NYT: Let’s Give Up on the Constitution

[bouzane]

@Player1x3

I brought up Yugoslavia because there are many pertinent lessons to be learned from the collapse of that country.

Even though Yugoslavia was a proper communist republic (with the people actually managing their own factories through collectivized labor) there were still many similarities to other developed nations such as the USA, Britain, etc... They had open borders as Tito didn't need to worry about out-migration due to his somewhat moderate and neutral policies and as a result, many traveled and worked abroad and the state benefited from the remittances. They had free health care, a great life expectancy, quality education and an overall high quality of living. Tito established an obtrusive nanny/police state in an effort to curb nationalism and maintain order (albeit slightly more aggressive in hunting down political dissidents than modern day America). Overall it was a stable and prosperous nation despite racial divisions.

However, things started to change with the oil crisis of the 70's as it resulted in Yugoslavia borrowing significant amounts of money and implementing liberal capitalist reforms. This led to a ballooning debt problem and rising unemployment. The Reagan administration saw an opportunity to destabilize the region and pushed for trade barriers which exacerbated their existing problems. Another round of loans were taken out with the IMF and they soon found themselves with a whole host of food and power shortages as well as unpayable debt and an unemployment rate that hovered around 15 percent. This stoked the existing nationalist divisions leading to the Yugoslav Wars which saw the deaths of over 130,000 people and the utter collapse of the republic.

A textbook example of how a developed, modern nation can unravel.