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Prof. Wolff, I come from one of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, ie Croatia, and I would like to make a small correction to this statement of yours ... I agree with what you said that such a system could not succeed because it was not sustainable, but that such a concept of economy was a very good attempt to install a way of running the economy ... but I would not agree that the reason was the influence of the USSR on Yugoslavia, since Yugoslavia was not after 1948, or when Tito said what is known NO to Stalin, no longer had such a form control over the economy of Yugoslavia .. The success of Yugoslavia at that time was its geopolitical position, where one could maneuver between west and east and thus require the great powers to meet the conditions that then Yugoslavia, or Tito demanded of them ... The problem lies in the fact that the Yugoslav currency, ie the dinar, was tied to a foreign currency, primarily the German mark, the pound, etc., which served Yugoslavia as a kind of exchange office where the opening of Yu in the form of tourism, it could maintain the status quo in this way, but in the long run it could not be achieved because Yugoslavia was under credit and even an embargo, which showed the economy to the Yugoslav people as indestructible, but when Tito died they saw The consequences of all this are ... What interests me most, as a citizen of that former state, now Croatia, is whether you can explain to me the situation from the late 80's, early 90's, when Mr. Markovic, our then Prime Minister wanted to implement the plan of pegging the dinar to the German mark, better known as the term "1 German mark: 7 dinars" ... Was his plan to switch from one currency, the then dinar to the mark, a good economic move (I honestly think that. ..) and whether it could have been carried out in a quality way if some higher forces had not got involved here, which had different plans due to their own interests, of course, worse for us ordinary citizens ... Croatian ..
Proff Wolf , Yugoslavia was not allied with Stalin. In fact they broke relationship in 1948 and whole of Soviet block imposed sanctions to Yugoslavia which in turn resulted in a famous Tito's third way: workers self-managment. Yugoslavia established Non-aligned movement which included all the countries in the world which didn't want to be part of NATO or Warsaw pact. So yes Yugoslavia was neutral. This is very important fact. Thanks
Also the collapse of Yugoslavia wasn’t tied to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tito died and the ethnic tensions came back to the surface and no one could hold up the country as well as Tito did and so the country was doomed.
SFRYugoslavia haved 3000 factories and companies,and number of employed people per factory was between 5000 and 12000 people.The most famous yugoslavian industry was Jugoplastika,becouse of its high liquidity.Witch it has acomplished by joining others smaller companies,like button,cotton,fabrics,and freds,under Jugoplastika management.In SFRYugoslavia,Jugoplastika has haved 250 distribution centers,hers own manufacturing facilities,shopping malls Jugoplastika,and hotels for annual collective vaccation for workers.Its net value in 1989,was 250.000.000 dollars.And Jugoplastika was making everything,from peugot plastic interior,to addidas sport bags,and it was in charge of production,of 3000 various products.
@@Alhaweeee I have contacted one youtube chanel,and told them about democracy at work,now here short description of Jugoplastika/Yugoplastica.Jugoplastika was established in 1952,as factory of plastic and textile materials.Jugoplastika haved 12900 employees,15 specialised fabrics,200 Jugoplastika shopping malls,four distribution centers,and 1300 employees in Jugoplastika shopping malls.Jugoplastika also haved traveling sales representative,colective cafeteria with diabetic diet,3000 products of its own brand,and basketball team named Jugoplastika in 1968.Annual export of Jugoplastika was 150.000.000 dollars,and net worth of 350.000.000 dollars.One of bigest Jugoplastika products was 4.500.000 of Adidas bags annualy,and car interiors for various european cars.Jugoplastika was ruined in 1990 by Franjo Tudman,and his far right HDZ party,by medling in Jugoplastika operations,that has led to buncropcy of Jugoplastika.And in 2004,Jugoplastika was blown up with dinamite,and corrupted tycoon Zeljko Kerum has build hisown Joker Shopping Mall.
How can we personally help to not be so dependent on capitalism? We moved off-grid in '94, and doing our best to grow our own food, and recycle all we can. Using what we acquired to build with.
Great idea , how about starting a community of off grid like minded people creat a coop buy a land at a whole sale price then divide it in between owners . But what ever it is produced is sold by the community. A coop of producers .
@@bbrahbboul2748 That won’t work because the like minded people will create other like minded people among the owners and the whole coop falls apart from a split and everyone gets snared into a coop liquidation. Basically it mirrors what is happening now but on a smaller scale. You’d have to change the fundamental property relationship for a true coop to work. For instance, 200 people bought 2000 acres and then dissolved individual ownership into social ownership unanimously so that the land now becomes owned by none and belongs to all and the same thing would apply to all its tools, machines, equipment, etc., and to prevent further social break ups you’d then have to change the family from individual family units to social families, where residences are designed the way ancient homes of Pompeii were designed. They accommodated two, three families and had common areas for work, consumption and gatherings. This way all the residences have a relation or more living in home not their own. We do have vestiges of communities like this in America. One that comes to mind that faded out were the Shakers, Fabianites. See the history.
@@MrDXRamirez there are many many models of collective ownership over the history. All over the world. I wish there are more studies of all those models . But I rather people start with simpler models of certain communities that still exist in united states. Like the amish and other Christian churches . And then when these smaller communities flourish and become independent of the grid then yea the ultimate goal should be to abolish private property .
Working man paradise to be precise. But it wasn't free. If you have ideology, politic views that differ from the one of The (communist) Party, you would be marked as enemy and put under pressure, put in jail or blackmailed by secret service and corrupted to pose as (controlled) disident and show how free the country is. But the common life of common people was great.
This was amazingly successful experiment. That is why it had to go to make room for forces of globalism, market economy and current rampant capitalism.
@@markm3869 Thanks for the like :) I respect Professor R.D.Wolff, but I would expect such disinformation from some uneducated right-winger and not from a Marxist and a professor with a PhD in Economics. Personally, I am also a Marxist, but since I live in the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia), I was a little more upset by R.D.Wolff's comment.
@@kuhar12 Comrade G, many thanks. But this was NOT such a huger disinformation. I know it for the fact for I served in JNA (oficir veze) and I know for the fact that we had lots lots of Soviet made hardware. And I am pretty sure that Prof. was a little bit relaxed on the truth but I don't see that it undermines significantly his decent explanation of 56 years of history of one country. Either way, I am very glad and it is my honor to correspond with someone who reached such a high academic expertise as your writing demonstrates. So while we officially and to great extent practically severed ties with SSSR there were still many connections and cooperation.
In each of the former Yugoslav republics, some faster than others depending whether the new governments called themselves socialists or not, the co-operative sector was destryed by an acto fo parliament. First they mass nationalised them, so that the co-operative members would have no say, and they they immediately sold off what they had just nationalised as privatisation. There are a few lessons from this. Firstly neoliberal ideology is an enemy which has to be overcome to enable a co-operativisation of the economy, no matter how successful spontaneously created co-ops may be in outcompeting private businesses and spreading through the economy without state support. Secondly that without the protection of a one party state, which isn't obtainable even if it was desirable, it is absolutely essential to build up mutualist consciousness as well as co-operative membership to create a mass lobby to advance the interests of co-operatives and to protect them from arbitrary theft and expropriation by the bourgeois class, using the state, as happened after the break-up of Yugoslavia and of the federated Yugoslav communist parties. If co-operative members only devote themselves to building up the co-op that they are co-owners in, and ignore the political context and the goal of displacing capitalism, they won't be thinking and acting as a class while their class enemies do. Co-operatives are not an alternative to trade unionism and socialist politics, and if they behave as if they are, they will end up destroyed.
True, but that doesn’t mean markets don’t work. Ideally, the government will design capitalism through state capitalism, as is done in the Nordic countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, etc…… it is the best economic system that human beings have created thus far.
Yugoslavia was not aligned with the USSR. but do not forget that it was the first and biggest target that the west and NATO wrecked after the dissolution of the USSR.
Certain Yugoslav peoples like Croats and Slovenes (these two peoples always belonged in the west, and they always knew it and wanted it clearly) wanted independence primarily because of Serbian leadership's attempts at hegemony, as well as vast regional differences in development in Yugoslavia. Almost all western countires were undoubtedly and expressly against the dissolution of Yugoslavia until the moment it was clearly going down in bloody wars, caused exclusively by Milošević's regime. Yugoslavia's shortcut membership in the EU was even on the table. Please do not be delusional about what wrecked Yugoslavia, it was destined to fall apart sooner or later, the only problem was that it fell apart as violently as it did, and Serbian politics of the time is to blame. You are not going to change the past, you can only make the present and the future better and you are not going to do that by misinterpreting the historical facts.
@@genjermaine What a solid attempt at whitewashing 2 month+ of non-stop bombing. It's almost as if you are saying: Ukraine has two population segments, one pro-west, the other not so much, it was going to fall apart anyways so let's excuse the Russian invasion and not misinterpret their actions.
@@the1onlynoob You're confusing the early 90s with the late 90s. As far as I remember the bombing in the early 90s was done by the YPA (which at that point was the Serbian army, let's be frank), and mostly from '92 to '95 by the rebel Serbs in Croatia and BIH with the support and blessing of Yugoslavia (Serbia). The bombing of Serbia by NATO was clearly a violation of international law and should not have happened in that fashion, at least not without further diplomatic pressure to resolve the Kosovo issue peacefully and exhaust all measures to try to retain Kosovo within Serbia with Albanians enjoying all rights and freedoms as other national minorities enjoy in other European countries. As far as the Ukraine example you mentioned goes, there are several key differences. Firstly, Ukraine is not a federation as Yugoslavia was and its constitution does not allow for its dissolution as the constitution of Yugoslavia did. The breakup of Yugoslavia was perfectly legal both internally and internationally (In terms of the republics, Kosovo is a separate issue. And no, the peoples did not enjoy the same right within the republics). Secondly, although there were some bad mistakes made by Ukraine in terms of language rights of its russian-speaking population and the far right did see an increased presence post 2014, this issue could have perhaps been worked on by Russia (if it were an actual concern and not just a front for imperialism) via diplomatic means and pressure. Look, I support the human rights of Ukrainian Russians and I think they shoud enjoy all the rights and freedoms as many national minorities do in other countires, but Ukraine is and was a sovereign nation with a right to territorial integrity. It would actually be comparable to the Serbia/Kosovo situation if it werent for the actual brutal persecution of Kosovar Albanians by the Milošević regime and general aggressive and horrible behavior towards its neighbours Croatia and BIH in the early 90s.
@@_Antiyou_ No, simply due to the apparently impossible concept of a democratic Yugoslavia where all peoples are satisfied, due to the fact that it had served its purpose of defending its small nations from Soviet tiranny and occupation when the USSR and Czechoslovakia fell apart in a similar fassion.
I am fan of prof wolf, but I am afraid he got a few things wrong in this one. - Yugoslavia was not allied with stalin. It was unalligned. Tito had a standoff with stalin in 1948 that nearly caused war between Soviet union and Yugoslavia. After that fe founded the non aligned movement. - the term he refers to as "market socialism" was called technically self managed socialism. It means the economy is not planified as it was for example in the Soviet union. Workers made the decisions on their surplus and participated in the market. Another name to accurately call the Yugoslav model is anarcho-comunism. Lots of ideas were imported/influenced by Spanish anarchists who interacted with yugoslav partisans during the Spanish civil war. - the reason for the failure was that, Yugoslavia was structured as a federation of republics rather than a single state. When the second oil shock came on the early 80' the economy suffered and each republic started to turn inwards and boikot the others until it all mutated into nationalism. That alongside external forces interested in destroying anything that had to do with socialism did the rest.
Yugoslav model had nothing to do with anarcho-comunism popularized by Kropotkin. Anarcho-comunism doesn't have markets, nor monetary system or any kind of government. Yugoslavia had all 3 components. The only thing that is similar is workers self management but even that in different ways. In Yugoslavian factories you had directors who represented govt or communist party which in reality had a lot of influence on companies. Idea that Yugoslavian fighters were influenced by anarchists in Spanish revulution seems to me a bit far stretched. They fought in international brigades meaning for Republican govt which in 1937 crushed anarchist movement in Catalunya and other parts of Spain.
