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Subject: Capitalism in One Country=
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 11:48:46 EST
Message-ID: <31.1992Nov14.114846@AmeriCast.com>

Capitalism in One Country=

 POLAND'S GROWING success in building its new economy offers
great hope for all of Eastern Europe. For the first two years
after the collapse of communism, production sank rapidly with
much hardship for a population that had never been prosperous.
This year the decline has ended, industrial production is rising,
and Poland's ability to export to Western Europe - the biggest
surprise of this great experiment - is steadily strengthening.

However its transition from communism finally turns out, Poland
will be an immensely influential model. So far it is making
steady progress in demonstrating that the transition is possible
without sacrificing democratic government, without imposing in-
tolerable poverty and unemployment on its people and - inciden-
tally - with only a limited amount of foreign aid.  Poland began
with several important advantages, of which the greatest is a
highly homogenous population with a strong sense of identity. Un-
like the other Eastern European countries, Poland is not dis-
tracted by ethnic divisions and quarrels with linguistic minori-
ties. Much more than the former Soviets, Poles are also familiar
with markets and trading. As one Polish economist said, all those
years of black-marketeering are paying off. There's no shortage
of initiative, and more than half of the labor force is now work-
ing in the private sector.

 After communism fell, the Poles made courageous decisions that
are now serving them well. They decided to move fast on economic
and political reform together. They rapidly enacted the legisla-
tion that a market economy needs - laws on ownership and competi-
tion, on banking and investment.  They held elections that swept
out the holdovers from the Communist regime.  Russia, in con-
trast, decided to give priority to economic reform rather than
risking delay over a new constitution and legislative elections.
That's why Boris Yeltsin is now confronted by a legislature still
stacked with defenders of the old regime, especially the managers
of the state industries who are doing their best to block his
plans for a market economy.

Poland's recovery is only now beginning. But the beginnings are
visible, and that puts it ahead of any other Eastern European
country let alone the republics that used to be the Soviet Union.
The lack of any sign of recovery there deserves more concern here
in Washington than it is getting. Of all the changes at work in
the world, the success or failure of reform in the sometime So-
viet lands is likely to have a greater effect than any other on
the nature of international politics and security as the next
century begins.

  11:19 11-14C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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