The Handbook of Economic Sociology
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Book Review The Handbook of Economic Sociology Edited by Neil J Smelser and Richard Swedberg Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 2nd edition, paper, 2005, 736pp. Comparative Economic Studies (2005) 47, 705–706. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ces.8100121
To explain as fully as possible the paths of post-Communist transition, comparative economists cannot depend entirely on neoclassical economics, or even its extension in ‘new institutionalism.’ We need to look to complementary disciplines. It seems clear that East-Central Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and China are moving in different directions, and our texts provide little assistance in explaining how and why. I was therefore attracted to the survey article, ‘Post-Communist Economic Systems’, authored by the excellent Yale sociologists Lawrence P King and Iva´n Szele´nyi. Based on about 150 articles (unfortunately only in English), mostly by non-economists who have dealt with post-Communist societies, it provides a persuasive theoretical and empirical account of three types of capitalism now developing in that part of the world. According to King and Szele´nyi, pre-1989 class relations were critical in the developments which followed. In East-Central Europe, particularly Hungary and Poland, the technical intelligentsia and working class was able to ‘smash the power of the Communist political apparatus’ by the 1980s, thus preventing the Communist nomenklatura from dominating the transition. Instead, they would turn to outside, particularly multinational forces, to reinforce a liberal capitalism with considerable foreign direct investment and westward orientation in exports, as well as political alliances. In Russia, Romania, Serbia under Milosevic, and the CIS countries, on the other hand, the political apparatus was stronger, and change occurred with splits within the Communist elite. Soon the surviving ex-Communists turned to nationalism to support ‘political capitalism,’ which however has failed to support state functions such as education and public health and also led away from democracy, as we see most clearly in Russia and the ‘near abroad’. King and Szele´nyi blame this disappointing development on patron–client ownership networks, as opposed to free markets, and ‘parasitic’ financial– industrial groups unwilling to venture new investments. Thirdly, China and Vietnam represent what the authors call a ‘hybrid’ form of developing capitalism from below because after disasters associated
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with ideological element of the ruling party (eg, the ‘Great Leap’), more technocratic elements came to the leadership within the Party since 1976. While local capitalists (direct producers) and their official sponsors are gaining, even effectively taking over state-owned enterprises, the central bureaucracy maintains its role as promoter of massive infrastructure projects and supporter of ‘national champions’. The three varieties of post-Communist capitalisms are summarized in an extremely useful table (p
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