The relative role of domestic vs. external factors in the integration of former communist lands into the world economy

Abstract

Even if it is impossible to add anything unknown, new or extraordinarily important to the growing literature in this field, let me use my special perspective of an active insider for making several comments. Not underestimating the first positive and, without doubt, promising results and achievements, former communist countries face tremendous problems and still have a long way to go. Nobody knows it - or perhaps should know it - better than this distinguished audience. The members of the Mont Pélerin Society have been - for four and half decades - trying to warn the citizens in the free world and especially one special group - the ambitious, self-assured, creative and often irresponsible intellectuals - against the dangers of communism, interventionism and collectivism and to turn their attention to the vulnerability of democratic institutions, of the market economy and, therefore, of the whole free world.