Anticapitalism in Ex-Communist Countries
On September 29 was the regular seminar in the St. Petersburg. The research fellow Julia Zelikova delivered a report on “Anticapitalism in Ex-Communist Countries”. The study carried out by Julia Zelikova attempts to explain why people from ex-communist countries have more strong anti-capitalist sentiments and to explain the difference in capitalistic commitments in various ex-communist countries.
The study carried out by Julia Zelikova attempts to explain why people from ex-communist countries have more strong anti-capitalist sentiments and to explain the difference in capitalistic commitments in various ex-communist countries.
24 ex-communist European countries were selected for analysis with the application of WVS data. An anti-capitalism index was constructed which is based on three variables: variable, which estimates views of people on whether private business ownership or government ownership of business should be increased. The second variable measures people’s attitudes to competition, whether it is good or harmful. The third variable shows people’s opinion about who should take more responsibility of their lives. It was found out that mean of anti-capitalism index is different for ex-communist and other countries.
In order to explain this difference, Julia referred to the theory of Luc Boltanski about the “spirit of capitalism”. According to him capitalism is a pretty absurd system in many ways. There must be “spirit of capitalism” in society which makes capitalism attractive for people. The capitalism spirit index was created basing on this theory. It explains 42% of anti-capitalism sentiments’ variance in ex-communists countries. It was hypothesized that there might be something else explaining anti-capitalism sentiments in ex-communists countries, for example, their former historical experience. It was revealed that only Soviet experience of countries is significant.
If we compare two models, it becomes evident that anti-capitalism sentiments are more powerful in former soviet countries than in other ex-communist countries at equal values of spirit of capitalism.
The question arises what Eastern and Central European countries have in common which would explain their lower commitment to capitalism. There are two hypotheses which should be tested. The first idea is that the beginning of development of capitalism in these countries coincided with national liberation struggle, because all contemporary Eastern European countries were parts of empires. The process of liberation and new national states’ formation was accompanied by the growth of nationalism in the form of national self-determination and closing of society. This prevented the development of modernization. The Second World War interrupted the process of modernization in this region. All Eastern and Central European countries were under the influence of USSR after World War II. The Soviet model of modernization held back the development of nationalism. It was a special kind of modernization, not connected with development of capitalist relations. After the collapse of communist system occurred, discourse about a liberal and open society has become popular in these countries. But this discourse only partly corresponded to reality. Nationalism and religiosity started to grow as a response to this discourse. This prevented the development of commitment to capitalism .
The second idea is that Eastern European countries were constantly an object of developed countries’ political interests. Modernization in these countries is co-called “forced modernization”, and it meets resistance.