Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 21:00:00 GMT
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Rational Albanians


The BBC has just broadcast on its World Service, which
will get back to Albanians, a report from its correspondent
in Tirana. Puzzled that the country is not in total 
anarchy he is lost for an analysis. He suggests there is
some deep psychological problem for the Albanians, and 
what the country really needs is a psychiatrist.

"Cruelly" deprived of outside contact by Hoxha, it needed
careful nurturing, but what it got was Berisha. Now the
Albanians are behaving immaturely, capturing supplies
of guns and firing of volleys of bullets into the air -
how immature.

Well, I want to argue the report I have just described is 
an example of arrogant cultural colonialism, and that the
Albanians' behaviour is perfectly rational.

Last weekend the British press had reports that Albania had
broken down into anarchy, and that war lords were springing
up having captured supplies of arms. At least these reports 
emphasised that when a state collapses it is rational to 
assure yourself of stocks of food and of weapons to defend them.

Now a report forwarded by Wei En Lin on marxism-general 
describes how multi-party committees have been set up 
in many towns, even including anti-Berisha members of the 
Democratic Party. Although deaths continue there is an 
absence of reports of wholesale bloodshed and war. 

What we can and must assume is the good sense of people living
still in a tight organic society, where everyone knows everyone
else, who will have found their own ways of rapidly establishing
order. 

What I think also has to be assumed is based on a dialectical
analysis of the former Albanian Party of Labour. The present
socialist party is apparently a social democratic party, but 
it is not clear that that the collapse of the PLA occurred 
particularly to the discredit of the former party.
I rely on other list members -
Barkley? - to catalogue the worst that can be said about the 
PLA, but it does not appear that its worst enemies can 
convict it of the worst of atrocities, strict though it was
about long hair and popular music, and determined though it
was on an economic policy of virtual autarky. 

Some of the 
traditions of that party will linger on in the culture
of the country, and former communists will be contributing
to discussions in the Committees of Defence that have sprung up
in the south of the country. Here their "stalinist" willingness
to form united fronts with other sections of the population
(practised during the war of resistance to fascism) will stand
them in good stead, and will maximise rather than minimise the
chances for the population to resist settlements imposed by
international capital.

Although Albania is not central to trade routes, and the chances
are it will achieve a popular social-democratic coalition which
will avert major disturbances, I think we can still rationally
hope that it will be a signal that international capital will
have to compromise in its colonisation plans for eastern Europe.

The most obvious lesson is on banking. The events illustrate 
a fundamental point made by Schweickart in his "Against Capitalism"
that most bank deposits are insured by the taxpayer in the 
modern capitalism state. The material Jorn has just
forwarded about the ambivalent role played by the 
IMF is very interesting and worth pursuing.
The collapse of the Albanian state
is a lesson to remind us that underneath the neo-liberal rhetoric
which we are subjected to, capitalism absolutely requires regulation
and state support. Otherwise revolutions can happen in cases of extreme 
instability. Clumsy if the IMF let that occur.


Schweickart in discussing the process by which command economies
can move to more flexible social market economies, predicts 
continuing problems of the Albanian sort:

>> Virtually all command economies are characterized by shortages
relative to effective demand; people have money to spend, but little
to buy. (This is in stark contrast to capitalist economies, which
are characterised by surplus capacity relative to effective demand.)
so when prices are decontrolled in a command economy, prices soar.
To be sure, waiting lines disappear, but so do personal savings. 
Worse still, the resulting uncertainty makes long-range planning
by the government and by individual firms almost impossible; vast
opportunities for speculation and corruption draw off productive
talent; monopolistic industries (the norm in command economies,
because it is easier to plan when the number of firms is small)
are free to exploit their market power. In short, the 
resulting incentive structures are highly non-optimal. The fairy
tale promise that free markets will lead swiftly to enhanced
productivity is a cruel deception.<<< 

(page 295 pb edition)

The stories that the Italian mafia had crossed over to make links
in the south of Albania, no doubt could partly be true, but it 
is an explanation by external causes. It appears to 
incontrovertible that the mafia has sprung up in the former
Soviet Union, and it is never reported that they speak Italian.

We are looking at a general pattern here, and the item also 
reported on m-general that Russian editors are being
accused of unconstitutional activities for suggesting 
that lessons should be drawn from the Albanians is also a 
straw in the wind.

When you also hear that the Kohl government may have to abandon
its job creation schemes in the former GDR if it is to meet
Maastricht criteria to enter a single European currency, it 
is possible to conclude that capitalism is having real problems
assimilating eastern Europe. Until proved otherwise, let us 
assume the mass of the Albanians are behaving rationally
and constructively. Capitalism may have to compromise, and 
that could be interesting for all of us.


Chris Burford







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