Is Sweden the Beacon of Democratic Socialism?

Why are generations of young Americans enamored with socialism as a better alternative to capitalism when everything in their abundant and privileged lives comes from free market capitalism?

Socialism, the state’s ownership of the means of production, production planning, and distribution, has been repackaged by clever Marxists like Bernie Sanders and AOC under the name of Democratic Socialism, a term borrowed from Sweden to make socialism more attractive and palatable to Marxist useful idiots who do not understand much economics or history, even those with college degrees.

Young generations want to have what 10.29 million (2019) Swedish citizens have – a “robust” welfare for all without any labor effort on their part, they would stay at home and find themselves. What is the economic reality though behind free stuff? Taxpayers must foot the bill through heavier taxation.

Starting in the 1970s, for twenty years Sweden tried to maintain capitalism with a generous welfare state, a “bridging policy,” with disastrous unintended consequences – high inflation, “overheated real estate and financial markets, a negative real rate of interest” followed by a recession and high unemployment.

Lou Perez, a writer, actor, and producer, interviewed two Swedish officials, asking them about their mythical Democratic Socialism. Sweden today is Democratic but not Socialist, he was told. Johan Norberg, a libertarian economist from the Cato Institute, indicated that Sweden is a “capitalist economy based on free market and open trade with a fair among of government redistribution of the proceeds.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcX6BUZlEw4

Sweden experimented with socialism between 1970-1990. “It ended in a spectacular failure. Yet, all of you seem to remember only these 20 years,” said Norberg.  Prior to the experiment, Sweden was quite wealthy as a country due to its decades of competitive capitalist business models, low taxation, remaining neutral during WWII, and probably trading with both sides of the conflict.

The socialist experiment implemented many programs that transformed Sweden in the 1970s into one of “the most advanced welfare society that had ever existed.” Presided over by prime minister Olof Palme, the public sector’s share of GDP increased by 50 percent. The Swedish welfare state established a health insurance system, parents’ allowances for daycare for all, free abortion, free education for six years, five weeks paid vacation, retirement age lowered from 67 to 65, and generous pensions of two-thirds of the highest earning fifteen years of work.

This universal welfare society was a centrally planned economy run by the state which included economic policies, taxation, trade, monetary policy, and fiscal policy. The system in place was financed, owned, and run by the state. The state controlled pension funds and built one million housing units with state-guaranteed loans for a population of eight million. The bureaucracy to oversee all these state-controlled organizations was enormous.

According to Kjell Östberg, for 40 years Sweden was controlled by the social democratic party; it had more than one million members, dominating most of Sweden’s large cities.  The labor force was organized around the blue-collar workers’ union LO, to the tune of 90 percent of the workforce.

Social democrats influenced life from cradle to grave. They held 45-50 percent of the seats in Parliament. In their youth, half of the members of government had belonged to the blue-collar union LO.

Swedish citizens were shaped into equality, socially and economically, by the heavy influence, funding, and control of the state:

-          Young people met at youth associations and dances in People’s Parks, remarkably like the organization of the communist youth in the Soviet bloc

-          Citizens bought apartments in the cooperative housing association called HSB, not unlike the Soviet style

-          Swedes bought food at Konsum and gasoline at the cooperative OK gas stations

-          Workers were trade union members, corporate members of LO

-          Married men were active in the workers’ commune, just like Soviet life

-          Married women were members in the social-democratic women’s organization

-          Families watched movies at the People’s House, produced by studios owned by the workers’ movement,  definitely a déjà vu for those who lived under Soviet socialism

-          Swedes could join study circles facilitated by the Workers’ Educational Association

-          Citizens got their news from the party’s many newspapers

-          Children participated in activities organized by the Young Eagles

-          Retirees joined the PRO organization

-          People were buried by Fonus, the worker’s movement funeral home

-          Abortions were free and on demand

-          All children were enrolled in free public childcare

-          The parents’ insurance gave families seven months of leave from work with full pay from the state insurance ministry; mother and father had to decide how they split the seven months of leave

-          Education was “democratized” – nine years of primary education, high school, free teaching materials, free school meals, doubled child benefits payments given to all children up to the age of sixteen and then extended to high school, all universities were run by the state, tuition was free, and students received aid for living expenses (government grants and loans payable within 20 years)

-          Sick pay guaranteed employees 90 percent of their wages

-          Local health centers owned by the state charged 7 SEK ($1) per visit

-          Hospital care was paid by state health insurance

-          Pharmacies and parts of the medical industry were also controlled by the state

-          State communal housing companies built and owned the new units

-          Higher rents were subsidized by the state via a generous housing allowance

Was Sweden Headed Toward Socialism in the 1970s? (jacobinmag.com)

Politicians had established a government ownership of business. The size of the government doubled, its share of the GDP also doubled, taxes increased, and the state regulated everything. For twenty years of heavy socialism, 1970-1990, the wealth of Sweden declined. The experiment with Democratic Socialism failed because “the policies were perverse, unsustainable, and absurd,” wrote the Democrat Socialist Minister of Finance Kjell-Olof Feldt.

