Systemic Change: The Delicate Mixture of Intentions and Spontaneity
In this paper I shall not present a more or less standard and descriptive summary ofthe current stage ofthe transformationprocess in my country and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. I find it appropriate to defend the achieved results because, in spite of all existing problems, this historic transformation process has been—in principle—successful. Nevertheless, it is our task to understand more deeply the fascinating social mechanism that makes such a process possible and to describe the delicate interplay of the political, social and economic factors at work. My theoretical background and my practical experience tell me that systemic change—and that is what we have been undergoing while dismantling communism in our countries—is an evolutionary process and not an exercise in applied economics or political science. It is based on a very complicated mixture of planned and unplanned, of intended and unintended events, or, to put it differently, on a mixture of intentions and spontaneity. By participating in such a process we have opened another chapter in the never completed book devoted to the study of the relative role of human action and human design in the history of mankind, the book devoted to the study of “made orders” and “catalaxies”—to use well-known Hayekian terms. I hope we can add something to that study. We may confirm that successful transformation isnot the result of detailed reform blueprints in the hands ofomnipotent reform politicians. Rather, success depends on the unconstrained activity of human beings together with “modest
Market Order and Social Institutions: the Theory of F. Haiek and the Newly Emerging Market Economies
Subject of the analysis is the theory of F. A. Haiek about the institutional frame of the spontaneous market order and its contemporary sounding. Studied are the nature, functions and structure of the social functions and the way they generate order. At front is drawn the character of the institutions as information and communication carriers and their role for the economizing of a knowledge. The focus is set on the emerging of the informal rules and conventions, which appear as unintentional consequences from the human activity. The second part is dedicated to the relevance of the theory for the contemporary post-communist reality. Defended is the thesis that the paradigm for the spontaneous market order and its institutional frame is necessary as a philosophy of the new social arrangement in more continuous and global perspective. The messages of Haiek are revealed in its warnings for the danger for the monopoly power of the state in the creation of new norms of the social practice, as well as in the insisting for a policy, leaving sufficient space for the changes in the informal market institutions.
The Role of Monetary Policy in Israel's 1985 Stabilization Effort
Comparing the performances of the Austral, Cruzado and Sheqel programs shows that the latent suggestion that a "heterodox" stabilization program can be implemented without tight fiscal discipline to support a restrictive monetary policy, though welcome in the politicial arena, is unwarranted. Freezes, pegs and controls alone are bound to lead to dismal failure. A highly restrictive monetary policy sustained by a tight fiscal policy persisting for a lengthy interval (in terms of the political horizon), supported by a stable exchange rate as a highly visible nominal anchor and by a temporary but significant erosion of real wages, have succeeded to contain a runaway inflation in Israel.