@@josip6862 thanks for your reply. I agree with what you said but i will explain why i am convinced there was influence from anarchism in the Yugoslav model. The government of Yugoslavia gradually more and more year after year implemented more and more decentralisation. The policy to solve economic issues was to decentralise more, but it back fired. I understand why maybe don't agree with the term anarcho-communism but one thing I think you would agree, is that it was moving towards a flavour of minarc-socialism(advocates for the minimal state possible). But in any case the labels/ terms we use to describe that socio-economical model, it is less important the important thing is that we learn from what really happened. One last thing that I want to say is that Tito was in favour of what he called "independent paths to socialism". This meant that there's no one recipe that needs to be followed when comes to implement socialism, instead each state is free to implement it how it considers. I hope you now see why I say that there's influence from anarchism in the Yugoslav model.
@@_djordje I understand what you mean. Yes gradually workers were becoming political power (or at least they were supposed to) not only only in factories. That could be influenced by anarchist theory. Anarchist authors and books were translated and read in Yugoslavia so it's possible, but communist theory has same goal: "withering away" of the state and letting workers organize politically. But it never got to full potential because communist party didn't want to let go of the power. And that's the problem with power, those who taste it for a while never want to let it go. Which is a shame. Thanks for reply
@@_djordje Decentralisation had to do with Marxist's belief of dying out state that party was supposed to monitor while controlling nationalistic outbreaks
Hi Prof Wolf. Has anyone ever tried a transitional business which starts out as capitalistic and then turns into a co-op once it is established in the market and financially self-sustainable? The idea would be a kind of private business which instead of undergoing an IPO to the "general" public, it's shares are distributed among workers after it has existed for X amount of time and/or reached a revenue threshold or ROI threshold. This is to overcome the challenge of initial funding of companies. Capitalists argue that people only become entrepreneurs if they can profit out of it. What if the profit could exist but be heavily limited in amount and time? It is still an incentive to start an enterprise, it just doesn't offer the perspective of limitless profit forever. You create a business, once you have gotten some pre-established ROI you are legally required to distribute shares evenly among workers and turn it into a co-op. You can pursue some profit but in the meantime you are helping fund something which will be inherited by the community and your profit perspective is not like a cancer pursuing infinity growth.
Yes, that's been done, though not as a planned thing. There are organizations that help make transitioning from private enterprise to worker co-op more well known and understood, especially among workers and politicians. "Right to first refusal" is the term, meaning that if the owners/CEOs of a business wish to sell, their workers have the first right to buy (or refuse to buy) before anyone else. Those advocacy groups are pushing for laws to that effect in the United States, but even more so in Europe and the UK. I'm not sure if intentionally starting as a private business and transitioning to co-op would be viable, though. The banks might have something to say about being misled by the people they invest in and demand full repayment with a penalty. There might also be legal actions, as it might be considered as not just breaking a contract, but some variation of perjury. But to be clear, I'm no legal expert. I would like to hear from a bunch of lawyers about if that's even legal before I ask if there are examples of it being attempted.
Through an IPO, companies are financed but the workers do not have the necessary capital because they receive a salary with which they obtain the means of subsistence. If workers received capital rather than wages, there would be no wage workers and therefore neither would capitalism.
Anyone can start 'socialist business' even in capitalism. I plan to start security company (highly in demand in Canada) and to pay decent wage to my workers and 'reward' myself with covering cost of business and decent salary no more than 20 percent higher than wages with my workers. Since I am from Jugoslavija it might be called Jugoslavija Experiment 2.
@@markm3869 That's not a socialist business. What you describe is a capitalist business where you, as the capitalist (the "owner of capital"), decide who is paid what, how the business is run, who you do business with, where your business is located, etc. There's nothing socialist about that, and despite his claims about "types of socialism," Wolff points out that worker cooperatives are the socialist (within a capitalist system) business model. Your plan for wages is just "better than what's standard practice, but still capitalism." "Better" and "socialist" are not the same thing. "Better" is relative: eating junk food is better than eating poop, and eating healthy is better than eating junk food. "Socialist" is definitive: collective worker ownership and democratic control of production, distribution and exchange, in cooperation with their communities (which are in turn democratic and cooperate/coordinate with other communities) to meet the needs of society.
I had worked some of this out for myself but had not found the concept of market economics within worker owned enterprises explained before. This is an area I want to know more about. I want to know much more about how worker owned and controlled enterprises would and could interact with each other and also with a central government, particularly during a transition from capitalism to socialism. What mechanism would there be for funding the functions of a central government? Income taxes? Corporate taxes? How would local governments be funded? Would there be appropriation and redistribution of goods? What good reading sources do you recommend about Marshall Tito's Yugoslavia? Most of what I know about Tito and Yougoslavia was how his personal, repressive and strongman led government style managed to hold its disparate parts together to quell ethnic rivalry and function as one nation, and how it all fell apart. But I don't know much about how it was structured in its economy and how that might work when interacting with non socialist countries in a global economy. What problems would socialists converting to worker owned enterprises likely face in global capitalist markets, any or many? What political considerations might there be in such a transition? Coops inside a capitalist system are a step forward but they do not fulfill all of the needs of an advanced society. We still must have some kind of central system of government and planning and I really don't want the Tito style uncemocratic method of governing to prevail. I don't want attempts of capitalists to interfere with or absorb cooperatives themselves to destrroy them or deny them market share as big corporations often do with smaller competitors. How would competition work between cooperatives? I would think that would be solved with centralized planning. How do we stop centralized government from getting repressive as it did in China, in the USSR and under Tito? Thank you, Professor Wolff, for teaching us complicated lessons in easy to understand language. For those of us who are self taught and have no education beyond twelfth grade this is invaluable information and helps us to grow even at 80 years of age.
In the other planned economies there wasn't much distinction between the enterprises and the working of central government. All kinds of public services would be provided by the enterprises, whether nationalised or the formal co-operatives, mostly in agriculture. There was also taxation. I imagine the same was true with Jugoslavia, at least with the nationalised sector.
@@patrickholt2270 You see, this is what worries me. Any time too much power is invested in a few hands for too long power and egocentric thinking eventually prevails. Too much turnover in leadership,and with too many amateurs making decisions that effect millions,,often leaves countries with not enough continuity and in constant flux. No stability as in the United States. When inexperienced legislators come in they might have great new ideas but they might just go along to get along. In the words of a famous movie, politics "...is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get." Politicians campaign one way as nd do something else. Look a Sinema and Manchin, as an example. They presented themselves as progressive, in Sinema's case and moderate in Manchin's but manifestly aren't either. They are purchased by corporate interests and self interested, but allied with the conservative right. True leadership from the people is better but even there you have great deviations from a clear vision. Look at what a significant population of basically rebellious fascists, racists and conspiracy theorists did on January 6th. I certainly don't want THEM in power...ever! People in control of their own livelihood need support, regulation, and assistance. Just not too much of any of that. How to control central government has to be less re as trictive than both the USSR model, the Chinese model and the Cuban model. But how to accomplish b that without authoritarianism and with maximum democracy is the real political problem that has to be solved. I want socialism, but very democratic socialism, maybe somehoe with the Nordic model, as an example, but less Capitalism. Much less. O.k., none!
@@wesleywagumba812 I really don't know. It hasn't been invented yet. I know I am fed up with being micromanaged when I know, and have proven, that left alone I'm more productive and don't need to be watched like a hawk. I know that all my life I worked too long and too hard and my life suffered from not enough time to recover from maximum effort to earn far too little money. I started working for money at ten years old and then continued until I simply was too worn out in my early 70s. I took time out for my kids first three years. I was lucky. I could do that. My kids benefited. They already could add, subtract and read when they were old enough for school. But even then I was deep into justice work and other causes. I was so relieved to be weak and elderly so I could pull back a little. Even now survival isn't guaranteed. Food stamps and social security help a lot but this inflation is really beginning to tell and if it goes on for long it will catch up to me and I will have to go back to only one meal a day and watching every penny. Every one. What I am sure of is that a Board of Directors and a major shareholder earning over 300% of the average worker's wage is WRONG.. I know that inheriting that kind of wealth and never working is wrong. The rich don't work. They hire investment consultants, financial advisors and folks who actually do work but they are idle. That's where the expression the "idle rich" comes from. Cooking is a hobby for them to be indulged in when it is an impulse. For me, it's three times a day, every day, for 70 years. I never get to go to a restaurant unless one of my kids takes me for a treat. The rich don't clean toilets. The rich do not type all day with arthritic hands and go home to soak them in a bowl of warm water and then lotion them so that you can do it again. They don't go to work with walking pneumonia because you must earn and keep your kids fed. They don't collapse at work either. I did those things. I know that representative government is no good if I can't pick the right represent who is like me and understands my life. The party selects who it will allow to run for office. They actively work against "undesirable" candidates and if one gets into office like Ocassio Cortez the Party leadership are shocked. The Party regulars then pressure that legislator to go along with decisions counter to what constituents need. It works. Occasionally Cortez is now more part of the establishment than organizing others to her point of view. She calls it strategy. I am afraid to say what it is but it isn't what I want and need. I want the Democratic and Republican Parties to represent me. They don't! I know that people don't thrive unless they can see a doctor for what ails them and they won't be turned down for help because it isn't life threatening, only uncomfortable and really disturbing. I know that living without molars makes it hard to consume lots of things that are healthy, from nuts to celery and cucumbers. I know I am old and have very good dental hygiene but my teeth are failing and some hurt but I can't get help except to have more teeth pulled. Inhave had saveable teeth pulled because I could get a tooth pulled cheaper than a root canal. I can't get functional teeth. I know that I never could afford college for my kids. The one who got a degree did it in his 30s, wasting a decade until he could afford it. I know my kids never got vacations anywhere except in our apartment. I never got time to recoup my sh*t. I know that my kids cried when they were forced to wear their friend's hand me downs in Jr. high school and High School or shop at Good Will. They didn't go to Disney Land, or any of that. I just could not afford things like that. At one time, I had to ban birthday parties outside of our immediate family. We couldn't afford cake and icecream and rental movies for ten kids and I was too worn out for ten kids sleeping over. They still think I was being cruel but I was choosing rent over a party and a couple of dinners with meat instead of cake and icecream and movies and decorations like balloons. I was choosing laundry over entertaining a bunch of kids sleeping on pallets on the floor when I was stretched too thin. I know that I have never been delighted with how any candidate I ever voted for turned out. Some were better and some were worse but they all went along to get along at my expense. It has to stop. Somehow, this has to stop. Capitalism has not worked for working people. Democracy isn't democratic enough in this country. I'm worn out but I still have to keep fighting for a better life for working people.
@@helengarrett6378 Concerning Jan 6th, as I said to a fellow Christian on the Red Letter Christians FB page, I'm far more worried about the violence and democracy-destroying effects of the US military and police, under the present Constitution and overfunded with bipartisan unanimity. To get back to the point, the goals of an expanded democracy to achieve working class power haven't much changed since the dawn of the industrial age and modern politics. The Chartists were demanding annual parliaments and the right of recall of all elected representives who lose the support of those who voted for them. The idea of replacing elected representatives with elected delegates, who as delegates are there to pass on and vote in accordance with the wishes of those who elected them. MPs here in the UK periodically denounce the idea of being delegates and vaunt their status as representatives who then get to exercise their own judgement and conscience, as if entering those marbled halls suddenly gives them Godlike wisdom far above ordinary people, and makes their prejudices and financial interests disappear from them entirely. Having delegates requires strong political parties, strong in the sense of their connection to their grassroots, which can tell the elected delegate how to vote from outside the parliament/Congress, rather than the MPs or Congressional group telling the rest of the party what to do. And it requires considerably smaller electoral districts, so that ordinary voters can effectively lobby their delegate. On the order of thousands of voters, not tens or hundreds of thousands. Which means for countries of tens or hundreds of millions of people, that you need multiple layers of delegate assemblies, building up from the small constituency basis. That's in addition to things like an inviolable Constitutional right to vote which cannot be taken away from any inhabitant of the country for any reason, publically funded election campaigning allowing all parties and candidates who wish to participate to spend the same limited amount of money, seperating the powers of the head of government from the powers and position of the head of state, and the re-staging of all elections in which only one candidate is standing. That's where the Soviet Union fell down, after the other revolutionary parties walked out of the Supreme Soviet they'd also been elected to, and were subsequently banned in the course of the Russian Civil War. Real popular will requires that voters, including in a workers' democracy, have multiple candidates to choose between to express their preferences.
I head another issue with the Yugloslav model was that these enterprises were essentially competing with one another, they were not all playing on the same team. This might have contributed with the national tensions present in Yugoslavia.
I'm glad Wolff explained the difference between markets and a type of market system. With that said the market system itself is the biggest problem facing humanity today.
Sorry professor but about many things there you are completely wrong. First, Yugoslavia was in good relations with Stalin and CCCP from 1945-1948. At 1948 Tito rejected Stalin's supremacy, and Yugoslavia become independent from the east and from west. So Yugoslavia developed different economic model from that time, CCCP saw Yugoslavia as practically capitalist country. Till early sixties Yugoslavia had planned economy with real based monetary system, what you have you can invest. In that time basic industry was developed, and it worked in centralized mode of governing with communist party as main adviser. After that in sixties Yugoslavia started to work for other markets mostly in for capitalist countries putting value of currency low toward rest of west. It made further development but capitalist banks rejected recognising dinar currency which put Yugoslavia in pretty passive position forcing to always have positive balance with west, because there was no way to got dollars in other way, and Yugoslavia as small country never was capable to be self sufficient, so forced always to buy something in ideologically hostile world. Then that model developed into not state ownership but workers ownership. In short terms everybody worked what they knew, workers worked, managers managed, directors directed and workers through workers' council had control on results of production. It was something new in the world, system full of bugs but worked and developed through time. Also, in that time Yugoslavia become productions centre for whole Europe, like it become China later for world. But for trade with capitalist countries it was required that Yugoslavia enter in some financial markets circles - means to become indebted 2-3 billion dollars. It was nothing, small in comparison to production and trade. On surface there was not any particular difference in way of living with west, but hostility toward Yugoslavia always existed particularly in financial markets with frequent attempts to economically destabilize Yugoslavia, but it was rich and stable. Ah Yeah, communist party? It become less important, something like custom, dealing with only history victory in WWII, ideology and moralism. And obsoleto shows for eldery people. Then comes '80es. Last two or three years of '70es some diversion were created, some circles not known even today made project of borrowing huge money for investments in every republic ( six of them) one capital investmen in some huge new factories about 2-3 billion of dollars for every republic. But every of that projects prove to be sabotage, hoax, every factory was unusable and can't produce anything, imediately that become ruins, and 15 billions of debt was added to existing 2 or three billion. Then Tito dies and economic financial war from the west started. Similar things were made by World Bank and IMF in other eastern socialist states burdening their economy, same as it was done to ex colonial countries. So that financial war started creating hyper-inflation, government reacted in worst way by request from IMF by saving and restriction which burden situation more. It was always run for enough dollars in order to pay loans and continue production. But important, request for destroying free healtcare, pension system was always rejected. But in next eight years Yugoslavia won that financial war, no factory was closed, not production was reduced, only uncertainty made people to make huge savings in Deutsch Marks. In 1988 all was done, production continued, living standard was again good, only completely other thing was released, CIA (and Austrian banks) sponsored and lead agent Slobodan Milošević started his fascist uprising in Serbia which overshadowed success of economy and model of organization. This crisis was later pointed as collapse of that model and socialism at all, but it never happened, it is only western capitalist propaganda.
What was important, you have all what efficient company in the west had in that time, organization, specialists, engineers, managers, but important thing that it had not leeches - Owners. So huge money which end in pockets thus remain in production circle. On the other side, you had competition on the market, you had good factories and good productions and you had bad factories with bad productions. But some of that bad factories were protected, for example, mainly from Zagreb and Belgrade, capitals of republics, where alcoholism prevail for centuries so that factories as from capitals were always protected from bankruptcy, and successful factories and companies had to finance their existence. It burdened a lot but wasn't gravely important and wasn't caused collapse which happened because of politic. All bad things which existed in socialism later in capitalism become bigger, more destructive, bringing this decay in which all republics of ex Yugoslavia today are, showing today superiority of that system which then existed.
Pa jebote ti ga bas gadno opra. Covjek je lijepo u kratko objasnio ono sto jest istina. A to da smo raskrstili sa Staljinom nije od velike vaznosti za objasnjenje ekonomskog sistema. Ne kazem da je totalno nevazno. U svakom slucaju svaka cast za veoma opsiran opis koji si ovde napravio. BRAVO.
Yes, market relations existed for well over 1000 years before the onset of capitalism. But it wasn't the dominant economic form, it was ON THE MARGINS. Only when commodity production became GENERALIZED, in which large majority of goods produced were produced to sell instead of consumption, that's when capitalism started emerging. The top commodity of course, was and has become labor power. Read Marx and Engels instead, this academic is very mistaken.
Professor Wolff, are we bypassing the market demographics of hegemony within and between classes? Do I need to elaborate? Critical question: Why would socialism not work for the here-and-now? Get It Right Next Time - Gerry Rafferty She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult Doubleback - ZZ Top
Great analysis. I agree there was much to learn from Yugoslavia. If Americans ever wake up to the benefits of socialism there is much to learn that could be applied here. But in societies that already have socialism I cannot understand why the reintroduction of capitalism would be advantageous in the long run. Capitalism can work well to develop industries and bring a poor or rural nation into modernity but then what? You have introduced an opposing structure buried within the society that will eventually overwhelm the socialist part. Government restraint of capitalism defeats capitalist expansion (that's what happens in capitalism, profit making and expansion to increase market share) and you have introduced speculation, corruption, instability and abuse of workers into a previously socialist system which socialism sum is supposed to eliminate. China gambled on short term gains for a parallel economic system that can't easily be controlled. Already China has unemployment, bank instability and real estate speculation crashes. It always had corruption and that is given fertile ground to flourish. The short term condition of workers improved materially and especially in food availability. But workers still don't get the profit from their labor. That goes to government and private bosses. Workers don't decide their working conditions and for whom they produce. The government component has become very authoritarian and the private capitalists have become very influential and privileged. The government isn't much concerned with an overheating planet and extremely bad air in parts of the country as long as money rolls into manufacturing and trade. Again, it's the worker that suffers in heat waves and with lung and heart problems. The wealthy live elsewhere or have air conditioning in their fancy homes. There is still heavy handed intrrference and control from government and antagonism from capitalist countries wherever socialism interferes with the production if goods and accumulation of profits in private hands. China hasn't eliminated conflict with the West by introducing capitalism. In fact, the government has challenged the West and the symbiotic relationship of capitalist production of goods for Western consumption in China, It is actually being threatened by China's bellicose government with imperialist tendencies. Nobody is happy. This can't endcwell. I think that in the long run, the workers could run and own those factories, the capitalists should be eliminated, socialism should advance in China angbthebgovernment and people could become a whole lot less confrontational and work to heal the rightward authoritarian path China has invested in so heavily. In other words the people should control the government, take over the capitalist part and expand socialism with democracy on every level.
CZcams Search:Jugoslavenska Industrija I Proizvodnja,some videos has mentioned number of employed workers,and product made.So write to them on youtube,and ask any question.
Dear D@W, I just spent the last 30 minutes talking to one of my co-workers about worker directed enterprises. People get it because they know they're being exploited and are less willing to defend the old capitalist ideas.
@@antimattv Great. I am so glad if my unsolicited solicitor advice might have helped you to survive in your career and income make. Otherwise we might be all homeless and live nearby our workplaces in small huts. Just be careful... People will rather be exploited than enlightened... Hence those who bare the torch (of enlightenment) might be burned and torched too. Don't want this happen to you...
@@pedroanntunes I wish I remembered or recorded it. I was born and raised in Yugoslavia, taught my troops as an arm officer the introduction into socialist self-management economy. Then got my degree in economics. I think that I have made some sort of forgiving comment to Prof. Wolf for not being an expert on complex and rather rich YUGOSLAV history.
Prof. Wolff, I come from one of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, ie Croatia, and I would like to make a small correction to this statement of yours ... I agree with what you said that such a system could not succeed because it was not sustainable, but that such a concept of economy was a very good attempt to install a way of running the economy ... but I would not agree that the reason was the influence of the USSR on Yugoslavia, since Yugoslavia was not after 1948, or when Tito said what is known NO to Stalin, no longer had such a form control over the economy of Yugoslavia .. The success of Yugoslavia at that time was its geopolitical position, where one could maneuver between west and east and thus require the great powers to meet the conditions that then Yugoslavia, or Tito demanded of them ... The problem lies in the fact that the Yugoslav currency, ie the dinar, was tied to a foreign currency, primarily the German mark, the pound, etc., which served Yugoslavia as a kind of exchange office where the opening of Yu in the form of tourism, it could maintain the status quo in this way, but in the long run it could not be achieved because Yugoslavia was under credit and even an embargo, which showed the economy to the Yugoslav people as indestructible, but when Tito died they saw The consequences of all this are ... What interests me most, as a citizen of that former state, now Croatia, is whether you can explain to me the situation from the late 80's, early 90's, when Mr. Markovic, our then Prime Minister wanted to implement the plan of pegging the dinar to the German mark, better known as the term "1 German mark: 7 dinars" ... Was his plan to switch from one currency, the then dinar to the mark, a good economic move (I honestly think that. ..) and whether it could have been carried out in a quality way if some higher forces had not got involved here, which had different plans due to their own interests, of course, worse for us ordinary citizens ... Croatian ..
It wasn't experiment, it was success until empire capitalism created global economic crisis (used to break Russia) and founded nationalist forces in Yugoslavia. Tudman and Izetbegovic ("leaders" in 1991) were in the past members of German collaborationist regimes in WW2 in 1941-45. Same recipe is used in Ukraine.
Just one correction it's necessary here, Professor Wolff put it wrong that Yugoslavia was trying to figure out how to transition and organize the work place from Capitalism to the Self-managment,That's wrong,Until 1950th, when a law of transition to the workers self management has been brought and first self management workers board was created in some factory in Croatia,I can't recall which one it was exactly,The economy was already nationalized, agriculture in a large part was collectivized based on Soviet model.So they had hard time transitioning from Soviet bureaucratic model as they called it.To the new Self management one..Even the second five year plan was called off in the middle of it.Soviet Kolhoz modeled agricultural farms were dismantled in 1953,private farms were allowed ,with plot limit of 10 hectares. Pressure from the West was constant, mostly through export quotes, foreign international loans for the projects, mostly necessary for development of tourism, resorts on a Adriatic, military aid..and so on .Plus the west through that politics was, pushing Yugoslavian government, into further liberalization of economy,which lead to high unemployment rate from mid 1960s to the end of it's existence.
Slavery is still alive and well around the world a specially in the USA Thank professor on educating people, the truth always prevails Deranged leaders and politicians will always take advantage of the people People over profits now 3/25/22 Be the change or be enslaved by corporate ✌️
Why do you say slavery is alive and well in the US? Granted, there may be individual cases where people have a relationship that resembles slavery; but slavery is a system, not some scattered anecdotes. Capitalism seems like slavery sometimes, especially from workers' point of view, but it's not actually the same system as slavery.
In 1991,the time of collapse of Yugoslavia,the whole country had an external debdt of 21 billion us dollars. Now,32 years later,all ex republics of this state have externall debt over 150 billions of eur eqvivalent of some 165 billion us dollars. They are all capitalist miniature states,where capitalisem can survive merely by constant borrowing foreign loans. How much would 21 billion dollars after 32 years increase by now??
