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It is an important precondition of any organization to have greater coherence between its parts than between any of these parts and the environment of the organization. The Hungarian entrepreneurs who burst onto the scene in 1982 partially remolded socialism's institutional logic to fit their business agendas. But they were by no means the only source of disruptive pressure bearing on the system's internal coherence. Within the structures of the state apparatus, too, conflicting interests and passions arose. In non-profit institutions such as hospitals, universities, and legal-services cooperatives, high-ranking administrators were outraged by the new laws, which motivated their professional staffs – surgeons and nurses, professors and researchers, lawyers and legal secretaries – to pursue independent careers. In the sectoral bureaus, ministers feared the loss of monopolistic power in their particular “spheres” of the economy. And in state firms, directors resented the new legal “freedoms” enjoyed by their private competitors. Indeed, the reform itself (and the widespread reaction to it) so thoroughly compromised the institutional logic of the economy that the Ministry of Finance actually had to take on the role of “protector” of private enterprise, constantly trying to prevent resentful state-firm directors and hostile bureaucrats from “turning” on the new entrepreneurs. The Ministry's protective role – entailing complex politico-administrative lobbying – partially reflected the fact that it was the reform's institutional sponsor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production. The socio-political ramifications of the 1982 property-rights reform, which institutionalized private entrepreneurship in Hungary's state-socialist system, were complex and profound. Pre-reform informal entrepreneurs, accustomed to an old set of rules, suddenly found themselves in a strange new world. They now operated in a hybrid economy in which enhanced legality and heightened competition was an irrevocable fact. Anyone doubting this had only to look at the new entrepreneurs who began to emerge into the light of day. Some – albeit a clear minority – were bold enough to leave the state sector entirely. Some even became legislators avant la lettre, lobbying and petitioning state bureaucracies to such a point that they forced the broadening of existing regulations and, in successive rounds, the enactment of new, more liberal ones. A few became so well-versed in the laws affecting them that they advised the state through the “representative” organizations that had originally been created to oversee and control the tiny pre-1982 private sector of craftsmen and shopkeepers. Still others set out to harness the politics of entrepreneurship, and founded an independent representative organization, the National Association of Entrepreneurs (VOSZ). Like their informal predecessors in industry and services or their counterparts in agriculture, these new entrepreneurs began collectively to change their environment, even as they remained convinced that they were merely functioning as best they could within the confines of micro-universes carefully constructed to ward off outside interference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

… there is nothing … more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them. On January 1, 1982, the Hungarian party-state institutionalized a property rights reform that made private enterprise a citizen's prerogative. Though radically at odds with communist ideology, and unparalleled in the communist world, the reform went largely unnoticed by outside observers. It was easy to miss. Hungarian reformers themselves downplayed the reform's importance. Martial law had been recently imposed in Poland. Perestroika and Glasnost had yet to appear on the Soviet stage. The Cold War was still on. And the Berlin Wall stood unperturbed, as if facing eternity. In Hungary, however, the reform seized the imaginations and marshaled the energies of thousands of new entrepreneurs. It also incited resentment in state firms, and prompted resistance in a bureaucratic machinery that could not even fathom the practical, regulatory problems with which entrepreneurs presented them, first in a trickle and then in a flood. Finally, the reform provoked jealousy among a general population unaccustomed to sharp income differentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By now it is obvious that even though the blueprint of classical state socialism aimed for uniformity across countries and within societies, a variety of national hybrids actually developed in the state-socialist world. The most casual observers intuit, for instance, that Romania was not Poland, and specialists are keenly aware of the myriad ways in which the developmental paths of Czechoslovakia and Hungary diverged from one another, or from those of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, and the German Democratic Republic. Some have also explored the similarities and differences amongst the Chinese, Hungarian, and Yugoslav “reform” variants, while a smaller group has focused on the East Asian or Latin American experiences with the state-socialist blueprint. Even analysts sensitive to such differences, however, have generally grouped Hungary and Poland together as very similar pre-1989 “reformers.” This categorization, to be sure, makes a certain amount of sense. After all, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia appeared avant garde beside the Soviet Union and other more “conservative” countries. (Outside the region, only China could be considered a serious economic reformer.) But closer inspection of the prolonged internal transformations of Hungary and Poland suggests that in many ways it is precisely these two countries that represented opposing variants of state socialism. One came to resemble a laboratory for controlled economic experimentation, the other held out the ironic image of a workers' state buffeted by overt labor-state conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not everything went according to plan in the state-socialist world. This much is well-known. The reasons, however, remain poorly understood. Invoking modernization's prophecy, some analysts contend that state socialism collapsed because economic development must eventually lead to political democracy. Others draw on liberal conceptions of human nature to argue that capitalism was bound to