中東欧の資本主義化と生活保障システムの変容

―1989年以後の軌跡―

抄録

This paper examines the systemic change from communism to capitalism and the transformation of the welfare system in the Visegrad countries, the Baltic states and Slovenia.
The CEE countries aimed to create capitalism through liberalization, macro-stabilization and privatization of the state-owned firms after the breakdown of communism. The first attempts at privatizing the large state-owned firms in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic resulted in different types of state and private “hybrid ownership” structures in which some state paternalism remained. The state paternalism remained in Slovakia, too. The Baltic states adopted the most radical liberalization and macro-stabilization policy in the region to create a form of capitalism, which was furthest removed from the past-communism symbolized by the former Soviet Union since they considered independence from Russia as the most important challenge of the systemic change. While Slovenia created a German type of corporatist industrial relation in the first half of the 1990s on the basis of the past legacy, i.e., self-management socialism, it implemented privatization gradually.
Due to both internal and external reasons such as the CEE countries’ low level of domestic capital accumulation and their accession into the EU, the inflow of FDI from old EU member states into the CEE increased at a faster pace since the late 1990s. As a result, “dependent capitalism” emerged in the eight CEE countries. The Visegrad countries enjoyed a higher pace of economic growth through multinational-led export increases by the late 2000s. In the Baltic states, a “housing and consumption boom” originated from the excess-loans from foreign bank affiliates to households. However, the CEE economies (except Poland) were severely damaged by the spread of the financial crisis and recessions in the core EU member states after the late 2008. From this event, one should keep in mind the negative aspects of the excess-dependence on foreign capital in the CEE economies.
The communist welfare system consisted of full employment, universal social insurance, a firm-based system of service, fringe benefits and subsidized prices for basic necessities such as food and housing. The “transition recession” in the beginning of the 1990s led to massive unemployment and the end of full employment in the CEE. By introducing unemployment benefits and social assistance system in order to cope with the increase of the poor and unemployed in the beginning of the 1990s, the welfare system of the CEE moved closer to those of Continental European type. From the mid-1990s, the social policies of many CEE countries shifted to what the World Bank had recommended. For example, many countries in the CEE implemented pension reform, including partial privatization, although Slovenia and the Czech Republic did not.
The fact that poverty rate in Slovenia and the Czech Republic is much lower than those in Poland and Baltic states reflects different social policy stances. It also reveals historical path-dependency since Slovenia and the Czech Republic created the most developed capitalism in the CEE as measured by per capita GDP on the basis of historical legacy. Before the breakdown of communism, both Slovenia and the Czech Republic belonged to the advanced region in the Eastern Europe.