To begin the roll back of the socialist welfare state, the size of government was reduced, markets and industries were deregulated, and taxes were decreased; the economy began to flourish again.

Andreas Bergh, economist, stated that “around 1980, the marginal income tax was at its highest, around 90 percent.” Corporations refused to pay such high taxes and moved their income and businesses to other countries. The high tax rates resulted in high loss of tax revenue as corporations found new ways to plan for tax avoidance. Outsourcing and corporate tax evasion became the norm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcX6BUZlEw4

Johan Norberg said that the Swedish tax system does not “squeeze the rich, it squeezes the poor” because they and the middle class do pay their taxes. They do not move their households to other countries, they do not have tax lawyers, and they do not have huge deductions.

According to Norberg, most income tax payments in Sweden come from payroll tax of 30 percent and local regional income tax also of 30 percent. Both these taxes are flat, not progressive. There are also excise taxes and VAT (ad valorem) tax of 25 percent.

Compare that to the two American payroll taxes, Social Security payroll tax of 12.4 percent and the Medicare payroll tax of 2.9 percent. Our state taxes vary but are much lower and sales taxes are, on the average, no higher than 10 percent. Our federal taxes combined with the state taxes are well below the 60 percent that Swedish citizen pay. We do have excise taxes that are included in the price of a product or service.

The self-identified American democrat socialists conveniently remember only the twenty-year period when Sweden was the most generous socialist welfare state on the planet. It did not go so well for them, and they eventually reversed course.

American democrat socialists want to emulate Sweden’s twenty years of incredible welfare. All blue states have extremely high tax rates and struggle to fund their generous welfare programs, usually taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive and illegal, and expecting to be bailed out by federal grant-in-aid and omnibus bills.

Bruce Bawer, a prolific bestselling author, wrote in 2020, “the fact remains that Swedes are, by nature, collectivist, statist, consensus-oriented, and anti-individualistic – scared to challenge received opinion and eager to join in ostracizing those who do.” Whitewashing the Swedish Nightmare - American Renaissance (amren.com)

 

Talking to Joseph Stalin

H. G. Wells and Joseph Stalin

H.G. Wells, the prolific British sci-fi writer, who self-described to be a socialist left of Stalin, interviewed the infamous Soviet dictator for three hours on July 23, 1934. The interview was recorded by Constantine Oumansky, the chief of the Press Bureau of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.

The scope of the interview, after he spoke at length with President Roosevelt, was to find out what Stalin was “doing to change the world.” Wells told Stalin that he tried to look at the world through the eyes of the “common man” not the eyes of a politician or a bureaucrat.

Indicating to Stalin that “capitalists must learn from you, to grasp the spirit of socialism,” Wells stated that a profound reorganization was taking place in the United States, the creation of a “planned, that is, socialist, economy.” He witnessed Washington building offices, new state regulatory bodies, and “a much needed Civil Service.”

Stalin expressed his skepticism about U.S. being able to build a planned economy. It is not possible, he said, because “the Americans want to rid themselves of the [economic] crisis on the basis of private capitalist activity without changing the economic basis.” Stalin was touting the new economic basis that socialism had built. In his view, the existing capitalist system was rooted in anarchy. “A planned economy tries to abolish unemployment.” But a capitalist would never agree to completely abolish unemployment, Stalin said, because capitalists want to maintain a supply of cheap labor.

Stalin was wrong about unemployment under a socialist Soviet economy for three reasons:

1.       Data in general was never accurately kept or reported.

2.       The labor was highly manual with low levels of automation; under a free market economy automation often displaces labor, causing retraining of workers into other skills.

3.       Women who sought employment worked for shorter periods of time and were thus not included in the statistics.

Stalin explained to Wells that planned economies increase output in those “branches of the industry which produce goods that the masses of the people need particularly.”

