The retreat from a market economy in East-Central and Southeast Europe, 1918-1928 : comparative perspectives on Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia

Abstract

The dissertation before you is designed as a contribution to studies of phenomena that have been described either as the “recasting” of 19th century capitalism, or as the “deglobalization” of the global economy after 1914. In connection with this central inquiry it deals with the effects and outcomes of state intervention in national economies triggered by the First World War. Given the choice of states under study, it might seem rather strange to undertake examination of deglobalization process in the countries and regions that were either completely out or, at best, on the troublesome easternmost borderlines of the Atlantic economic system. For the most part, the economic systems in Southeast and East-Central Europe were disconnected from global trade and labour markets, and were under the strong control of the state, even in the most prosperous period during the so-called “first globalization”. Yet, as we will see in following chapters, the changes which affected these countries were very much analogous to those that took place in the core economies. In this regard, the dissertation title does not suggest that an ideal laissez-faire or market economy form of capitalism actually existed in the region or anywhere in the world before 1914; it only implies a general trend moving away from the conventional rules of the market economy in the decades preceding the war. The dissertation points out the degree of change indicated in cross-country and cross-regional comparison.