Let’s say you have introduced free market capitalism in an ex-commie country, and many of the old industries are simply not productive and thus go out of “business”.
Do you have any responsability towards the people in bankrupt specialised cities (in Romania the population of entire cities used to work in a specific industry, such as mining) to ease their passage to the market economy?
I would have to say no. Any wealth that was created was done so artificially and using force in the first place. It all depends on how you transition to a ‘free market’ economy. You of course have a responsibility to remodel society where individual freeom and property rights are paramount.
Sadly, however this happens there’s going to be teething problems.
Why would they not simply accept a lower income? Why are you responsible for them while they are not for you?
Because I changed the system in such a way that they’re now without a job?
So they are not morally responsible for robbing others to keep their jobs, but people who want the robbery to stop are responsible for them losing their jobs?
Besides, it’s not like the choice is between a job and no job. The choice is between a crappy makework job for the rest of your life, and a real better paying job after temporary unemployment.
So don’t change the system, just withdraw from it. Same result.
They did not chose the system, the system chose them.
It’s difficult for some of these people to find new jobs. The commies created special towns focused on just 1 industry, and while statism holds, that industry will still provide for the townsfolk (admittedly, through robbery/taxation). When I will come to power, I will pull the plug without a warning and leave the old workers (who can’t do anything else - don’t know and don’t have where) without a job.
It just seems like I should do something to ease their transition, because I’d be the one lighting the match, even though others sprayed the gasoline.
A lot of resentment towards Thatcher in the UK comes from the speed with which she implemented her policies. I do not know to what extent they were truly free market policies, though. But I am not partial to gradualism, and I doubt those who lost out due to her reforms where afflicted solely due to them, and not due to other regulations and measures.
-Jon
Roumania is a tough nut to crack. It’s probably the country in the former Communist block (former USSR and PRK excluded) where Communists mantained the strongest grip on power. There are plenty of Roumanian immigrants around here, usually nice, hard-working fellows, and they all agree that very little has changed since Ceauseascu was executed by his former allies, the main difference being that before party cronies were in power, while the “new” breed of Communists seem to be just the same, except they are in cahoots with the unscrupolous Italian and German “capitalists” who run most of the country’s economy and obey everything dictated from Bruxelles instead from Moscow.
Bucarest has changed little (just look at the abandoned children on the streets, something that makes my blood boil), while cities like Prague, Lubjana or Budapest have become richer, more modern and you breath a completely different air. What is the right way forward?
I know that many of you will hold his name in high disrepute but Deng Xiaoping was probably the one which found the best way to make a transition: one step at a time, do not rush things. Eliminating hardcore Communism creates A LOT of resentment, particulary from those persons who, as Mises said, can make a nice, easy living out of it. Also persons see their little world collapse around them and this, if left unchecked, can really cause lots of moral issues (see Roumania again). Deng Xiaoping surely was not an hardcore libertarian and his rule was marked by his personal hatred towards hardcore Maoists and social agitators (during the Cultural Revolution his only son, a teacher in Beijing, was savagely beaten by Red Guards and left a paraplegic) but he was still a man with a gigantic task ahead: save China from complete moral and economic bankruptcy and put her back in her rightful place in the world. That he succeeded, as China’s lasting economic growth shows, is a credit to him. I think that Raoul Castro and his circle are looking right in that direction right now and if so they will succeed, provided they have the strength to resist US interferences and Communist nostalgics, like venezuela’s Chavez.