Having survived for twenty years in such a system Stalin described, I remember precisely all the shortages of goods and services that the economically illiterate central planners created, the long lines, the rationing we had to endure, and the empty shelves everywhere.

Furthermore, to see how wrong Stalin was, just look today at Venezuela under Maduro’s centrally planned socialist policies, a continuation of his mentor’s, Hugo Chavez, and you will see the empty shelves and suffering. Look at Castro’s Cuba after 50 years of central planning and at its decaying infrastructure and decrepit buildings. Fidel “protected” Cuba’s hapless citizens from the “evils” of capitalism and instead gave them a nightmarish socialist economy and a political socialist dictatorship.

Stalin described to Wells that capital flows into those sectors of the economy where the rate of profit is highest.  A capitalist would never agree “to incur loss to himself and agree to a lower rate of profit for the sake of satisfying the needs of the people.” A central planner like Stalin did not understand supply and demand, only saw collectivism, and viewed profit as evil. Who wants to open a business if they are going to lose money?

Stalin admitted that “without getting rid of the capitalists, without abolishing the principle of private property in the means of production, it is impossible to create a planned economy.”  When the “financial oligarchy will be abolished, only then socialism will be brought about,” Stalin added.

He believed that Roosevelt’s “New Deal” was a very powerful socialist idea. But, in Stalin’s opinion, Roosevelt would not be able to achieve his socialist goals for many generations because “the banks, the industries, the large enterprises, the large farms are not in Roosevelt’s hands.”

All the railroads, the mercantile fleet, the army of skilled workers, engineers, and technical personnel are all working for private enterprise, he said. Even though the State offers military defense of the country, maintains law and order, and collects taxes, this private ownership of the means of production, renders the State unable to control everything, “the State is in the hands of capitalist economy.”

Stalin explained that, if the State controlled the banks, then transportation, then heavy industries, industries in general, commerce, an “all-embracing control will be equivalent to the State ownership of all branches of the national economy and this will be the process of socialization.”

I wonder if the Millennials understand that they would lose their smart gadgets, TVs, laptops, and other electronics they love to their socialist utopian dream of social justice. If they can’t get rich then everybody must be equally poor and miserable.

The important question is, are American citizens ready to lose everything they own privately, giving government carte blanche to own the means the production and to tell them what they can and cannot have, consume, and do?

Stalin argued that Roosevelt made an honest attempt to “satisfy the interests of the proletariat class at the expense of the capitalist class.” Today, we, the taxpayers/capitalist class, are still satisfying the interests of the non-producers who receive welfare at our expense from the heavy taxes we pay. Are we willing supporters of such idle individuals? Roosevelt, with his programs, created a generational welfare class that feels entitled to what they receive, and destroyed the family in the process.

Stalin described the two classes in capitalism, as he saw it through the lenses of a socialist:

-          “The propertied class” (the owners of banks, factories, mines, farms, “plantations in colonies,” who chased after the “evil” profit)

-          “The exploited class” (the class of the poor who existed by selling their labor)

Wells told Stalin that, although he personally saw the need to “conduct propaganda in favor of socialism,” he met many educated people such as “engineers, airmen, military-technical people” who regarded “your simple class antagonism as nonsense.” Additionally, he asked, were there not people who were not poor but worked productively?

Stalin admitted that “small landowners, artisans, small traders” did not decide the fate of a country, but “the toiling masses, who produce all the things society requires.”

We sure have a lot of unemployed and disabled “toiling masses” today that are sitting idle at home and don’t seem to mind one bit, benefitting from the “evil” capitalist spoils.

Calling J.P. Morgan “old Morgan,” Wells described him as “a parasite on society,” who “merely accumulated wealth.” On the other hand, Wells admired Rockefeller whom he described as a “brilliant organizer” who “has set an example of how to organize the delivery of oil that is worthy of emulation,” while Ford was “selfish.”

Further excoriating the capitalist system based on profit that, in his opinion, is “breaking down,” Wells surprised Stalin by saying, “It seems to me that I am more to the Left than you, Mr. Stalin; I think the old system is nearer to its end than you think.”

Stalin corrects him that these capitalist men possess great organizational talent which the Soviet people could learn from. “And [J. P.] Morgan, whom you characterize so unfavorably, was undoubtedly a good, capable organizer.” But people like him who “serve the cause of profit” are not “prepared to reconstruct the world,” they are not “capable organizers of production.” 

