(George Mason University, USA)
jbockman@gmu.edu

1989 as a Thwarted Transition to Socialism: Mainstream Neoclassical Economists and their Socialist Programs

In 1989, the world appeared to embrace wholeheartedly capitalism and free markets. Eastern European embrace of these ideas surprised many observers at the time. However, through research that took me around the world, I found that most neoclassical economists entered the year 1989 with a belief that market socialism might finally be possible. In this talk, I discuss the professional ideas of Eastern European economists during the 1980s. Since the Soviet New Economic Policy of 1921, the Soviet Union and then Eastern Europe had experienced “transitions,” market reforms, and various market experiments. The changes of 1989 were no more rejections of socialism than these earlier reforms had been. After decades of political resistance to reforms, Eastern European economists sought genuine markets and democracy within a socialist system. I will examine the transition models set forth by economists during the 1980s and briefly explore why these models were abandoned after November 1989.