The Keys ep11 Privatization
Latvia’s difficult path to free market and private property based capitalist economy.
Private property in Latvia was not reinstated in a day – it was a long process.
Paradoxically, the Soviet government had turned to the basics of capitalism and legalized private business in an attempt to save socialism. Cooperatives
- the very first private enterprises in the Soviet Union – were permitted in the early 1987. The agrarian reform began in 1990, beckoning the end of kolhozs.
In March 1991, Latvia had announced independence and, while not yet officially free, embarked on the difficult path towards capitalism, beginning with privatization of state and municipal enterprises. How did we do? Was there another way, a fairer one?
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