Reminding Wells, “don’t you know how many workers he throws in the streets,” Stalin added that capitalism will be abolished by the working class, not by the ‘technical intelligentsia’ or the ‘organizers’ of production. If this “technical intelligentsia breaks away spiritually from their employers, from the capitalist world, that will take a long time and only then can they begin to reconstruct the world.” The working class will become the “sovereign master of the capitalist class.”

In reality, this working class Stalin described as the savior of society, was a dumbed-down, poorly paid, miserable majority who could not care less if the factories under-produced, broke down, and were never repaired. They were paid regardless of how much they produced, how many mistakes they made, what shoddy products they sent to the market, how much theft was going on in order to barter with others to survive, and did not own much of anything. This working class pretended to work and the communist organizers and centralized planners pretended to pay them.

The Soviet economic system was a dismal model which failed miserably and eventually collapsed on its own utopian weight while the free market system thrived.

Unfortunately today, the Democrats and Social Democrats are gaining tract in their efforts to resurrect around the world a mummified model of economic failure, inventing new euphemisms, in order to stay in absolute power and control of the population.

Wells described the Royal Society whose president had delivered a speech on “social planning and scientific control.” The Royal Society, he told Stalin, held “revolutionary views and insists on the scientific reorganization of human society. Mentality changes. Your class-war propaganda has not kept pace with these facts.”

“Capitalist society is in a cul de sac,” Stalin responded, and “A devoted and energetic revolutionary minority requires the passive support of millions.”

“Revolution, the substitution of one social system for another, has always been a struggle, a painful and cruel struggle, a life and death struggle,” Stalin admitted. And the process will not be “spontaneous and peaceful, it will be complicated, long, and violent.” And the new world order “revolutionaries” should use the police to support them in the fight against “reactionaries.”

“That is why the Communists say to the working class: Answer violence with violence; do all you can to prevent the old dying order from crushing you, do not permit it to put manacles on your hands, on the hands with which you will overthrow the old system.”

Citing history, both Wells and Stalin described how Cromwell, on the basis of the Constitution, resorted to violence, beheaded the king, dispersed the Parliament, arrested many, and beheaded others; how much blood was shed to overthrow the tsars; how the October Revolution overthrew the old and decaying Russian capitalist system and how the “Bolsheviks were the only way out.”

Explaining the Third Estate (the common people) which existed before the French Revolution, Stalin pointed out that “not a single class has voluntarily made way for another class” and the “Communists would welcome the voluntary departure of the bourgeoisie.”

Wells argued that force must be used within existing laws and “there is no need to disorganize the old system because it is disorganizing itself enough as it is.” In his opinion, “insurrection against the old order, against the law, is obsolete, old-fashioned.” In addition to the educational system which must be radically changed, this is how Wells explained his point of view:

1.       He supports order.

2.       He attacks the present system “in so far as it cannot assure order.”

3.       He thinks that “class war propaganda may detach from socialism just those educated people whom socialism needs.” (H.G. Wells, p. 20 of the interview transcript)

Stalin countered with his own points:

1.       “The social bulwark of the revolution is the working class.”

2.       An auxiliary force must exist; the Communists call it a Party.

3.       Political power is the “lever of change” to create new laws in the interest of the working class.

From my experience, the only interests represented in the socialism/communism of my youth were the interests of the dictatorial ruling elite of the Communist Party. They became the millionaire rulers at that time, and, when disbanded and stripped of power, their heirs became the billionaires of today.

Ending the interview, Wells thanked Stalin for his explanations of the fundamentals of socialism and said that millions around the world hang on to every word Stalin and Roosevelt utter.

Stalin, engaging the infamous and demagogue idea of ‘self-criticism,’ which had sent many honest intellectuals to gulags, replied that much more could have been done by the Bolsheviks, had they been “cleverer.” Wells suggested making human beings “cleverer” by inventing a five-year plan for the “reconstruction of the human brain which obviously lacks many things needed for a perfect social order.”

The idea of mind control, which is not so far-fetched today, brought shivers down my spine. Bombastic and not-ground-in-reality Five-Year centralized plans issued by the Communist Party elites and their apparatchiks who had no idea how the economy should be run, many of whom did not have but an elementary education and could barely read, write, and do simple math, those plans brought the economies in all Soviet satellite countries to unmitigated disaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interview Across Cyber Space with Mircea Brenciu Part IV Medicine and Islamic Invasion

On the question of medicine and medical care after decades of communism which ended officially with the Revolution of December 1989, Brenciu explained that Romania now produces doctors on a “conveyor belt.” He admits that a good doctor is not made by textbook theory learned in school, but is born after years of residency training, specializing, and real life experience in the ER of a hospital.

The tragedy starts, he said, when the young resident is thrown in the midst of the hospital drama and realizes that he himself has become a social case, a victim of starvation on his meager income. While a nurse in the European Union, which Romania is a member of, earns about 6,500 lei (1,500 euros) per month, a doctor in Romania earns 1,500 lei per month, approximately four times less.

Under socialism/communism, people walked around the medical professionals with money in envelopes.  Extra cash for expected bribes sped up test results, X-rays, helped jump waiting lines, and gave patients extra much-needed and speedier medical attention, prevented infections, and perhaps insured survivability. Doctors accepted the bribes because their pay was so low. Everyone earned equal pay and experienced the same miserable standard of living, regardless of years of training, effort, and education.

Overcoming the problems associated with decades of totalitarian socialism/communism has not been easy. Accepting bribes and corruption across the board are still the norm. Even though medical care is socialized and free, people still pay doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel in order to expedite their tests, care, and treatment. There are private clinics but fees are potentially higher than the bribes.

Under such low current pay and demoralizing conditions, it is no surprise that a chronic crisis of medical personnel overwhelms the recovery system and the establishment of well-organized and timely health care. And the government in Bucharest does not seem to make much difference since the “command buttons are in Brussels.” The Romanians’ plans for the future do not seem to coincide with the plans of the technocrats from Brussels, added Brenciu.

Dr. Arafat, a naturalized Romanian, organized what most considered an exceptional service that was highly necessary in the medical chaos – SMURD, an acronym for the Emergency Medical Services in Romania. This service is a model of organization, efficiency, and necessity.

On the question of the Muslim invasion of Europe, Brenciu admitted that the Old Continent is finding itself again in the unenvied position of battlefield for the clash of civilizations. “Angela Merkel was not afraid to receive in the beautiful, liberal, and multicultural Germany one million Islamists, of which at least 5% could be terrorists with proper papers.”

Brenciu added that the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington brought attention to this inevitable phenomenon for the European society. The clash of civilization is a post-Cold War era hypothesis that supports the idea that people’s cultural and religious identities will be a major source of conflict. Huntington proposed this idea in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

Setting aside the humanitarian aspect of this invasion and petitions for political and economic asylum, Brenciu believes that “accepting to be invaded in good conscience by cohorts of people with foreign traditions, culture, schooling, and especially religion, by hundreds of thousands of individuals terrorized by war, poverty, and the devastating and merciless Islamism, seems to be a form of madness bordering on treason.”

In his opinion, Angela Merkel, with her exaggerated and programmed tolerance for the refugees of Islam, will compromise the European Union, which will fold in the face of huge pressure of the member states, forced to accept unwillingly thousands and thousands of hungry, lawless, and savage refugees. Additionally, Germany will be gripped by national despair.

What will Merkel do to “attenuate the fantastic pressure of this human ballast which materialized suddenly and without logic?” She will probably “force the small states of Central and Eastern Europe, EU members, to receive a large portion of these unfortunate “impoverished” who paid heavy fees [where did they get so much money, he wonders] to cross many borders and thousands of kilometers to come to the Promised Land, Germany.”

Romania was asked initially to accept two thousand immigrants but President Johannis negotiated later to accept forty-five hundred. Following the visit of the “technocrat premier Ciolos in Germany in January 2016, we must now think of a number of refugees much, much larger, a number that will likely be either secret or falsified publicly.”

What shocks Brenciu is that, despite the sacrifices Romanians have made across the centuries to preserve the “Christian spirit, they are now infected quietly by Islam in unknown proportions by the very European institutions which should have defended Christianity and the doctrine of a free and democratic Europe.”

Brenciu did not speak in a discriminatory vein; he referred to the Islamic world that must respect its geographic boundaries and the boundaries, cultures, lands, human rights, and religions of other peoples.

TO BE CONTINUED

Interview Across Cyber Space with Mircea Brenciu - Part II

On the question, why would people put their faith in career politicians, fighting with each other fiercely on social media, looking for purity, honesty, and perfection in a person’s character, qualities that are often lacking in the political world, Mircea Brenciu’s answer was not a surprise.

The main stream media models and shapes the news and the thinking of the voting populace based on the candidates and what platform they offer – the more socialist, the more popular. The problem arises after the election when, in the “laboratories of democracy,” the two Parliamentary chambers, behind closed doors, unabashedly vacate the will of the voting people.

