sâmbătă, ianuarie 14, 2006

Where from? Where to?

Whatever happened over hundreds of years of modernisation of Western Europe starting with the Industrial Revolution, was sadly compressed, in highly-centralized communist Romania, to less than a decade of brutal forced migrations: the communist regime has turned millions of poor, illiterate yet self-governed farmers into urban semi-illiterate, alienated, brainwashed labor force. This sudden change has set astray Romania and perverted its social fabric. So much about the social division of labor, the process that shaped the western capitalism as we know it!...

The sheer complexity of all the unintended yet contiguous, associated phenomena is still overwhelming us all; we experience bits of it, every now and then, here and there: the neurotic, disrupted, largely immoral, unethical society, and the disgusting urban decay that led some of us search a better life overseas, they are all by-products of past social ruptures. Societies are palimpsests, truly.

And yet, there is much hope, indeed! Arguably all friends I left behind fared much better than I ever expected. Above all, they kept clean and worked hard, they made it trough and have eventually surfaced against all odds. Hard work pays off; and yes, good fun they have, too, this lot. This silent yet soon-to-be-heard throng of visionary, educated and determined Romanians will shape the future of their country. Romania is changing for the better as we blog!

2 comentarii:

Gabriel M spunea...

In a matter of speaking maybe it happened (the industrialisation of Romania) but it certainly was no "Industrial Revolution". An authentic IR cannot be disconnected from free trade on an individual and international level. The increased division of labor induced by the switch from self-sufficiency, craftsmen manufacturing and inefficient land usage to self-insufficiency, industrial production lines and efficient farming means that in a true IR you have a lot of people who's stock of goods include few goods in large quantities. These stocks of superior quality goods must be exchanged to allow for varied consumption...

The name for the Industrial Revolution might not be the best one possible... I'd rather use the Capitalist Revolution, to stress that extensive production without trade is not what happened and what should happen. Communists thought that by simply bringing in the machines and increasing stocks they'll get a paradise on Earth... they failed and failed and failed for over 70 years.

Romania never got its Free Trade Revolution and this is the real cause of poverty and underdevelopment. We don't lack factories and hard iron installations. We lacked, and to a certain degree still lack, the freedom to efficiently reach agreements between us concerning the exchange of surplus stocks. (Plus, freedom is sexy in other, non-economic ways too.)

I don't share your optimism vis-a-vis of Romania's future. It may still go either way and current signs are not positive. The worst thing we could do know is think that the battle for idea is won and it's straight sailing from here to prosperity and freedom. We need work, that's true, but not work under and for a criminal system!

Chatalin spunea...

Well put, mate. I take your points - we haven't had a free-trade revolution, indeed. We didn't have freedom of speech either. We didn't have any sort of choice, actually. What we did have, though, was ruthless central planning and, yes, criminal leadership.

He he, I don't share my optimism either. It's all mine ;) Can't change the world, mate... can only hope for marginal improvements.

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