tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post114847441159301274..comments2023-10-28T12:01:47.929+00:00Comments on Edward Lucas: European Voice columnEdward Lucashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369936559712607693noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post-1149452494371475302006-06-04T20:21:00.000+00:002006-06-04T20:21:00.000+00:00I strongly agree with you about the lack of compet...I strongly agree with you about the lack of competition. As Pawel Dobrowolski (who posted earlier in this thread) likes to say about Poland, what is needed is "more competition, less privilege". He is entirely right, and not just for Poland. The big tragedy of the past 15 years is that the initial economic freedoms (admittedly not supported by legal and institutional infrastructure) have not developed but instead gone backwards. CEE economies are now cartelised and rent-seeking in a way that reminds me sometimes of Austria 20 years ago. But a lot less rich<BR/><BR/>best regards<BR/>EdwardEdward Lucashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369936559712607693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post-1149346281880403492006-06-03T14:51:00.000+00:002006-06-03T14:51:00.000+00:00This is interesting, although one shouldn't ignore...This is interesting, although one shouldn't ignore the intergenerational transfers. A lot of these impoverished intellectuals have children who are doing very well (turning the social capital they inherited from their parents into money, in effect)Edward Lucashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369936559712607693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post-1148599884813103952006-05-25T23:31:00.000+00:002006-05-25T23:31:00.000+00:00Ed - I go along with your views on Poland, but the...Ed - I go along with your views on Poland, but the 'eradicated middle classes' is a powerful point. There's a vast swathe of 'impoverished intellectuals' in Poland who, by dint of their education and professional status, would have formed the bedrock of middle-class England. Doctors, lecturers, civil servants. All of whom are on tuppence-ha'penny a month in Poland, while their UK equivalents live in relative comfort.<BR/><BR/>Reasons for this of course, not simply Balcerowicz (who'll have streets named after him a hundred years from now), more to do with the failure of the Polish public sector to restructure at the same pace as the private sector.Michael Dembinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05657728002439035765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24528000.post-1148593897033277772006-05-25T21:51:00.000+00:002006-05-25T21:51:00.000+00:00Yes you are right. I was talking to one such Pole ...Yes you are right. I was talking to one such Pole in Warsaw the other day about the middle classes, and he said "oh you mean the middle classes who were eradicated by the reforms in the early 1990s". I was speechless (unusual for me)<BR/><BR/>The two kinds of hostile reaction I have got have convinced me that I was broadly right. One lot is "how dare you sympathise with these ghastly hicks and bigots?". <BR/><BR/>The other is "how dare you, a mere foreigner, criticise this country?"<BR/><BR/>regards, and thanks for your comment<BR/>EdwardEdward Lucashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11369936559712607693noreply@blogger.com