triumph, because people are too self-interested to sustain the practice of communist ideals; because dissidents, acting as the conscience of society, brought an unjust system to its knees; or because the demise of an unreformable system was inherent in its Leninist logic. From a Cold War perspective, some proclaim that the West's superior strength of arms and will prevailed. Even the great-man theory has made a comeback: either Gorbachev did it or, or as other commentators assert, Ronald Reagan vanquished the “evil empire.” Revisionist accounts also surfaced. State socialism, say some, had nothing to do with true socialism, let alone communism. Others posit that state socialism was not an economic failure until the 1980s, when it became the victim of a world-market downturn. Some assert that in retrospect 1989 will mark socialism's rebirth in a truer form. The claims about economic performance are both fanciful and demonstrably wrong; on the latter, the foggy future must have the last word. Meanwhile, revisionism, like determinism, has little to tell us about the actual processes through which human agency brought down existing state socialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-colonial continuities Perhaps contrary to initial expectations, there was no immediate break between pre and post-Independence Tanganyika, at least from the perspective of the rural dweller who found that life remained pretty much the same. National policy in the post-independence period merely accentuated colonial techniques for the marginalisation of the south. The tanu regime strove to institutionalise and embed party power across all tiers of Tanzanian society, sometimes by forced nationalisation and confrontation, sometimes by stealth. The result was the gradual conversion of state and economy to an extension of the party machine (Mlimuka and Kabudi 1986; Moore 1988). The aim was to establish new power relations based on a party definition of political legitimacy while eclipsing, if not eliminating, pre-existing positions of political authority. The impacts of these changes were variable. In some districts apparently ‘pre-colonial’ positions of ‘traditional’ authority, in actuality the creations of indirect rule, sustained themselves for a time in parallel to the reformed system (Abrahams 1981: 38; Thiele 1984: 60). Elsewhere, individual holders of power shrewdly strove to build convergence between pre and post-colonial positions through strategic manipulation of the blurred interface between state, party and local level political regimes. Of course, political authority never rested solely with government servants, whether they were chiefs, headmen or representatives of the political party. Power and authority were, and are, fragmented and related to the material and symbolic resources which a person actually had under their control (Lonsdale 1986). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high rate of taxes reduces incentive – whether it is an incentive to work a bit more overtime or the incentive to exercise business initiative. A high rate of tax militates against personal saving and leaves companies with less funds to invest in the expansion and modernisation of their business. A high rate of tax inevitably leads to wasteful expenditure and a waste of technical expertise in thinking up new methods of tax avoidance. The system for financing public expenditure is a product of history. It is not necessarily what would have been devised for an efficient economy under circumstances of full employment and still capable of sustained growth. … the effect of taxation on economic development needs a thoroughly new approach. Much of the current talk about the effect of taxation on the economy … is conducted in terms of nineteenth century equity rather than in terms of the effect of taxation on economic development. Discussion of broad issues should no longer be confined to the Revenue and Customs; operational changes must of course be conducted behind closed doors, but this is no reason for failing to look at the wider long-term issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we … want to remain a private enterprise country, we must not kill the goose (which is what our tax-system is doing) … The grievance, which is stated by business in terms of a shortage of working capital, would be expressed by an economist as the result of a deprivation of real resources through the mortal blows of taxation. The influence which taxation can have on economic development is purely negative. By its nature it cannot be creative; it can be more repressive or less according to its design in relation to the matter which is taxed. Like the brake to the vehicle, it can be applied so hard as to stop further progress, or it can be applied so lightly as to produce nothing more serious than light friction, but it can never assist in propelling the vehicle. The national debt was a major issue at the end of the First World War; it was much less important at the end of the Second World War, reflecting the differences in war finance. Much more pressing was the need for economic recovery in order to restore Britain's international trading position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the clearest contrasts between Conservative and Socialist policy is in the field of taxation. Conservatives believe that high taxation discourages enterprise and initiative, and so tends to impoverish the whole nation … By contrast, Socialist policy contains little mention of tax reduction and indeed most Socialists welcome high taxation as a means of achieving their aim of universal equality. In 1979, the Conservatives returned to power and Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Their success in the general election has many explanations, but one important theme was the widespread sentiment that taxes were too high and the public sector too large and unaccountable. The Thatcher government embarked on a campaign to roll back the state, through privatisation and the sale of council houses; it achieved less success in reducing the overall level of fiscal extraction in order to encourage enterprise and initiative. Taxes were 45.