Wow prof Wolff stated a big historical falsehood that Yugoslavia was a part of Soviet block. Yugoslavia was not a part of Soviet block. On the contrary Yugoslavia opposed Stalin and Tito did not travel anywhere outside of Yugoslavia until Stalin died fearing assassination.
The Horvat father & son have some good insights, but I think the Praxis School failed to account for these larger civilizational & cultural strains tugging at this model from within. Especially when we consider what the "Non-Aligned Movement" really stood for in relation to larger geopolitical realities unfolding in the mid-late 20th century. Their allegiance was at-length to Western Eurocentrism & Atlanticism Ultimately, we can brand Beatles records with the self-managed nationalized record label imprint, but the pull factors of anti-communism will sweep in & bury themselves deeply without a principled & reasoned gravitational pole of cultural & civilizational output that counters the other thing Rock & roll's decadence & the pitfalls that Marx himself wrote about concerning cooperatives & "self-management" cannot but engender & reproduce the same kind of inward-facing hyperindividualistic race to the bottom we're all trying so hard to move beyond
You got it totally correct. One of 3 reasons Jugoslavija had to be destroyed was Non Alignment movement. It was unacceptable for the new coming world order which is oppressing working class all around the glove without exception.
I wonder when Richard is going to critique the Ukraine crisis? It's fast approaching two weeks since the formal invasion started but Richard hasn't offered us an insight despite the whole fiasco being ripe with issues right up Richards street. Maybe the critique would run along these lines:- 1: Vlad the Impaler as if King Canute standing on the beachhead of a receeding Russian Empire 2: Waning US Imperialism currently chaperoned by Sleepy Joe and chief puppeteer and woman scorned come 2016 Presidential flop candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton (see also item 1) 3: EU expansionism 4: Endemic and systemic corruption throughout not just Ukraine and Russia but the entire strata of the filthy rich and the dominion (s) they control i.e everywhere 5: NATO used as bait to lure Ukraine and goad Vlad further (see item 2) 6: China rubbing it's gleeful hands patiently
I grew up in the former Yugoslavia. My grandfather had been a colonel in the Yugoslav National Army fighting the Nazis and the Serbian nationalists the so-called Chetniks, and the Croatian fascists, the Ustasha. My grandfather became the director of the provincial secret police UDBA, and I have a lot to say about this analysis. Communism is often seen as being incredibly repressive and oppressive. Nothing further could be from the truth. What the country had was not too much police oppression but far too little. The police oppression became obvious in very apparent and transparent resistance to the government but there was absolutely no policing at the ground level in things that we would call in the west bylaws or building codes or regulations or zoning. People got away with building a house without a building permit, with connecting it to the city sewer without paying property taxes and all other manner of lawlessness at the regional and municipal level because a communist government does not operate ground level up but of course operates top down. It ignores these regulatory and administrative matters and eventually this is precisely what collapsed the country. One thing people presently observe about Canada is just how brutal it is an enforcing very seemingly minor rules. In Canada if you got a parking ticket it will haunt you for the rest of your life unless you pay it. But this is intentional. What the British public administration officials understand is that the law must be seen to be enforced as much as it is important that it actually be enforced. When you go after people with a heavy hand for parking tickets or having their grass too long you show them that there's a functioning to the state that there's a presence and that someone is watching. In Yugoslavia the opposite was true. Corruption was prevalent to such an extent that nobody even saw it corruption. People who were supposed to write parking tickets would get attacked trying to get a ticket on someone's car and then would spend the rest of the time and most of their career sitting around and doing nothing. The problem in Yugoslavia was not too much government it was far too little government. The analysis in terms of the economic distribution and organization that Wolff provides here was true in the initial stages of the Yugoslav socialist experiment but was not true in the later stages. Following the late 70s the country permitted market capitalism for corporations that weren't very large for what we would call today small businesses. The problem was that the IMF closed the top. Yugoslavia was not allied with the Soviet Union in the Warsaw pact and had in fact accepted a semi membership in the western economic system where the IMF in the world bank had given it loans. Each time we leave economists went to Washington for their loan they were sat down and made to sign covenants that when they return to Belgrade they will begin transformation of the Yugoslav economy to a market one. And each time they would go back to Belgrade and be greeted by officials from the Communist party with a grade three education who laughed them off. One of these economists famously wrote that our country does not lack the capacity either an intellect nor inability to undergo the necessary reforms to become a successful social democracy, what we lack are people in power who don't say "no" simply because it is easier than to say "yes." Today I am another immigrant to Canada who who only view my native born country as a fragment of the past. I suffered enormously through hunger and pain and refugee camps and war and death of many I knew. I hate communism and hate communists and there is nothing good in any of it but backward stupidity laziness corruption and lies. Canada saved my life. Capitalism saved my life. Socialism is the greatest blight against human kind that has ever existed. I do not disrespect this professor because he means well. Much of the criticism he provides against capitalism is prudent, but communism is a dark force of corrupt despicable evil and anyone who thinks solutions lie in what it was and what it could be is delusional. It has ruined what we were. The whole region is rapidly declining in population. Kingdom of Serbia was known all around the world as a nation of proud people who resisted the Ottoman Islamic tyranny - we won three Balkan wars to push out the Ottomans, and were victorious in the WWI. Serbs were known as the most generous people toward the Jews, so much so that Mussolini called them "The Most Jewish of the Slavs." Today we are the butt of jokes and the most hated people in Europe. We can thank Communism for all that. The worst part of communism is that it removes the incentive to work. It takes away from the human being pride in accomplishment and incentivizes corruption, laziness and complacency. To give you an example that I will never forget. My grandfather the world war II hero, whom I remember as clear as today, walking in his knee-high leather boots and uniform, a man who instilled fear wherever he went as an official of the secret police. He arrested a man in the neighborhood where we lived who had expressed sentiments consistent with a Serb nationalist. Rather than processing him for criminal charges as at that point the law called for as the government was Keen on destroying ancient hatreds based on religion or ethnicity under a policy of brotherhood and unity, my grandfather just like all of the rest of the lazy complacent communists had let him go under a promise that he would change. This was a story he told us numerous times, pointing to a house where the guy lived and saying how he had saved him from jail. In 1990, when the government permitted the first free elections, within days nationalist parties had formed and what had prior to then been the option to either vote for the Communist party or for the socialist party, in these free Democratic elections became a choice between numerous newly formed nationalist party such as the Serb Democratic party or the croat Democratic party or the bosniak party. I'll never forget seeing that same house that my grandfather had bragged lived the man who he saved from jail. There he was in front of this house sitting on a stool in a traditional Serb folk costume, with a annoying instrument called gusle, a stringed instrument used by Homer to sing The Iliad in the ancient times, there he was this despicable Chetnik, singing about ancient Serbian Heroes and calling on people to attack the Muslims. That's the kind of degree of incompetence that communism bred. This man had saved and hidden somewhere all of these prohibited and forbidden nationalist things like the costume like the flag and like the famous Chetnik hat, all these years, and my grandfather had failed in his job. Duplicate this across the whole country and you get the picture of an incompetent lazy corrupt government who couldn't even process people who are known nationalists for the jail time they deserved for spreading hate and stupidity and then you'll understand why I hate it so much. 250,000 people died because people like my grandfather didn't do their job properly
More Wolff economic ignorance on display. A market is simply a place where buyers and sellers get together to exchange goods. Markets have no direct connection to any specific economic system. .
Unfortunetly in 8mins Yugoslav conept can not be explaind and in that little time you had big issue with USSR allies. Problem of the internet is in that something what can not be explaind in 8mins is demonstrated as true. Please stop this and also other videos because there is no much knowlage in incorrect low knowlage. Good luck and start read books quit YT!
Another great illustration for the history books. ….of why utopian socialism doesn’t work. Fortunately for marxists, this is not about what works or doesn’t work, so Yugoslavia didn’t have to actually work in a sustainable manner for leftists to admire it. It lasted about as long as Tito lasted. There is indeed a lesson to be learned there, but I wont hold my breath waiting for Marxists to learn it.
I think utopian anything-ism won't work because they are detached from reality. But the ultimate conclusion from Marx and Engels is that, any system will continue to exist as long as it can improve production/efficiency. And even today, capitalism in its heavily altered form is still capable of that improvement. On the other hand, I think there some (fairly strong) signs that capitalism is evolving in a way that is preventing that improvement, and would signal the beginning of the end. We shall see.
Jugoslavija worked perfectly until Tito died and west got its hand on its countries and started the nationalistic divide influence and offering loans only to countries which break away from Jugoslavija. But people still fell for it and that means people were the weakest link and Tito just held that together while he was alive. Only lesson I see here is: if people are weak-minded, easily influenced and not united, then anything persuasive enough can break them.
@@wenkeli1409 True enough. The rise of authoritarian government and monopolistic enterprise has become apparent as we see an unholy alliance of the private tech sector and state bureaucracies intent on grasping their own monopoly on state power. It isn’t communism. It isn’t fascism. It isn’t even capitalism, at least in any free market sense. It is something new that I can’t put my finger on, but it doesn’t bode well for anyone interested in human rights or liberty.
@@korosensei4384 Yes, it “worked perfectly” …for some. Others not so much. If you were a worker in some of the more industrialized areas such as Slovenia which had practically full employment, Yugoslavian socialism worked “perfectly fine”. If you were in one of the more rural areas of Macedonia and Kosovo where there were particularly high rates of unemployment, not so much. Yugoslavia was also facing increasing inflationary pressures, particularly after prices were liberalised in the mid-1960s. Average annual inflation increased from 10% in the 1960s to 20% in the 1970s, reaching particularly high levels in the 1980s. Even under Tito the Yugoslavian experiment was not some workers paradise. Like all systems invented by humans, it worked for some and not for others. The problem with socialism is not the theory. Egalitarianism is a great idea. The problem with socialism is that the theory never matches the reality. There is no utopia
You are wrong, Yugoslavia wasn't aligned with Stalin and Russia since 1948. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform Yugoslavia was one of founders of Non-Aligned movement. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement.
YU was not alligned with Stalin.... Actualy it was the opposite. Tito's famous NO to Stalin, for example. It might have been aligned like early after WW2 for a short period of time, but for the most part of existence of YU it was not.
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Prof. Wolff, I come from one of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, ie Croatia, and I would like to make a small correction to this statement of yours ... I agree with what you said that such a system could not succeed because it was not sustainable, but that such a concept of economy was a very good attempt to install a way of running the economy ... but I would not agree that the reason was the influence of the USSR on Yugoslavia, since Yugoslavia was not after 1948, or when Tito said what is known NO to Stalin, no longer had such a form control over the economy of Yugoslavia .. The success of Yugoslavia at that time was its geopolitical position, where one could maneuver between west and east and thus require the great powers to meet the conditions that then Yugoslavia, or Tito demanded of them ... The problem lies in the fact that the Yugoslav currency, ie the dinar, was tied to a foreign currency, primarily the German mark, the pound, etc., which served Yugoslavia as a kind of exchange office where the opening of Yu in the form of tourism, it could maintain the status quo in this way, but in the long run it could not be achieved because Yugoslavia was under credit and even an embargo, which showed the economy to the Yugoslav people as indestructible, but when Tito died they saw The consequences of all this are ... What interests me most, as a citizen of that former state, now Croatia, is whether you can explain to me the situation from the late 80's, early 90's, when Mr. Markovic, our then Prime Minister wanted to implement the plan of pegging the dinar to the German mark, better known as the term "1 German mark: 7 dinars" ... Was his plan to switch from one currency, the then dinar to the mark, a good economic move (I honestly think that. ..) and whether it could have been carried out in a quality way if some higher forces had not got involved here, which had different plans due to their own interests, of course, worse for us ordinary citizens ... Croatian ..