There is no law that prohibits the candidates elected to migrate to other parties and to change representation to that party’s interest and ideology. “Influenced by blackmail, bribery, and other means, some representatives leave their parties under whose banner they ran for office, and join another party or political organization, thus altering the results of the general vote.” This way, a party or an alliance that was previously in a majority, becomes a minority, further eroding the will of the voters.

These Machiavellian political alliances, made before or after the election, often lack the ideological unity necessary to address the strategic, political, or economic issues of the day and thus decisions are generally made arbitrarily and not in the best interest of the population.

Parliament members are inhibited by fear that they will be arrested under real or trumped up charges and would have to defend themselves for years in a court of law and potentially serve time. Romanian politics must pass through the microscope of the bureaucracy called the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. (DNA)

In Brenciu’s opinion, the DNA is necessary but often abusive. Those who control this institution, also control the direction of national politics. For example, Brenciu added, the “infractors of the Social Democrat Party (PSD) are treated differently than the Liberal Democrat Party (PDL) of former President Traian Basescu.”

Some corrupt politicians are better protected under the law than others, escaping prison, which results in a loss of trust by the general public in the fairness and justice of government.  Using this loss of trust, other politicians shamelessly campaign under the slogan of curbing abuse, corruption, and illegality, and deliver nothing.

While the politics of corruption continue unabated, national interest is forgotten, “with a disgrace and arrogance worthy of historical traitors,” said Brenciu, and the idea of nation-state and sovereignty overlooked in the wave of internationalism coming from Brussels.  “The negotiation of individual liberty is the only politics in Romania that seem worthy of sincere, huge, and herculean efforts.”

Take for example, the development funds allocated to Romania by the European Union in Brussels. Based on passed history, under the banner of curbing corruption, the funds are draconically controlled, and those who are charged with dispersing them realize that it is almost impossible to obtain or demand bribes, and it is thus not in their interest to try very hard to allocate the funds to those who need them for development.

It is difficult to prove such financial corruption; however, why should someone complicate their lives with foreign funds from EU when there is nothing to be gained from the effort, only a lot of paperwork, hard to obtain approvals, and the long wait for funds that must be spent exactly as they were earmarked and in the given amount of time.

“For the EU bureaucrats, this would justify to view Romanians as an inferior category in the grand multinational scheme of EU wannabes.” Romania’s membership in the EU is important but their land, strategic, and economic potential are much more important to these globalist elites.

As Brenciu explained, following in the footstep of history when colonists eliminated people who already resided on the lands sought after, history has an annoying tendency to repeat itself.  He explained, “Romania must be emptied of Romanians, as they are incapable to resist the western bulldozer, and must leave the gold for the explorers who came to the Old Continent in the name of the Crown with 12 gold stars and a blue flag.”

On the question of the economic situation in Romania, following the execution of the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, Brenciu had this to say.

After the Revolution of December 1989, the first government, that of Petre Roman, launched the competition which Brenciu dubbed, “Getting Rich at Any Cost,” an effort to privatize the economy.

One such method of privatization called MEBO, gave factories, industrial complexes, and economic centers to the new managers, chosen by workers’ meetings, supposedly democratic. In this new brand of “savage and primitive capitalism, devoid of any rules and regulations,” the newly appointed managers robbed everything and anything that belonged to Ceausescu’s communist state and thus became owners without any payment made to the state.  The “proletariat,” who continued to work for the new owners, received shares in this new “enterprise,” shares which they later sold to the new owners/directors who became millionaires overnight.

Brenciu clarified that the majority of the new owners/directors were former security officers and communist apparatchiks who were traitors to the communist regime, turning the anti-communist tide into their financial favor. They were opportunists, aided and abetted by a corrupt judicial system and a mentality of two wolves and a lamb deciding what’s for dinner.

The poor of yesterday, members of the proletariat, the much touted “workers,” remain the poor of today.  Many jobs have disappeared thanks to the sale of unproductive factories, piece by piece, or the sale to foreign investors who bought entire plants, whether productive or unproductive, to dismantle them or to modernize them, and thus eliminate any competition possible.

Even though Romanian economy functioned under communism with old and outdated technology, it had an industrial base. Today, Brenciu added, Romania has become an “industrial-agrarian, tourist, and service economy.” And the agricultural sector is also suffering as more arable land is left unused, while food is imported from far away.

TO BE CONTINUED