Shock therapy and its consequences in transition economies

As a contribution the Dialogue section of Development critiques of mainstream economics John Marangos looks at how shock therapies applied to transition economies in Central, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were economic experiments that went disastrously wrong. They produced suffering, low growth, inflation, unemployment, corruption and crime. He suggests that there were economic, political and ideological reasons for this as the same class that controlled affairs under Stalinism were joined by the multinational capitalist class in the promotion of a 'free' world of a globalized economy with very few benefits to the majority of those bearing the 'shocks'. © 2005 Society for International Development.