Our beloved Mr. Libertarian

Murray Rothbard, gave some advice to the Eastern Europeans in 1992 in an article called, How and How Not to Desocialize. As is my wont, I'll give you the part I liked, but the rest is interesting as prophecy and worth reading to compare and contrast the results of the various nations since that time. Keeping in mind, as you study, the degree to which they took Dr. Rothbard's advice. [Sorry, I've been reading Dickens again.]

Here's the part I liked:

Do Not Crack Down on Black Markets

One route toward freedom that former President Gorbachev had adopted was to crack down on the villains of the black market. We might conclude that the mindset of the Eastern bloc has a long way to go in understanding freedom, except that there are precious few Westerners who understand this problem either. For the black marketeers are not villains; if they sometimes look and act like villains, it is only because their entrepreneurial activities have been made illegal. The "black market" is simply the market, the market which Soviets claim to be searching for, but which has turned "black" precisely because it has been declared illegal. It is the market crippled and distorted, but it is there, in this despised "black" area, that the Soviets will find the market most readily. Instead of cracking down, then, the governments should, immediately, set the black market free.

I don't know if the article ever saw print where anyone in charge over there was likely to look, with the possible exception of Vaclav Klaus, but I expect they all would have rejected it anyway. And, as I say, the degree to which they have done so shows.