Europe: Central and East

John Stanley is a policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and
Universities.

Eastern Europe has once again become a laboratory for Western
ideologies. Although these ideas are often political, in the aftermath
of communism the laboratory has been devoted to the testing of economic
theories. In November 1992, Concordia University, in Montreal, hosted an
international conference, “Beyond State and Market: Autonomous
Development (Strategies ) in a Global Economy.” This publication,
sponsored by the Institute of Policy Alternatives, is a result of that
conference.

As is often the case with “international” conferences held in
Canada, there were virtually no Canadian papers and this volume includes
only two Canadian contributions. While the list of participants is
impressive, it generally consists of people who hold similar economic
beliefs and political views.

The papers—some of which are comparative studies—range widely:
Poland, Yugoslavia, Russia, and East Germany. In terms of quality they
run the gamut from the clichéd (Marguerite Mendell’s introduction) to
the rhetorical (Mihail Crnobrnja) to the solid (Klaus Nielsen, Jerzy
Hauser, Tadeusz Kowalik). As this volume makes abundantly clear, the
choice facing East European reformers is between gradual reform or rapid
transformation.