Title: The postsocialist experience and the resistible learning process of economic science

Authors: Bernard Chavance

Addresses: LADYSS, University Paris Diderot, UFR GHSS, 59 rue Nationale, 75013 Paris, France; CEMI, EHESS, 105 Bd Raspail, 75006 Paris, France

Abstract: The paper gives a critical assessment of the reaction of various trends of economics, when confronted with the diversified experience of postsocialist transformation and accompanying surprises, like the initial depression, the unexpected consequences of fast privatisation, or the unconventional policies and performance of China and Vietnam. It discusses the mainstream transition doctrine, and its gradual qualification, as well as institutionalist and evolutionary approaches of the systemic transformation problems. It concludes that this grand and painful historical experience has until now failed to substantially modify mainstream economics, even though its unfolding has strongly questioned the latter|s theoretical and methodological premises.

Keywords: Eastern Europe; economic transition; economics; neo-liberalism; learning; postsocialism; transition economies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2011.041520

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2011 Vol.5 No.2, pp.159 - 170

Published online: 25 Jul 2011 *

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