reforms'
> began with the 'nationalization' of socially owner (i.e. socialistically
> owned means of production) producing state ownership *in order to
> privatize*.  As I understand it (I haven't been back in Beograd since
> 1992) Milosevic stopped the next stage, the privatization of 'state
> ownership' leaving the enterprises as public, but not socially
> owned, enterprises. ...

thanks for this message. I have a question: wasn't one reason for the
movement away from workers' control (socialized property?) is that there
was excessive decentralization, which led to continuous contracting and
re-contracting even within factories?

> My own impression is that Milosevic was a wily political animal,
> but not very bright, at least in respect to economic matters.
> Everthing I have heard is that he was personally honest (i.e. non-
> corrupt) though he did not extend his personal standards to those
> around him, including his immediate family.  I believe he tried to
> remain true to his concept of socialism, including public ownership
> of the means of production, but that he was overwhelmed
> intellectually and politically by the international institutions, his
> domestic economic advisors, and his rent-seeking managers.

this fits with my characterization of SM as a Serbian Mayor Daley (the
elder). Hizzoner was personally honest (etc.), a wily political animal, but
not very bright. He had a hard time dealing with the non-Chicago vision of
the world (where "Chicago" is the city, not the University).

speaking of the University of Chicago, today's LA TIMES says that the U of
C has inflated the number of Nobel Prize winners in their ranks, including
those who simply visited the place for a semester or a year (like Paul
Samuelson).

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine