What is to be done?
To clean up the shambles left by communist mismanagement, Eastern Europe must take a swift, dramatic leap to private ownership and a market system. West Europeans must help it do so, welcoming it as partner in a unified European market. So says Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard professor and economic adviser to the governments of Poland and Yugoslavia
THE first, basic steps to the transformation of Eastern Europe's centrally planned economies are two. One, the eastern countries must reject any lingering ideas about a “third way”, such as a chimerical “market socialism” based on public ownership or worker self-management, and go straight for a western-style market economy. Two, Western Europe, for its part, must be ready and eager to work with them, providing debt relief and finance for restructuring, to bring their reformed economies in as part of a unified European market.
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