Creating a Market Economy in Eastern Europe: The Case of Poland
By David Lipton and Jeffrey Sachs
THE POLITICAL and intellectual leaders of Eastern Europe's revolution of 1989 describe their aim as a "return to Europe." Their overwhelming judgment is that the post war division of Europe into East and West was artificially imposed by the Soviet Union, at enormous human and economic cost. They underscore the artificiality of the division by referring to their region as East Central Europe (or Middle Europe), rather than Eastern Europe, thereby stressing their countries' place in the mainstream of European history, politics, arts, and economy.