Why do you continue to push the debunked labor theory of value and lie about history even after you got corrected on it?
Proff Wolf , Yugoslavia was not allied with Stalin. In fact they broke relationship in 1948 and whole of Soviet block imposed sanctions to Yugoslavia which in turn resulted in a famous Tito's third way: workers self-managment. Yugoslavia established Non-aligned movement which included all the countries in the world which didn't want to be part of NATO or Warsaw pact. So yes Yugoslavia was neutral.
This is very important fact.
Thanks
Exactly, Yugoslavia wasn't ally with USSR since 1948. That is very important cause it's precisely what made Yugoslav kind of socialism even possible.
After the death of Stalin they become friendly again, but they didn't joined the Warsaw Pact.
That resonates with my personal experience there.
Yugoslavia was friendly with everybody. East, West and South. Remember how many World leaders came to Tito's funeral
Also the collapse of Yugoslavia wasn’t tied to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tito died and the ethnic tensions came back to the surface and no one could hold up the country as well as Tito did and so the country was doomed.
Thanks for everything you do!
SFRYugoslavia haved 3000 factories and companies,and number of employed people per factory was between 5000 and 12000 people.The most famous yugoslavian industry was Jugoplastika,becouse of its high liquidity.Witch it has acomplished by joining others smaller companies,like button,cotton,fabrics,and freds,under Jugoplastika management.In SFRYugoslavia,Jugoplastika has haved 250 distribution centers,hers own manufacturing facilities,shopping malls Jugoplastika,and hotels for annual collective vaccation for workers.Its net value in 1989,was 250.000.000 dollars.And Jugoplastika was making everything,from peugot plastic interior,to addidas sport bags,and it was in charge of production,of 3000 various products.
Damn great
@@Alhaweeee If you want to know more about yugoslavian industry,then i can recomend few youtube chanels on Serbo-Croatian language.
@@slavenarkaimovski3897
Much respect plz. do!
@@Alhaweeee I have contacted one youtube chanel,and told them about democracy at work,now here short description of Jugoplastika/Yugoplastica.Jugoplastika was established in 1952,as factory of plastic and textile materials.Jugoplastika haved 12900 employees,15 specialised fabrics,200 Jugoplastika shopping malls,four distribution centers,and 1300 employees in Jugoplastika shopping malls.Jugoplastika also haved traveling sales representative,colective cafeteria with diabetic diet,3000 products of its own brand,and basketball team named Jugoplastika in 1968.Annual export of Jugoplastika was 150.000.000 dollars,and net worth of 350.000.000 dollars.One of bigest Jugoplastika products was 4.500.000 of Adidas bags annualy,and car interiors for various european cars.Jugoplastika was ruined in 1990 by Franjo Tudman,and his far right HDZ party,by medling in Jugoplastika operations,that has led to buncropcy of Jugoplastika.And in 2004,Jugoplastika was blown up with dinamite,and corrupted tycoon Zeljko Kerum has build hisown Joker Shopping Mall.
@@slavenarkaimovski3897
OMG What an evil sadistic act after such a great legendary success story.
How can we personally help to not be so dependent on capitalism? We moved off-grid in '94, and doing our best to grow our own food, and recycle all we can. Using what we acquired to build with.
Sounds like you're off to a great start! I hope Professor wolf addresses that question.
Great idea , how about starting a community of off grid like minded people creat a coop buy a land at a whole sale price then divide it in between owners . But what ever it is produced is sold by the community. A coop of producers .
Sovereign
@@bbrahbboul2748 That won’t work because the like minded people will create other like minded people among the owners and the whole coop falls apart from a split and everyone gets snared into a coop liquidation. Basically it mirrors what is happening now but on a smaller scale.
You’d have to change the fundamental property relationship for a true coop to work. For instance, 200 people bought 2000 acres and then dissolved individual ownership into social ownership unanimously so that the land now becomes owned by none and belongs to all and the same thing would apply to all its tools, machines, equipment, etc., and to prevent further social break ups you’d then have to change the family from individual family units to social families, where residences are designed the way ancient homes of Pompeii were designed. They accommodated two, three families and had common areas for work, consumption and gatherings. This way all the residences have a relation or more living in home not their own. We do have vestiges of communities like this in America. One that comes to mind that faded out were the Shakers, Fabianites. See the history.
@@MrDXRamirez there are many many models of collective ownership over the history. All over the world. I wish there are more studies of all those models . But I rather people start with simpler models of certain communities that still exist in united states. Like the amish and other Christian churches . And then when these smaller communities flourish and become independent of the grid then yea the ultimate goal should be to abolish private property .
I always learn so much on your channel here. TY!!
Yugoslavia was a paradise when I was there in 1970
Working man paradise to be precise. But it wasn't free. If you have ideology, politic views that differ from the one of The (communist) Party, you would be marked as enemy and put under pressure, put in jail or blackmailed by secret service and corrupted to pose as (controlled) disident and show how free the country is.
But the common life of common people was great.
I see ya prf Wolff, rocking the new poidum
I heard about this experiment. But wasn't sure what it was. Thank you professor Wolff for explaining this.
This was amazingly successful experiment. That is why it had to go to make room for forces of globalism, market economy and current rampant capitalism.
Thank you Prof. 💗🍃
Very misleading, Yugoslavia was not in a pact with Stalin and was not behind the Iron Curtain.
I would not say it. Apart from that small issue, the rest is accurate. Still I gave likes to your comment.
@@markm3869 Thanks for the like :) I respect Professor R.D.Wolff, but I would expect such disinformation from some uneducated right-winger and not from a Marxist and a professor with a PhD in Economics. Personally, I am also a Marxist, but since I live in the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia), I was a little more upset by R.D.Wolff's comment.
@@kuhar12 Comrade G, many thanks. But this was NOT such a huger disinformation. I know it for the fact for I served in JNA (oficir veze) and I know for the fact that we had lots lots of Soviet made hardware. And I am pretty sure that Prof. was a little bit relaxed on the truth but I don't see that it undermines significantly his decent explanation of 56 years of history of one country. Either way, I am very glad and it is my honor to correspond with someone who reached such a high academic expertise as your writing demonstrates. So while we officially and to great extent practically severed ties with SSSR there were still many connections and cooperation.
In each of the former Yugoslav republics, some faster than others depending whether the new governments called themselves socialists or not, the co-operative sector was destryed by an acto fo parliament. First they mass nationalised them, so that the co-operative members would have no say, and they they immediately sold off what they had just nationalised as privatisation.
There are a few lessons from this. Firstly neoliberal ideology is an enemy which has to be overcome to enable a co-operativisation of the economy, no matter how successful spontaneously created co-ops may be in outcompeting private businesses and spreading through the economy without state support. Secondly that without the protection of a one party state, which isn't obtainable even if it was desirable, it is absolutely essential to build up mutualist consciousness as well as co-operative membership to create a mass lobby to advance the interests of co-operatives and to protect them from arbitrary theft and expropriation by the bourgeois class, using the state, as happened after the break-up of Yugoslavia and of the federated Yugoslav communist parties.
If co-operative members only devote themselves to building up the co-op that they are co-owners in, and ignore the political context and the goal of displacing capitalism, they won't be thinking and acting as a class while their class enemies do. Co-operatives are not an alternative to trade unionism and socialist politics, and if they behave as if they are, they will end up destroyed.
The market cares about us!! The same way whales care about kirill.
True, but that doesn’t mean markets don’t work. Ideally, the government will design capitalism through state capitalism, as is done in the Nordic countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, etc…… it is the best economic system that human beings have created thus far.
Why would a "market" care about anything? Does a market have the ability to contemplate what it is to care? A market doesn't even care if it exists
@@donrastar1579 no argument here, I am livestock.
Yugoslavia was not aligned with the USSR.
but do not forget that it was the first and biggest target that the west and NATO wrecked after the dissolution of the USSR.
Certain Yugoslav peoples like Croats and Slovenes (these two peoples always belonged in the west, and they always knew it and wanted it clearly) wanted independence primarily because of Serbian leadership's attempts at hegemony, as well as vast regional differences in development in Yugoslavia. Almost all western countires were undoubtedly and expressly against the dissolution of Yugoslavia until the moment it was clearly going down in bloody wars, caused exclusively by Milošević's regime. Yugoslavia's shortcut membership in the EU was even on the table. Please do not be delusional about what wrecked Yugoslavia, it was destined to fall apart sooner or later, the only problem was that it fell apart as violently as it did, and Serbian politics of the time is to blame. You are not going to change the past, you can only make the present and the future better and you are not going to do that by misinterpreting the historical facts.
@@genjermaine
What a solid attempt at whitewashing 2 month+ of non-stop bombing. It's almost as if you are saying: Ukraine has two population segments, one pro-west, the other not so much, it was going to fall apart anyways so let's excuse the Russian invasion and not misinterpret their actions.
@@genjermaine "was destined to fall apart" ...because of the accumulated mystic force or god's will?
@@the1onlynoob You're confusing the early 90s with the late 90s. As far as I remember the bombing in the early 90s was done by the YPA (which at that point was the Serbian army, let's be frank), and mostly from '92 to '95 by the rebel Serbs in Croatia and BIH with the support and blessing of Yugoslavia (Serbia). The bombing of Serbia by NATO was clearly a violation of international law and should not have happened in that fashion, at least not without further diplomatic pressure to resolve the Kosovo issue peacefully and exhaust all measures to try to retain Kosovo within Serbia with Albanians enjoying all rights and freedoms as other national minorities enjoy in other European countries. As far as the Ukraine example you mentioned goes, there are several key differences. Firstly, Ukraine is not a federation as Yugoslavia was and its constitution does not allow for its dissolution as the constitution of Yugoslavia did. The breakup of Yugoslavia was perfectly legal both internally and internationally (In terms of the republics, Kosovo is a separate issue. And no, the peoples did not enjoy the same right within the republics). Secondly, although there were some bad mistakes made by Ukraine in terms of language rights of its russian-speaking population and the far right did see an increased presence post 2014, this issue could have perhaps been worked on by Russia (if it were an actual concern and not just a front for imperialism) via diplomatic means and pressure. Look, I support the human rights of Ukrainian Russians and I think they shoud enjoy all the rights and freedoms as many national minorities do in other countires, but Ukraine is and was a sovereign nation with a right to territorial integrity. It would actually be comparable to the Serbia/Kosovo situation if it werent for the actual brutal persecution of Kosovar Albanians by the Milošević regime and general aggressive and horrible behavior towards its neighbours Croatia and BIH in the early 90s.
@@_Antiyou_ No, simply due to the apparently impossible concept of a democratic Yugoslavia where all peoples are satisfied, due to the fact that it had served its purpose of defending its small nations from Soviet tiranny and occupation when the USSR and Czechoslovakia fell apart in a similar fassion.
I am fan of prof wolf, but I am afraid he got a few things wrong in this one.
- Yugoslavia was not allied with stalin. It was unalligned. Tito had a standoff with stalin in 1948 that nearly caused war between Soviet union and Yugoslavia. After that fe founded the non aligned movement.
- the term he refers to as "market socialism" was called technically self managed socialism. It means the economy is not planified as it was for example in the Soviet union. Workers made the decisions on their surplus and participated in the market. Another name to accurately call the Yugoslav model is anarcho-comunism. Lots of ideas were imported/influenced by Spanish anarchists who interacted with yugoslav partisans during the Spanish civil war.
- the reason for the failure was that, Yugoslavia was structured as a federation of republics rather than a single state. When the second oil shock came on the early 80' the economy suffered and each republic started to turn inwards and boikot the others until it all mutated into nationalism. That alongside external forces interested in destroying anything that had to do with socialism did the rest.
You got it right
Yugoslav model had nothing to do with anarcho-comunism popularized by Kropotkin. Anarcho-comunism doesn't have markets, nor monetary system or any kind of government. Yugoslavia had all 3 components. The only thing that is similar is workers self management but even that in different ways. In Yugoslavian factories you had directors who represented govt or communist party which in reality had a lot of influence on companies.