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1979, rising to 49.9 per cent in 1984; the figure dropped to 41.4 per cent in 1989, but returned to 46.8 per cent in 1993 (see table 1.1 and figure 1.1). Despite the difficulties in reducing taxation as a whole, the structure of taxation was changed in pursuit of Mrs Thatcher's vision of a dynamic society based on enterprise and incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this last chapter the role of women in the colonial project will be explored. Until the 1970s it was generally assumed in colonial histories that white women were more racist than white men. In the 1970s, and more particularly the 1980s, feminist historians have re-read the colonial record to claim that the peculiarly racist white woman was a projection of male historians and colonists. The mechanisms for measuring non-racist relations, for example sexual relations across the race divide, are inappropriate to discussions concerning white women's race relations. Not only did women less often participate in such relations, but white men's participation in fact rarely evidenced a lack of racism. On the other hand, recent attempts to redeem the white woman abroad have come under criticism, particularly from Third-world women. These more recent readings of history re-assert the privilege of race that white women had over both indigenous men and women. This chapter explores the relations between white women and indigenous women in colonial settings and the debate concerning white women's role in the ‘ruin of empire’. Women in the colonial project ‘Colonisation is essentially a masculine act: to conquer, to penetrate, to possess, to inseminate’. Of the three imperialist aims—economic expansion, affirmation of national power and the civilising mission—only the third readily incorporated women. The impact of economic ‘development’ in which colonial rulers perpetuated their patriarchal values, widened the already existing gap between men and women in conquered societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of commentators emphasise the pervasiveness of place as a metaphor of racial distinction in colonial societies. Race relations could be harmonious as long as the subordinate group ‘stayed in their place’. Another strain of the argument focussed on the need to ‘keep’ the ‘native’ in his place, and to immediately correct ‘cheeky niggers’. Thus ‘In the Manichean world of the coloniser and the colonised, of the master and the slave, distance tends to become absolute and qualitative rather than relative and quantitative’. Not only is a subordinate place identified in terms of spatial arrangements, it is reinforced by rules and laws governing incredibly trivial elements of conduct, dress and language. These rules are underscored by power, the power to shoot or imprison or punish. Conquest and control by law and superior means of force stand scarcely concealed behind the patterns of interaction that develop between the two caste-like groups. Both in ideology and the Territory, Papua New Guineans and white women had a place: a place defined in opposition to that of white men. But because both these groups were defined as different from white men, and yet not the same as each other, there were contradictions in the placement of these subordinate groups, as Chapters 7 and 8 explore. This chapter addresses the substructure of imperialist ideology, the use of force and the regulation of land and labour, particularly in the pre-war period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German Government annexed New Guinea in 1884; it was administered by the German New Guinea Company and largely for the benefit of plantation owners. Papua was ‘annexed’ in 1883 by the Queensland colonial government, a nervous response to German activity so close to its borders. It was only in 1884 that the British government formally and reluctantly ‘protected’ Papua under the name of British New Guinea. In 1906 British New Guinea, renamed Papua, came under Australian administration, with the proclamation of the Papua Act. Pre-war Australian administration of Papua was dominated by J.H.P. (later Sir Hubert) Murray, who became Acting Administrator in 1907, and was Lieutenant Governor until his death in 1940. Murray has been described as ‘ahead of his time at the beginning, quaintly old-fashioned at the end… always hampered by lack of funds and the Australian government's monumental indifference to Papuan affairs’. Beatrice Grimshaw in 1910 describes the resources of Murray's neophyte administration as ‘almost laughably inadequate—two resident Magistrates, thirty-four armed native constables, a couple of whale-boats, and two small ketches’. In September 1914 the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force accepted the surrender of German forces on New Britain. The military administration was replaced by a civil administration under Brigadier-General Evan Wisdom in 1921. After the Second World War the administration of Papua and New Guinea was combined, with headquarters in Port Moresby. Plantations were concentrated in New Guinea where adaptation of the local people to white ways was more extensive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having evaluated the overall balance of forces in the world, we arrived at the conclusion a few years ago that there was a real possibility for bringing about a fundamental change in the international situation. The signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 and the initiation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) heralded the beginning of détente (razryadka). For Soviet commentators, the ending of the cold war marked a new stage in the global struggle between the opposed social systems of capitalism and socialism, the linchpin of which was the relationship between the USA and USSR. Washington, it was argued, was forced to accept a political dialogue principally because its previous policy, the threat of military ‘diktat’, was no longer feasible. The years 1969–70 were identified as ones in which there had been a major shift in the ‘correlation of forces’ (sootnoshenie sil) in favour of socialism. The implication of this analysis was clear. The general direction of Soviet foreign policy remained unaltered. But its potentialities for realising long-standing objectives had enormously increased. Washington, therefore, had simply been compelled to recognise these new realities, and make a retreat of historic pro-portions. The Soviet explanation for détente is important not necessarily for the realities it unveiled but for the attitudes and perceptions it suggested. Had Soviet policy entered a new phase? How was the situation ‘qualitatively new’? Did the USSR genuinely feel the US was undergoing a steady decline of power? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]