Discussion

Extract

Alexander Motyl

In this discussion, let us exclude economic issues altogether. While I would not presume to fill an economist's shoes, I would like to rephrase one or two issues from a political scientist's perspective that might then be worthy of discussion. This rephrasing is essential because the discussion of economic reform in the Soviet Union has been noticeably lacking in any kind of context or any appreciation of the genuine political situation in the Soviet Union. What strikes me in the economists’ discussions of what should be done in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland is that, by and large, there is very little consideration paid to precisely the issues that have been raised by today's presentations. There is almost no consideration of the constitutional and political confusion referred to by John Hazard; very little talk about the social decompression and the societal problems described by Peter Juviler; complete ignorance of the gender, equality, and age conflicts addressed by Michael Paul Sacks; virtually no appreciation of the ethnic conflicts discussed by Robert Lewis; no understanding whatsoever of the cultural problems pointed out by Edward All worth; and very little appreciation of the security dilemmas referred to by Jack Matlock. In other words, the economic discussion, even if theoretically correct, and reflective of the best textbook version of what should be done in such circumstances, seems to be totally disembodied from any of these other contextual realities, and thus, almost foreordained to fail.