Did You Say Neoliberalism? The Dirigiste Theories of the Romanian Postcommunist Elite
No. 54, Jul.-Aug. 2025 Economically speaking, where did we start from within the political project shepherded by Ion Iliescu in 1990? I see that this project is called at the same time “Gorbachevite”, “neoliberal”, “shock therapist” even. Yet, rigor is needed here. My analysis is that at the decisive moment of 1990, before the fragmentation brought about by the 1991 reforms, at an intellectual level in power circles there was actually a split between market socialism and a strange neo-developmentalism grafted on social-democratic aspirations whose undercurrents neither Iliescu nor his allies understood very well, given the data of the problem in Romania in those years and the terrible isolation experienced in the 80s. The Neoliberal Consensus from Washington, not to mention shock therapy, had no supporters in the power apparatus until 1996. What was done in this regard was fragmentary and under the coercion applied by financiers (here the IMF) to the rulers of a state without access to capital. In the final socio-economic outcome – overall an extremely brutal one with millions of lives –, these economic paradigms mattered less than objective material and political factors, some inherited from the late stage of Ceausescu’s reign, others new. But in no case can we see in the dominant actors of this period simple projections of structural constraints. Some socialist countries gravitated towards the ideas that were the basis of European social democracies (Slovenia). Others went towards a kind of market socialism without the advantages of China (Belarus). Others gravitated towards liberalism, although some socially embedded it quite a lot, at least for a while (Visegrad) or did not bother to put in serious safety nets (the Baltics). More
