| Sumario: | A number of years have passed since the failure of shock therapy to generate a vibrant market economy in Russia, and the unpleasant truths about Russian privatization are slowly emerging. Some of the architects of the original plans have acknowledged that their strategies were naive, incomplete, or overly ambitious, whereas others insist that there were no viable alternatives. Moreover, although some critics have taken easy potshots at the blatantly corrupt loans-for-shares privatization scheme, the lessons of the earlier voucher privatization—whereby vouchers or coupons to buy assets being privatized are distributed free, or for a nominal processing charge, to all citizens—are far more revealing. A discussion is provided on why voucher privatization was such a popular reformist tool and why it was doomed from the start.
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