Free markets re-made Eastern Europe
After decades of destruction due to Soviet economic and environmental policy, Eastern Europe has experienced a renaissance due to the introduction of free markets. Their gains since 1990 have been phenomenal.
Read the rest at the link.Three decades ago, the socialist/communist economies of Eastern Europe died, not with a bang as many had feared, but with a whimper. It was obvious that the economies of those countries were falling further and further behind their Western Europe counterparts — and that, coupled with the loss of liberty under the heavy thumb of the Soviet Union, was causing increased anger on the part of much of the population.
The socialist/communist leaders claimed that their economies were much more prosperous than they were. For instance, the Bulgarians might have claimed that bread was only 5 cents per loaf, but in fact very few loaves of bread were produced and sold by the state bakery at such a price. Most people were forced to buy their bread and almost everything else in the black markets at much higher prices. The result was most people were very poor, with few choices for food, housing and almost everything else.
There was not one prosperous country in the whole Soviet orbit. All of the Eastern European countries are now free-market democracies with real per capita incomes several times higher than back in Soviet days. (Please see the accompanying table.)