Comrades Go Private

Published 15 November 1991
The euphoria of the political revolutions of 1989 is increasingly being replaced by a sober reality: building viable economic systems and transforming state enterprises into privately owned businesses in Eastern Europe is exceedingly complicated, difficult and costly. How can Eastern Europe best pursue its reform goals? Precisely what tangible reforms should these fledgling market economies undergo? Is privatization the pancea it is claimed to be? How should the competing issues of speed vs. equity that are endemic in the privatization process be resolved? In this volume a collection of Eastern government officials, Western businessmen, and scholars from East and West, among them officials of the Polish Ministry of Finance the director of the Hungarian Financial Research Corporations and noted Western businessmen such as Peter Rona, the former CEO of IBJ Schroder Bank and Trust, address these questions in straight-forward practical terms.
The work offers precise, instructive guidelines as to how these and other reforms should be enacted and aims to be of interest to anyone involved or interested in the privatization of Eastern Europe and the opportunities and risks it presents for Western business.