Idea that Yugoslavian fighters were influenced by anarchists in Spanish revulution seems to me a bit far stretched.
They fought in international brigades meaning for Republican govt which in 1937 crushed anarchist movement in Catalunya and other parts of Spain.
@@josip6862 thanks for your reply. I agree with what you said but i will explain why i am convinced there was influence from anarchism in the Yugoslav model. The government of Yugoslavia gradually more and more year after year implemented more and more decentralisation. The policy to solve economic issues was to decentralise more, but it back fired. I understand why maybe don't agree with the term anarcho-communism but one thing I think you would agree, is that it was moving towards a flavour of minarc-socialism(advocates for the minimal state possible). But in any case the labels/ terms we use to describe that socio-economical model, it is less important the important thing is that we learn from what really happened. One last thing that I want to say is that Tito was in favour of what he called "independent paths to socialism". This meant that there's no one recipe that needs to be followed when comes to implement socialism, instead each state is free to implement it how it considers. I hope you now see why I say that there's influence from anarchism in the Yugoslav model.
@@_djordje I understand what you mean. Yes gradually workers were becoming political power (or at least they were supposed to) not only only in factories. That could be influenced by anarchist theory. Anarchist authors and books were translated and read in Yugoslavia so it's possible, but communist theory has same goal: "withering away" of the state and letting workers organize politically. But it never got to full potential because communist party didn't want to let go of the power. And that's the problem with power, those who taste it for a while never want to let it go.
Which is a shame.
Thanks for reply
@@_djordje Decentralisation had to do with Marxist's belief of dying out state that party was supposed to monitor while controlling nationalistic outbreaks
Hi Prof Wolf. Has anyone ever tried a transitional business which starts out as capitalistic and then turns into a co-op once it is established in the market and financially self-sustainable?
The idea would be a kind of private business which instead of undergoing an IPO to the "general" public, it's shares are distributed among workers after it has existed for X amount of time and/or reached a revenue threshold or ROI threshold.
This is to overcome the challenge of initial funding of companies. Capitalists argue that people only become entrepreneurs if they can profit out of it. What if the profit could exist but be heavily limited in amount and time? It is still an incentive to start an enterprise, it just doesn't offer the perspective of limitless profit forever. You create a business, once you have gotten some pre-established ROI you are legally required to distribute shares evenly among workers and turn it into a co-op. You can pursue some profit but in the meantime you are helping fund something which will be inherited by the community and your profit perspective is not like a cancer pursuing infinity growth.
Clever
Yes, that's been done, though not as a planned thing. There are organizations that help make transitioning from private enterprise to worker co-op more well known and understood, especially among workers and politicians. "Right to first refusal" is the term, meaning that if the owners/CEOs of a business wish to sell, their workers have the first right to buy (or refuse to buy) before anyone else. Those advocacy groups are pushing for laws to that effect in the United States, but even more so in Europe and the UK.
I'm not sure if intentionally starting as a private business and transitioning to co-op would be viable, though. The banks might have something to say about being misled by the people they invest in and demand full repayment with a penalty. There might also be legal actions, as it might be considered as not just breaking a contract, but some variation of perjury.
But to be clear, I'm no legal expert. I would like to hear from a bunch of lawyers about if that's even legal before I ask if there are examples of it being attempted.
Through an IPO, companies are financed but the workers do not have the necessary capital because they receive a salary with which they obtain the means of subsistence. If workers received capital rather than wages, there would be no wage workers and therefore neither would capitalism.
Anyone can start 'socialist business' even in capitalism. I plan to start security company (highly in demand in Canada) and to pay decent wage to my workers and 'reward' myself with covering cost of business and decent salary no more than 20 percent higher than wages with my workers. Since I am from Jugoslavija it might be called Jugoslavija Experiment 2.
@@markm3869 That's not a socialist business. What you describe is a capitalist business where you, as the capitalist (the "owner of capital"), decide who is paid what, how the business is run, who you do business with, where your business is located, etc. There's nothing socialist about that, and despite his claims about "types of socialism," Wolff points out that worker cooperatives are the socialist (within a capitalist system) business model. Your plan for wages is just "better than what's standard practice, but still capitalism."
"Better" and "socialist" are not the same thing.
"Better" is relative: eating junk food is better than eating poop, and eating healthy is better than eating junk food.
"Socialist" is definitive: collective worker ownership and democratic control of production, distribution and exchange, in cooperation with their communities (which are in turn democratic and cooperate/coordinate with other communities) to meet the needs of society.
Listen, fairness should rule everyone.
I had worked some of this out for myself but had not found the concept of market economics within worker owned enterprises explained before. This is an area I want to know more about. I want to know much more about how worker owned and controlled enterprises would and could interact with each other and also with a central government, particularly during a transition from capitalism to socialism. What mechanism would there be for funding the functions of a central government? Income taxes? Corporate taxes? How would local governments be funded? Would there be appropriation and redistribution of goods? What good reading sources do you recommend about Marshall Tito's Yugoslavia? Most of what I know about Tito and Yougoslavia was how his personal, repressive and strongman led government style managed to hold its disparate parts together to quell ethnic rivalry and function as one nation, and how it all fell apart. But I don't know much about how it was structured in its economy and how that might work when interacting with non socialist countries in a global economy. What problems would socialists converting to worker owned enterprises likely face in global capitalist markets, any or many? What political considerations might there be in such a transition? Coops inside a capitalist system are a step forward but they do not fulfill all of the needs of an advanced society. We still must have some kind of central system of government and planning and I really don't want the Tito style uncemocratic method of governing to prevail. I don't want attempts of capitalists to interfere with or absorb cooperatives themselves to destrroy them or deny them market share as big corporations often do with smaller competitors. How would competition work between cooperatives? I would think that would be solved with centralized planning. How do we stop centralized government from getting repressive as it did in China, in the USSR and under Tito?
Thank you, Professor Wolff, for teaching us complicated lessons in easy to understand language. For those of us who are self taught and have no education beyond twelfth grade this is invaluable information and helps us to grow even at 80 years of age.
In the other planned economies there wasn't much distinction between the enterprises and the working of central government. All kinds of public services would be provided by the enterprises, whether nationalised or the formal co-operatives, mostly in agriculture. There was also taxation. I imagine the same was true with Jugoslavia, at least with the nationalised sector.
@@patrickholt2270 You see, this is what worries me. Any time too much power is invested in a few hands for too long power and egocentric thinking eventually prevails. Too much turnover in leadership,and with too many amateurs making decisions that effect millions,,often leaves countries with not enough continuity and in constant flux. No stability as in the United States. When inexperienced legislators come in they might have great new ideas but they might just go along to get along. In the words of a famous movie, politics "...is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get." Politicians campaign one way as nd do something else. Look a Sinema and Manchin, as an example. They presented themselves as progressive, in Sinema's case and moderate in Manchin's but manifestly aren't either. They are purchased by corporate interests and self interested, but allied with the conservative right.
True leadership from the people is better but even there you have great deviations from a clear vision. Look at what a significant population of basically rebellious fascists, racists and conspiracy theorists did on January 6th. I certainly don't want THEM in power...ever!
People in control of their own livelihood need support, regulation, and assistance. Just not too much of any of that. How to control central government has to be less re as trictive than both the USSR model, the Chinese model and the Cuban model. But how to accomplish b that without authoritarianism and with maximum democracy is the real political problem that has to be solved. I want socialism, but very democratic socialism, maybe somehoe with the Nordic model, as an example, but less Capitalism. Much less. O.k., none!
@@helengarrett6378 what would your ideal govt and economic structure look like?
@@wesleywagumba812 I really don't know. It hasn't been invented yet. I know I am fed up with being micromanaged when I know, and have proven, that left alone I'm more productive and don't need to be watched like a hawk. I know that all my life I worked too long and too hard and my life suffered from not enough time to recover from maximum effort to earn far too little money.
I started working for money at ten years old and then continued until I simply was too worn out in my early 70s. I took time out for my kids first three years. I was lucky. I could do that. My kids benefited. They already could add, subtract and read when they were old enough for school. But even then I was deep into justice work and other causes. I was so relieved to be weak and elderly so I could pull back a little. Even now survival isn't guaranteed. Food stamps and social security help a lot but this inflation is really beginning to tell and if it goes on for long it will catch up to me and I will have to go back to only one meal a day and watching every penny. Every one.
What I am sure of is that a Board of Directors and a major shareholder earning over 300% of the average worker's wage is WRONG.. I know that inheriting that kind of wealth and never working is wrong. The rich don't work. They hire investment consultants, financial advisors and folks who actually do work but they are idle. That's where the expression the "idle rich" comes from. Cooking is a hobby for them to be indulged in when it is an impulse. For me, it's three times a day, every day, for 70 years. I never get to go to a restaurant unless one of my kids takes me for a treat. The rich don't clean toilets. The rich do not type all day with arthritic hands and go home to soak them in a bowl of warm water and then lotion them so that you can do it again. They don't go to work with walking pneumonia because you must earn and keep your kids fed. They don't collapse at work either. I did those things.
I know that representative government is no good if I can't pick the right represent who is like me and understands my life. The party selects who it will allow to run for office. They actively work against "undesirable" candidates and if one gets into office like Ocassio Cortez the Party leadership are shocked. The Party regulars then pressure that legislator to go along with decisions counter to what constituents need. It works. Occasionally Cortez is now more part of the establishment than organizing others to her point of view. She calls it strategy. I am afraid to say what it is but it isn't what I want and need. I want the Democratic and Republican Parties to represent me. They don't!
I know that people don't thrive unless they can see a doctor for what ails them and they won't be turned down for help because it isn't life threatening, only uncomfortable and really disturbing. I know that living without molars makes it hard to consume lots of things that are healthy, from nuts to celery and cucumbers. I know I am old and have very good dental hygiene but my teeth are failing and some hurt but I can't get help except to have more teeth pulled. Inhave had saveable teeth pulled because I could get a tooth pulled cheaper than a root canal. I can't get functional teeth. I know that I never could afford college for my kids. The one who got a degree did it in his 30s, wasting a decade until he could afford it. I know my kids never got vacations anywhere except in our apartment. I never got time to recoup my sh*t. I know that my kids cried when they were forced to wear their friend's hand me downs in Jr. high school and High School or shop at Good Will. They didn't go to Disney Land, or any of that. I just could not afford things like that. At one time, I had to ban birthday parties outside of our immediate family. We couldn't afford cake and icecream and rental movies for ten kids and I was too worn out for ten kids sleeping over. They still think I was being cruel but I was choosing rent over a party and a couple of dinners with meat instead of cake and icecream and movies and decorations like balloons. I was choosing laundry over entertaining a bunch of kids sleeping on pallets on the floor when I was stretched too thin.
I know that I have never been delighted with how any candidate I ever voted for turned out. Some were better and some were worse but they all went along to get along at my expense. It has to stop. Somehow, this has to stop. Capitalism has not worked for working people. Democracy isn't democratic enough in this country. I'm worn out but I still have to keep fighting for a better life for working people.
@@helengarrett6378 Concerning Jan 6th, as I said to a fellow Christian on the Red Letter Christians FB page, I'm far more worried about the violence and democracy-destroying effects of the US military and police, under the present Constitution and overfunded with bipartisan unanimity.
To get back to the point, the goals of an expanded democracy to achieve working class power haven't much changed since the dawn of the industrial age and modern politics. The Chartists were demanding annual parliaments and the right of recall of all elected representives who lose the support of those who voted for them. The idea of replacing elected representatives with elected delegates, who as delegates are there to pass on and vote in accordance with the wishes of those who elected them. MPs here in the UK periodically denounce the idea of being delegates and vaunt their status as representatives who then get to exercise their own judgement and conscience, as if entering those marbled halls suddenly gives them Godlike wisdom far above ordinary people, and makes their prejudices and financial interests disappear from them entirely. Having delegates requires strong political parties, strong in the sense of their connection to their grassroots, which can tell the elected delegate how to vote from outside the parliament/Congress, rather than the MPs or Congressional group telling the rest of the party what to do. And it requires considerably smaller electoral districts, so that ordinary voters can effectively lobby their delegate. On the order of thousands of voters, not tens or hundreds of thousands. Which means for countries of tens or hundreds of millions of people, that you need multiple layers of delegate assemblies, building up from the small constituency basis.
