Was Communism Better?: A Comparison of Economic and Social Development of Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania
Was Communism Better?: A Comparison of Economic and Social Development of Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania

Summary/Abstract: Political science discussions this year were focused on the following question: to what extent have the promises of European “annus mirabilis” been achieved and what does political and economic transition look like from today’s perspective? Hence, this article compares the economic success of Croatia and a selection of European countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania) before and after the fall of communism. The preliminary results show that the above-mentioned countries had – on average – almost identical economic growth during the last 18 years of communism and during the first 18 years of democracy and capitalism. The equality in distribution of national income (measured by the GINI index) has been decreased, while the increase in life expectancy (measured on a yearly basis) has been more than doubled during the postcommunist period in comparison with the period of communism. Furthermore, former communist countries have much higher school enrolment now than during the period of communism. In short, communism was not better (except in equality of distribution of income), but capitalism and democracy have still not shown their superiority in stimulation of economic growth.

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