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I'm not sure I would qualify any post-Soviet Eastern European country (Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, ...) as a boradly successful. Typically, they are highly corru

by shakow 5y ago

I'm not sure I would qualify any post-Soviet Eastern European country (Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, ...) as a boradly successful. Typically, they are highly corrupted, wealth amass in a tiny sliver of the population, they are hemorrageing their youth and their brains, their political spectrums can be resumed as ‶corrupted right-wing guy sucking on the EU tits″ and ‶corrupted even more far-right guy sucking on Russia/China tits″, rights of women are openly contested and dimnished, and they are on the slippery slope to the actually worrying part of the far-right spectrum.

zozbot234 5y ago
> Typically, they are highly corrupted, wealth amass in a tiny sliver of the population, they are hemorrageing their youth and their brains These things have long been super typical of growing middle-income countries on their way to First-World country status. It's misleading to evaluate one by the standards of the other. Also, why no mention of comparative success stories like the Czech Republic?
- jakubadamw 5y ago
  > These things have long been super typical of growing middle-income countries on their way to First-World country status Except these things aren't even true, at least not in Poland. Corruption in the classical sense hasn't been a problem here for decades. Nepotism at the upper level of governance (especially in state-owned companies) – true, it's re-emerged. Mixing it up with supposed wealth-amassing, however, makes even less sense because the most egalitarian shift in Poland's economic policy – with empirical observable effects – has so far, for the last 7 years, precisely coincided with the EU-sceptic right-wing populism.
jakubadamw 5y ago
Look, I'm Polish, I'm critical of the current Polish government for a variety of reasons (including its stance on European Union), but your description of what Poland is today is just outrageous. > wealth amass in a tiny sliver of the population Yeah, right. /s https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=PL-US-DE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=P... > their political spectrums can be resumed as ‶corrupted right-wing guy sucking on the EU tits″ No, it can't, it's more complicated than that. I think your language alone says a lot about how much thought has gone into your statements. In short, Poland has seen a shift in its policy towards the EU after around 2015. A lot of it can be attributed to pre-Brexit Conservative Party-style anti-EU populism (and, if that's the case, why make it appear like a post-Soviet phenomenon alone?), but a part of it is genuinely related to the general debate about the future of the EU and its policies. The last words quoted, aside from their vulgarity, are just totally inaccurate. One thing to consider is the cohesion funds (which, by the way, the European Commission has blocked, and rightly so, from Hungary) and the pandemic recovery fund (which it has barred Poland from, also rightly so), but you can't reduce the discussion to those, especially in the recent weeks when Poland has shouldered the lion share of the European cost of welcoming Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war. And, of course, the Polish political parties include a very significant pro-EU liberal opposition stronghold, usually just slightly trailing the populist ruling party in the election polls. So, no, your description of the spectrum is far from the truth. I mean, even the three countries mentioned are vastly different from one another in where they stand. Today's Hungary, admittedly, has gone the farthest in terms of limiting the freedom of media and dismantling the judicial system. Poland's ruling party has not gone that far, and I would say it's very unlikely it will, for historical reasons – the anarcho-democratic political traditions are just too strong, as is the civil society. So, in short, I'm all for being alarming when that's warranted, and there are things to be alarmed with, to various extent, when looking at last years' developments in Poland (can't speak for other countries). But one needs to stay truthful at the same time.
- kaba0 5y ago
  Though as you also mention, grandparent commenter’s words are sort of true of Hungary unfortunately.. (I live there)

by shakow 5y ago

zozbot234 5y ago

> Typically, they are highly corrupted, wealth amass in a tiny sliver of the population, they are hemorrageing their youth and their brains These things have long been super typical of growing middle-income countries on their way to First-World country status. It's misleading to evaluate one by the standards of the other. Also, why no mention of comparative success stories like the Czech Republic?

jakubadamw 5y ago
> These things have long been super typical of growing middle-income countries on their way to First-World country status Except these things aren't even true, at least not in Poland. Corruption in the classical sense hasn't been a problem here for decades. Nepotism at the upper level of governance (especially in state-owned companies) – true, it's re-emerged. Mixing it up with supposed wealth-amassing, however, makes even less sense because the most egalitarian shift in Poland's economic policy – with empirical observable effects – has so far, for the last 7 years, precisely coincided with the EU-sceptic right-wing populism.

jakubadamw 5y ago

Look, I'm Polish, I'm critical of the current Polish government for a variety of reasons (including its stance on European Union), but your description of what Poland is today is just outrageous. > wealth amass in a tiny sliver of the population Yeah, right. /s https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=PL-US-DE https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=P... > their political spectrums can be resumed as ‶corrupted right-wing guy sucking on the EU tits″ No, it can't, it's more complicated than that. I think your language alone says a lot about how much thought has gone into your statements. In short, Poland has seen a shift in its policy towards the EU after around 2015. A lot of it can be attributed to pre-Brexit Conservative Party-style anti-EU populism (and, if that's the case, why make it appear like a post-Soviet phenomenon alone?), but a part of it is genuinely related to the general debate about the future of the EU and its policies. The last words quoted, aside from their vulgarity, are just totally inaccurate. One thing to consider is the cohesion funds (which, by the way, the European Commission has blocked, and rightly so, from Hungary) and the pandemic recovery fund (which it has barred Poland from, also rightly so), but you can't reduce the discussion to those, especially in the recent weeks when Poland has shouldered the lion share of the European cost of welcoming Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war. And, of course, the Polish political parties include a very significant pro-EU liberal opposition stronghold, usually just slightly trailing the populist ruling party in the election polls. So, no, your description of the spectrum is far from the truth. I mean, even the three countries mentioned are vastly different from one another in where they stand. Today's Hungary, admittedly, has gone the farthest in terms of limiting the freedom of media and dismantling the judicial system. Poland's ruling party has not gone that far, and I would say it's very unlikely it will, for historical reasons – the anarcho-democratic political traditions are just too strong, as is the civil society. So, in short, I'm all for being alarming when that's warranted, and there are things to be alarmed with, to various extent, when looking at last years' developments in Poland (can't speak for other countries). But one needs to stay truthful at the same time.

kaba0 5y ago
Though as you also mention, grandparent commenter’s words are sort of true of Hungary unfortunately.. (I live there)