At 21:30 18/10/00 -0500, Paul P wrote:
>Louis, I think both you and Chris are somewhat off base on this.
Being one sided, is inevitable and to some extent stimulating in a
discussion list.
Getting things *all* wrong is rather more difficult.
But Paul gave a lot of detailed analysis which sounded broadly right to me,
that is near the centre of the range of probable coherent analyses.
I was quite aware of the financial reasons for Croatia and Slovenia
separating from the Federation. My point about mentioning only Serbia was
to draw attention to the inherent difficulty, which Milosevic and the other
members of the Serbian Socialist Party did not solve, about how to get
consensus about handling very differing rates of economic development. Nor
have any other socialists or Marxists solved this problem.
With Serbia transferring funds to Kosovo, it must have tested the patience
of the Serbs and their spirit of "proletarian internationalism" to see it
going on the expansion of Pristina university and the proliferation of
Albanian nationalist culture. Mutual tolerance can become increasingly
eroded while flash points increased.
The problem of different rates of economic development is a problem faced
by most states and is found with all different economic system. It is
normally handled secretly or semi-secretly to keep it out of public
politics. An authoritarian socialist state can just decide to transfer
funds for socialist construction and brazen out the argument. A developed
capitalist "democracy" like the USA can do it by sophisticated "democratic"
pork barrel politics. Germany does it by concensual transfers from rich
states like Bavaria to the north, and from the west to the east, and avoids
it getting explosive while being aware of that risk. The European Union
struggles with a rational policy of regional development, which can bring
great prosperity to a country like Ireland for a time, but cannot manage
the differences in economic activity flexibly between Britain and the EU
heartland. It will be severely tested when the European Union expands to
the east.
20 years ago China decided to sink investment into the rich coastal
provinces and exacerbate differences rather than waiting till Sinkiang and
Tibet had caught up. But note the possibility that if the Chinese Communist
Party were to collapse, without a strong centralising force the provinces
of China, each as big as a European country, could fall apart into at best
a sort of confederation. China has always been difficult to govern centrally.
Once again (pace Proyect) I am not denying the external interference in
Yugoslavia, but saying there were internal causes too, that were very
difficult.
What has this got to do with "Milosevic and privatization"? My sense that
their mixture of market socialism, was somehow not the right one, and had
no inbuilt market mechanism for dealing divergent rates of economic
development. It raised questions about comparative efficiency between the
republics, without giving answers.
As people know, I think that among other options, we should be discussing
models in which the usage of land for approved development is more fully
marketised while the *ownership* of land is removed from the sphere of
private property.
Chris Burford
London
