As the enormous scope of the reform task in Eastern Europe is becoming paintfully clear, there are growing doubts that the new democratic regimes will be capable of making the transition to the market successfully. A variety of plausible arguments suggest that pursuing the
right
economic reform policies may require the strong hand of authoritarian rule. This view derives from a faulty conception of the problem according to which economic transformation is a technical problem, to be solved by a set of well-established technocratic policies. This article identifies the weaknesses of this narrow conception, proposes an alternative view, and reassesses the potential contributions of democratic institutions and practices to economic transformation.
The more dissension, the more contention and less consensus, the less you get on with the job. In the early stages you need to achieve clear-cut goals like universal education, high savings, high productivity, low consumption. Those are simple truths that everybody has to accept, in order to accumulate the surplus to build up the infrastructure. You need the capital to get going. And you can't have contention over these simple truths indefinitely.