That's in addition to things like an inviolable Constitutional right to vote which cannot be taken away from any inhabitant of the country for any reason, publically funded election campaigning allowing all parties and candidates who wish to participate to spend the same limited amount of money, seperating the powers of the head of government from the powers and position of the head of state, and the re-staging of all elections in which only one candidate is standing. That's where the Soviet Union fell down, after the other revolutionary parties walked out of the Supreme Soviet they'd also been elected to, and were subsequently banned in the course of the Russian Civil War. Real popular will requires that voters, including in a workers' democracy, have multiple candidates to choose between to express their preferences.
Thank you 🌎 ✊️ 🌹 🗽
Nice podium
I head another issue with the Yugloslav model was that these enterprises were essentially competing with one another, they were not all playing on the same team. This might have contributed with the national tensions present in Yugoslavia.
It is good point. Though I lived in Jugoslavija (studied art of war and economy) I did not see competition to that extent.
Prof Wollf, unrelated but relevant topic: sling TV Directs streaming service has Cancelled RT effective March 3rd. So it Begins.
I'm glad Wolff explained the difference between markets and a type of market system. With that said the market system itself is the biggest problem facing humanity today.
You have to pay the owner and you have to pay the middle man .
✊
Sorry professor but about many things there you are completely wrong. First, Yugoslavia was in good relations with Stalin and CCCP from 1945-1948. At 1948 Tito rejected Stalin's supremacy, and Yugoslavia become independent from the east and from west. So Yugoslavia developed different economic model from that time, CCCP saw Yugoslavia as practically capitalist country. Till early sixties Yugoslavia had planned economy with real based monetary system, what you have you can invest. In that time basic industry was developed, and it worked in centralized mode of governing with communist party as main adviser. After that in sixties Yugoslavia started to work for other markets mostly in for capitalist countries putting value of currency low toward rest of west. It made further development but capitalist banks rejected recognising dinar currency which put Yugoslavia in pretty passive position forcing to always have positive balance with west, because there was no way to got dollars in other way, and Yugoslavia as small country never was capable to be self sufficient, so forced always to buy something in ideologically hostile world. Then that model developed into not state ownership but workers ownership. In short terms everybody worked what they knew, workers worked, managers managed, directors directed and workers through workers' council had control on results of production. It was something new in the world, system full of bugs but worked and developed through time. Also, in that time Yugoslavia become productions centre for whole Europe, like it become China later for world. But for trade with capitalist countries it was required that Yugoslavia enter in some financial markets circles - means to become indebted 2-3 billion dollars. It was nothing, small in comparison to production and trade. On surface there was not any particular difference in way of living with west, but hostility toward Yugoslavia always existed particularly in financial markets with frequent attempts to economically destabilize Yugoslavia, but it was rich and stable. Ah Yeah, communist party? It become less important, something like custom, dealing with only history victory in WWII, ideology and moralism. And obsoleto shows for eldery people. Then comes '80es. Last two or three years of '70es some diversion were created, some circles not known even today made project of borrowing huge money for investments in every republic ( six of them) one capital investmen in some huge new factories about 2-3 billion of dollars for every republic. But every of that projects prove to be sabotage, hoax, every factory was unusable and can't produce anything, imediately that become ruins, and 15 billions of debt was added to existing 2 or three billion. Then Tito dies and economic financial war from the west started. Similar things were made by World Bank and IMF in other eastern socialist states burdening their economy, same as it was done to ex colonial countries. So that financial war started creating hyper-inflation, government reacted in worst way by request from IMF by saving and restriction which burden situation more. It was always run for enough dollars in order to pay loans and continue production. But important, request for destroying free healtcare, pension system was always rejected. But in next eight years Yugoslavia won that financial war, no factory was closed, not production was reduced, only uncertainty made people to make huge savings in Deutsch Marks. In 1988 all was done, production continued, living standard was again good, only completely other thing was released, CIA (and Austrian banks) sponsored and lead agent Slobodan Milošević started his fascist uprising in Serbia which overshadowed success of economy and model of organization. This crisis was later pointed as collapse of that model and socialism at all, but it never happened, it is only western capitalist propaganda.
What was important, you have all what efficient company in the west had in that time, organization, specialists, engineers, managers, but important thing that it had not leeches - Owners. So huge money which end in pockets thus remain in production circle. On the other side, you had competition on the market, you had good factories and good productions and you had bad factories with bad productions. But some of that bad factories were protected, for example, mainly from Zagreb and Belgrade, capitals of republics, where alcoholism prevail for centuries so that factories as from capitals were always protected from bankruptcy, and successful factories and companies had to finance their existence. It burdened a lot but wasn't gravely important and wasn't caused collapse which happened because of politic. All bad things which existed in socialism later in capitalism become bigger, more destructive, bringing this decay in which all republics of ex Yugoslavia today are, showing today superiority of that system which then existed.
Thank you. I never knew this. And I believe it 💯%.
Pa jebote ti ga bas gadno opra. Covjek je lijepo u kratko objasnio ono sto jest istina. A to da smo raskrstili sa Staljinom nije od velike vaznosti za objasnjenje ekonomskog sistema. Ne kazem da je totalno nevazno.
U svakom slucaju svaka cast za veoma opsiran opis koji si ovde napravio. BRAVO.
@@markm3869
U potpunosti korektan nastup kolege Jusupa.
LP
Thanks captain
Yes, market relations existed for well over 1000 years before the onset of capitalism. But it wasn't the dominant economic form, it was ON THE MARGINS. Only when commodity production became GENERALIZED, in which large majority of goods produced were produced to sell instead of consumption, that's when capitalism started emerging. The top commodity of course, was and has become labor power. Read Marx and Engels instead, this academic is very mistaken.
Professor Wolff, are we bypassing the market demographics of hegemony within and between classes? Do I need to elaborate? Critical question: Why would socialism not work for the here-and-now?
Get It Right Next Time - Gerry Rafferty
She Sells Sanctuary - The Cult
Doubleback - ZZ Top
Great analysis. I agree there was much to learn from Yugoslavia. If Americans ever wake up to the benefits of socialism there is much to learn that could be applied here. But in societies that already have socialism I cannot understand why the reintroduction of capitalism would be advantageous in the long run.
Capitalism can work well to develop industries and bring a poor or rural nation into modernity but then what? You have introduced an opposing structure buried within the society that will eventually overwhelm the socialist part. Government restraint of capitalism defeats capitalist expansion (that's what happens in capitalism, profit making and expansion to increase market share) and you have introduced speculation, corruption, instability and abuse of workers into a previously socialist system which socialism sum is supposed to eliminate.
China gambled on short term gains for a parallel economic system that can't easily be controlled. Already China has unemployment, bank instability and real estate speculation crashes. It always had corruption and that is given fertile ground to flourish. The short term condition of workers improved materially and especially in food availability. But workers still don't get the profit from their labor. That goes to government and private bosses. Workers don't decide their working conditions and for whom they produce. The government component has become very authoritarian and the private capitalists have become very influential and privileged. The government isn't much concerned with an overheating planet and extremely bad air in parts of the country as long as money rolls into manufacturing and trade. Again, it's the worker that suffers in heat waves and with lung and heart problems. The wealthy live elsewhere or have air conditioning in their fancy homes.
There is still heavy handed intrrference and control from government and antagonism from capitalist countries wherever socialism interferes with the production if goods and accumulation of profits in private hands. China hasn't eliminated conflict with the West by introducing capitalism. In fact, the government has challenged the West and the symbiotic relationship of capitalist production of goods for Western consumption in China, It is actually being threatened by China's bellicose government with imperialist tendencies. Nobody is happy. This can't endcwell.
I think that in the long run, the workers could run and own those factories, the capitalists should be eliminated, socialism should advance in China angbthebgovernment and people could become a whole lot less confrontational and work to heal the rightward authoritarian path China has invested in so heavily. In other words the people should control the government, take over the capitalist part and expand socialism with democracy on every level.
CZcams Search:Jugoslavenska Industrija I Proizvodnja,some videos has mentioned number of employed workers,and product made.So write to them on youtube,and ask any question.
Dear D@W, I just spent the last 30 minutes talking to one of my co-workers about worker directed enterprises. People get it because they know they're being exploited and are less willing to defend the old capitalist ideas.
Good job. Be careful that management does not catch you. You will be execute. :)
@@markm3869 Dude I laughed "muahahaha" out loud when I read this. Awesome. I probably would never try that at this job, but future ones definitely.
@@antimattv Great. I am so glad if my unsolicited solicitor advice might have helped you to survive in your career and income make. Otherwise we might be all homeless and live nearby our workplaces in small huts. Just be careful... People will rather be exploited than enlightened... Hence those who bare the torch (of enlightenment) might be burned and torched too. Don't want this happen to you...
@@markm3869 I’m so curious as to what your previous comment was
@@pedroanntunes I wish I remembered or recorded it. I was born and raised in Yugoslavia, taught my troops as an arm officer the introduction into socialist self-management economy. Then got my degree in economics. I think that I have made some sort of forgiving comment to Prof. Wolf for not being an expert on complex and rather rich YUGOSLAV history.
aca otro argentino, saludos🍯
The Beaver pond experiment ...
What about the Cuban system?
Prof. Wolff, I come from one of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, ie Croatia, and I would like to make a small correction to this statement of yours ... I agree with what you said that such a system could not succeed because it was not sustainable, but that such a concept of economy was a very good attempt to install a way of running the economy ... but I would not agree that the reason was the influence of the USSR on Yugoslavia, since Yugoslavia was not after 1948, or when Tito said what is known NO to Stalin, no longer had such a form control over the economy of Yugoslavia .. The success of Yugoslavia at that time was its geopolitical position, where one could maneuver between west and east and thus require the great powers to meet the conditions that then Yugoslavia, or Tito demanded of them ... The problem lies in the fact that the Yugoslav currency, ie the dinar, was tied to a foreign currency, primarily the German mark, the pound, etc., which served Yugoslavia as a kind of exchange office where the opening of Yu in the form of tourism, it could maintain the status quo in this way, but in the long run it could not be achieved because Yugoslavia was under credit and even an embargo, which showed the economy to the Yugoslav people as indestructible, but when Tito died they saw The consequences of all this are ... What interests me most, as a citizen of that former state, now Croatia, is whether you can explain to me the situation from the late 80's, early 90's, when Mr. Markovic, our then Prime Minister wanted to implement the plan of pegging the dinar to the German mark, better known as the term "1 German mark: 7 dinars" ... Was his plan to switch from one currency, the then dinar to the mark, a good economic move (I honestly think that. ..) and whether it could have been carried out in a quality way if some higher forces had not got involved here, which had different plans due to their own interests, of course, worse for us ordinary citizens ... Croatian ..
It wasn't experiment, it was success until empire capitalism created global economic crisis (used to break Russia) and founded nationalist forces in Yugoslavia. Tudman and Izetbegovic ("leaders" in 1991) were in the past members of German collaborationist regimes in WW2 in 1941-45. Same recipe is used in Ukraine.
