How did they take to capitalism after the fall of communism?
Less than you would think. Abolishing the collectives looked like the obvious thing to do in 1990. The peasants hated them, or so it seemed. Foreign advisers said private farms would be more efficient. But the more the government pushed in this direction, the more the peasants objected. They resisted it as much as they did the original collectivisation, because by now collectivisation formed part of their economy. Today, many of these ex-collectives and state farms survive in a kind of symbiotic relationship with private farms. The majority of people are worse off. But there are no signs of mass hunger and the services by and large have not collapsed. Considering the chaos of the formal economy, this is remarkable. Teachers still go to teach and scientists go to their laboratories even though they may not have been paid for six months. Under normal economic rules, there is no explanation for this. Why would they go? The answer is that their “jobs” help maintain social and family networ
