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Exactly. Countries like Poland and Hungary have huge social issues and struggle with corruption. A lot of political research points to the recent rise in fascis

Exactly. Countries like Poland and Hungary have huge social issues and struggle with corruption. A lot of political research points to the recent rise in fascist nationalism in these two countries as caused by being thrown from one political ideology to another (e.g. “communism” to ironfisted neoliberalism / Washington Consensus). It’s pretty evident none of them worked. If anything the country that was LEAST worse off following the fall of the iron curtain was DDR / East Germany simply because they were already miles ahead any other former Warsaw Pact country in terms of productivity. However, if you compare them to West Germany they were quite poor, with some differences in wealth and relative household income still evident at least 10 years ago.

catominor 4y ago
The DDR/BDR wealth/income divide is still significant, even today and in spite of the government's fairly aggressive taxes explicitly earmarked to develop the former DDR.
- testrun 4y ago
  And if you compare current eastern Germany as opposed to the DDR, current inhabitants have it so much better. Another group that did not improve are the stans (Kazakstan and related countries).
  - petre 4y ago
    They're all run by lifelong presidents, with the exception of Kyrgystan, which is now basically a Chinese colony. So no real democracy there.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >And if you compare current eastern Germany as opposed to the DDR, current inhabitants have it so much better Depends on what you mean by better. For example they're much worse thrown in the rat race
Nanana909 4y ago
> It’s pretty evident none of them worked. How is that evident, though? It’s actually pretty clear that the quality of life has drastically improved in most of these countries. Of *course* you can always find some group who is suffering. But there is no way I would want to live in 1980s Poland, Estonia, etc vs 2020. For example: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?locations=PL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?location... The continued existence of problems does not mean things have not worked. It’s important to look at whether those problems are improving over time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- qwytw 4y ago
  It has improved significantly in the last 20 years. But the 90’s were as bad if not worse than in Russia in most places. And Russia was on an upwards trend until the 2010’s as well, e.g. if we look at average income levels the Baltic states only overtook Russia around ~2014. And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single country besides them did much worse than Russia (unless like it they had a large amount of natural resources)
  - daminimal 4y ago
    So, every country that did not do better did worse? Sounds about right.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      You snark at it, but this tautology is a far better claim than the original ("all/most countries did better").
    - qwytw 4y ago
      Well close to 300 million people lived in the USSR. Only 8 million of them lived in the Baltic states. I still personally think the (mostly) peaceful dissolution of the USSR was probably one the best things that happened in the past 100 years. But transition to capitalism was extremely mismanaged, even in the “successful” countries.
kkfdkerpoe 4y ago
Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are doing great really, even if the Polish government is anti-EU sometimes. According to latest statistics Estonia has better education system, economic growth and birth rate than Finland. The rate at which these countries have catch up is amazing. What I'm most worried of now are old, historically rich countries in decline, like Italy and Spain.

catominor 4y ago

The DDR/BDR wealth/income divide is still significant, even today and in spite of the government's fairly aggressive taxes explicitly earmarked to develop the former DDR.

testrun 4y ago
And if you compare current eastern Germany as opposed to the DDR, current inhabitants have it so much better. Another group that did not improve are the stans (Kazakstan and related countries).
- petre 4y ago
  They're all run by lifelong presidents, with the exception of Kyrgystan, which is now basically a Chinese colony. So no real democracy there.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >And if you compare current eastern Germany as opposed to the DDR, current inhabitants have it so much better Depends on what you mean by better. For example they're much worse thrown in the rat race

Nanana909 4y ago

> It’s pretty evident none of them worked. How is that evident, though? It’s actually pretty clear that the quality of life has drastically improved in most of these countries. Of *course* you can always find some group who is suffering. But there is no way I would want to live in 1980s Poland, Estonia, etc vs 2020. For example: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?locations=PL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS?location... The continued existence of problems does not mean things have not worked. It’s important to look at whether those problems are improving over time.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
qwytw 4y ago
It has improved significantly in the last 20 years. But the 90’s were as bad if not worse than in Russia in most places. And Russia was on an upwards trend until the 2010’s as well, e.g. if we look at average income levels the Baltic states only overtook Russia around ~2014. And if we only focus ex-USSR countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia seem more like the exceptions than the rule. Basically every single country besides them did much worse than Russia (unless like it they had a large amount of natural resources)
- daminimal 4y ago
  So, every country that did not do better did worse? Sounds about right.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    You snark at it, but this tautology is a far better claim than the original ("all/most countries did better").
  - qwytw 4y ago
    Well close to 300 million people lived in the USSR. Only 8 million of them lived in the Baltic states. I still personally think the (mostly) peaceful dissolution of the USSR was probably one the best things that happened in the past 100 years. But transition to capitalism was extremely mismanaged, even in the “successful” countries.

kkfdkerpoe 4y ago

Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are doing great really, even if the Polish government is anti-EU sometimes. According to latest statistics Estonia has better education system, economic growth and birth rate than Finland. The rate at which these countries have catch up is amazing. What I'm most worried of now are old, historically rich countries in decline, like Italy and Spain.