Just one correction it's necessary here, Professor Wolff put it wrong that Yugoslavia was trying to figure out how to transition and organize the work place from Capitalism to the Self-managment,That's wrong,Until 1950th, when a law of transition to the workers self management has been brought and first self management workers board was created in some factory in Croatia,I can't recall which one it was exactly,The economy was already nationalized, agriculture in a large part was collectivized based on Soviet model.So they had hard time transitioning from Soviet bureaucratic model as they called it.To the new Self management one..Even the second five year plan was called off in the middle of it.Soviet Kolhoz modeled agricultural farms were dismantled in 1953,private farms were allowed ,with plot limit of 10 hectares. Pressure from the West was constant, mostly through export quotes, foreign international loans for the projects, mostly necessary for development of tourism, resorts on a Adriatic, military aid..and so on .Plus the west through that politics was, pushing Yugoslavian government, into further liberalization of economy,which lead to high unemployment rate from mid 1960s to the end of it's existence.
Slavery is still alive and well around the world a specially in the USA
Thank professor on educating people, the truth always prevails
Deranged leaders and politicians will always take advantage of the people
People over profits now 3/25/22
Be the change or be enslaved by corporate ✌️
Why do you say slavery is alive and well in the US? Granted, there may be individual cases where people have a relationship that resembles slavery; but slavery is a system, not some scattered anecdotes. Capitalism seems like slavery sometimes, especially from workers' point of view, but it's not actually the same system as slavery.
In 1991,the time of collapse of Yugoslavia,the whole country had an external debdt of 21 billion us dollars.
Now,32 years later,all ex republics of this state have externall debt over 150 billions of eur eqvivalent of some 165 billion us dollars.
They are all capitalist miniature states,where capitalisem can survive merely by constant borrowing foreign loans.
How much would 21 billion dollars after 32 years increase by now??
Wow prof Wolff stated a big historical falsehood that Yugoslavia was a part of Soviet block. Yugoslavia was not a part of Soviet block. On the contrary Yugoslavia opposed Stalin and Tito did not travel anywhere outside of Yugoslavia until Stalin died fearing assassination.
The Horvat father & son have some good insights, but I think the Praxis School failed to account for these larger civilizational & cultural strains tugging at this model from within. Especially when we consider what the "Non-Aligned Movement" really stood for in relation to larger geopolitical realities unfolding in the mid-late 20th century. Their allegiance was at-length to Western Eurocentrism & Atlanticism
Ultimately, we can brand Beatles records with the self-managed nationalized record label imprint, but the pull factors of anti-communism will sweep in & bury themselves deeply without a principled & reasoned gravitational pole of cultural & civilizational output that counters the other thing
Rock & roll's decadence & the pitfalls that Marx himself wrote about concerning cooperatives & "self-management" cannot but engender & reproduce the same kind of inward-facing hyperindividualistic race to the bottom we're all trying so hard to move beyond
You got it totally correct. One of 3 reasons Jugoslavija had to be destroyed was Non Alignment movement. It was unacceptable for the new coming world order which is oppressing working class all around the glove without exception.
Candidate Wolff's presidential podium.
RT Amerika has ceased production.
I wonder when Richard is going to critique the Ukraine crisis? It's fast approaching two weeks since the formal invasion started but Richard hasn't offered us an insight despite the whole fiasco being ripe with issues right up Richards street.
Maybe the critique would run along these lines:-
1: Vlad the Impaler as if King Canute standing on the beachhead of a receeding Russian Empire
2: Waning US Imperialism currently chaperoned by Sleepy Joe and chief puppeteer and woman scorned come 2016 Presidential flop candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton (see also item 1)
3: EU expansionism
4: Endemic and systemic corruption throughout not just Ukraine and Russia but the entire strata of the filthy rich and the dominion (s) they control i.e everywhere
5: NATO used as bait to lure Ukraine and goad Vlad further (see item 2)
6: China rubbing it's gleeful hands patiently
it was good while you have decent people but after that greed took over
I grew up in the former Yugoslavia. My grandfather had been a colonel in the Yugoslav National Army fighting the Nazis and the Serbian nationalists the so-called Chetniks, and the Croatian fascists, the Ustasha. My grandfather became the director of the provincial secret police UDBA, and I have a lot to say about this analysis. Communism is often seen as being incredibly repressive and oppressive. Nothing further could be from the truth. What the country had was not too much police oppression but far too little. The police oppression became obvious in very apparent and transparent resistance to the government but there was absolutely no policing at the ground level in things that we would call in the west bylaws or building codes or regulations or zoning. People got away with building a house without a building permit, with connecting it to the city sewer without paying property taxes and all other manner of lawlessness at the regional and municipal level because a communist government does not operate ground level up but of course operates top down. It ignores these regulatory and administrative matters and eventually this is precisely what collapsed the country. One thing people presently observe about Canada is just how brutal it is an enforcing very seemingly minor rules. In Canada if you got a parking ticket it will haunt you for the rest of your life unless you pay it. But this is intentional. What the British public administration officials understand is that the law must be seen to be enforced as much as it is important that it actually be enforced. When you go after people with a heavy hand for parking tickets or having their grass too long you show them that there's a functioning to the state that there's a presence and that someone is watching. In Yugoslavia the opposite was true. Corruption was prevalent to such an extent that nobody even saw it corruption. People who were supposed to write parking tickets would get attacked trying to get a ticket on someone's car and then would spend the rest of the time and most of their career sitting around and doing nothing. The problem in Yugoslavia was not too much government it was far too little government. The analysis in terms of the economic distribution and organization that Wolff provides here was true in the initial stages of the Yugoslav socialist experiment but was not true in the later stages. Following the late 70s the country permitted market capitalism for corporations that weren't very large for what we would call today small businesses. The problem was that the IMF closed the top. Yugoslavia was not allied with the Soviet Union in the Warsaw pact and had in fact accepted a semi membership in the western economic system where the IMF in the world bank had given it loans. Each time we leave economists went to Washington for their loan they were sat down and made to sign covenants that when they return to Belgrade they will begin transformation of the Yugoslav economy to a market one. And each time they would go back to Belgrade and be greeted by officials from the Communist party with a grade three education who laughed them off. One of these economists famously wrote that our country does not lack the capacity either an intellect nor inability to undergo the necessary reforms to become a successful social democracy, what we lack are people in power who don't say "no" simply because it is easier than to say "yes."
Today I am another immigrant to Canada who who only view my native born country as a fragment of the past. I suffered enormously through hunger and pain and refugee camps and war and death of many I knew. I hate communism and hate communists and there is nothing good in any of it but backward stupidity laziness corruption and lies.
Canada saved my life. Capitalism saved my life. Socialism is the greatest blight against human kind that has ever existed. I do not disrespect this professor because he means well. Much of the criticism he provides against capitalism is prudent, but communism is a dark force of corrupt despicable evil and anyone who thinks solutions lie in what it was and what it could be is delusional.
It has ruined what we were. The whole region is rapidly declining in population. Kingdom of Serbia was known all around the world as a nation of proud people who resisted the Ottoman Islamic tyranny - we won three Balkan wars to push out the Ottomans, and were victorious in the WWI. Serbs were known as the most generous people toward the Jews, so much so that Mussolini called them "The Most Jewish of the Slavs." Today we are the butt of jokes and the most hated people in Europe. We can thank Communism for all that.
The worst part of communism is that it removes the incentive to work. It takes away from the human being pride in accomplishment and incentivizes corruption, laziness and complacency. To give you an example that I will never forget. My grandfather the world war II hero, whom I remember as clear as today, walking in his knee-high leather boots and uniform, a man who instilled fear wherever he went as an official of the secret police. He arrested a man in the neighborhood where we lived who had expressed sentiments consistent with a Serb nationalist. Rather than processing him for criminal charges as at that point the law called for as the government was Keen on destroying ancient hatreds based on religion or ethnicity under a policy of brotherhood and unity, my grandfather just like all of the rest of the lazy complacent communists had let him go under a promise that he would change. This was a story he told us numerous times, pointing to a house where the guy lived and saying how he had saved him from jail. In 1990, when the government permitted the first free elections, within days nationalist parties had formed and what had prior to then been the option to either vote for the Communist party or for the socialist party, in these free Democratic elections became a choice between numerous newly formed nationalist party such as the Serb Democratic party or the croat Democratic party or the bosniak party. I'll never forget seeing that same house that my grandfather had bragged lived the man who he saved from jail. There he was in front of this house sitting on a stool in a traditional Serb folk costume, with a annoying instrument called gusle, a stringed instrument used by Homer to sing The Iliad in the ancient times, there he was this despicable Chetnik, singing about ancient Serbian Heroes and calling on people to attack the Muslims. That's the kind of degree of incompetence that communism bred. This man had saved and hidden somewhere all of these prohibited and forbidden nationalist things like the costume like the flag and like the famous Chetnik hat, all these years, and my grandfather had failed in his job. Duplicate this across the whole country and you get the picture of an incompetent lazy corrupt government who couldn't even process people who are known nationalists for the jail time they deserved for spreading hate and stupidity and then you'll understand why I hate it so much. 250,000 people died because people like my grandfather didn't do their job properly
More Wolff economic ignorance on display. A market is simply a place where buyers and sellers get together to exchange goods. Markets have no direct connection to any specific economic system. .
Unfortunetly in 8mins Yugoslav conept can not be explaind and in that little time you had big issue with USSR allies. Problem of the internet is in that something what can not be explaind in 8mins is demonstrated as true. Please stop this and also other videos because there is no much knowlage in incorrect low knowlage. Good luck and start read books quit YT!
Pa niko te ne tjera da gledas. Imas milion drugih kanala.
Another great illustration for the history books.
….of why utopian socialism doesn’t work.
Fortunately for marxists, this is not about what works or doesn’t work, so Yugoslavia didn’t have to actually work in a sustainable manner for leftists to admire it. It lasted about as long as Tito lasted. There is indeed a lesson to be learned there, but I wont hold my breath waiting for Marxists to learn it.
I think utopian anything-ism won't work because they are detached from reality. But the ultimate conclusion from Marx and Engels is that, any system will continue to exist as long as it can improve production/efficiency. And even today, capitalism in its heavily altered form is still capable of that improvement. On the other hand, I think there some (fairly strong) signs that capitalism is evolving in a way that is preventing that improvement, and would signal the beginning of the end. We shall see.
Jugoslavija worked perfectly until Tito died and west got its hand on its countries and started the nationalistic divide influence and offering loans only to countries which break away from Jugoslavija.
But people still fell for it and that means people were the weakest link and Tito just held that together while he was alive.
Only lesson I see here is: if people are weak-minded, easily influenced and not united, then anything persuasive enough can break them.
@@wenkeli1409 True enough. The rise of authoritarian government and monopolistic enterprise has become apparent as we see an unholy alliance of the private tech sector and state bureaucracies intent on grasping their own monopoly on state power. It isn’t communism. It isn’t fascism. It isn’t even capitalism, at least in any free market sense. It is something new that I can’t put my finger on, but it doesn’t bode well for anyone interested in human rights or liberty.
@@korosensei4384 Yes, it “worked perfectly”
…for some. Others not so much.
If you were a worker in some of the more industrialized areas such as Slovenia which had practically full employment, Yugoslavian socialism worked “perfectly fine”. If you were in one of the more rural areas of Macedonia and Kosovo where there were particularly high rates of unemployment, not so much. Yugoslavia was also facing increasing inflationary pressures, particularly after prices were liberalised in the mid-1960s. Average annual inflation increased from 10% in the 1960s to 20% in the 1970s, reaching particularly high levels in the 1980s.
Even under Tito the Yugoslavian experiment was not some workers paradise. Like all systems invented by humans, it worked for some and not for others. The problem with socialism is not the theory. Egalitarianism is a great idea. The problem with socialism is that the theory never matches the reality.
There is no utopia
@@bluewater454But of course, capitalism works for everyone. Anothet great comment.
You are wrong, Yugoslavia wasn't aligned with Stalin and Russia since 1948.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cominform
Yugoslavia was one of founders of Non-Aligned movement.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement.
Bitcoin!
The U.S. government is never going to let that be a thing. It will kill it.
YU was not alligned with Stalin.... Actualy it was the opposite. Tito's famous NO to Stalin, for example. It might have been aligned like early after WW2 for a short period of time, but for the most part of existence of YU it was not.