Gabrielle Glaser reports one of the results of "Poland's opening to Western market forces" in the New York Times under the heading: "Booming Polish Market: Blond, Blue-Eyed Babies." An "unexpected side effect" of the free market, she writes, is "a booming traffic" in this commodity, as "young mothers are being pressed to sign away the rights to their children." The numbers may reach tens of thousands. "I hate to say it," the director of a state adoption agency comments, "but it seems to me that Poland has one of the most serious markets of white babies." Polish journals tend to shy away from the role of the Church, Glaser reports, but one inquiry reported that the Mother Superior of one adoption home receives $15,000 for each baby girl and up to $25,000 for each baby boy. Asked about the report, she replied: "I cannot give you any information. Good-bye." She did, however, display her papal award for "defending life," "an honor Pope John Paul II bestows on anti-abortion crusaders in his native Poland," Glaser comments.

Why this side effect is "unexpected," Glaser does not explain. Indeed, as she notes, such reports "are not new in Eastern Europe or the third world: Romania became notorious for the practice after its 1989 revolution." Post-1989 Romania is a curious choice. The phenomenon is a well-known concomitant of the integration of the South into the world order in the service role; reports of sale of children are, in fact, some of the more benign that are familiar to those who do not choose to shield themselves from the wrong kind of facts. The "side effects" of the subjection of the South to market forces are not in the least unexpected, except to the laser-like vision of the trained ideologue.

"Unexpected side effects" of the invisible hand have also been found in Russia, again eliciting much surprise. A front-page New York Times headline reads: "The Russians' New Code: If It Pays, Anything Goes." "It is not just a matter of crime, corruption, prostitution, smuggling, and drug and alcohol abuse," all on the rise: "There is also a widespread view that...people are out for themselves and anything goes" -- unlike the United States, where pursuit of "the vile maxim of the masters" is unknown, or the Third World domains that have been subject to our helping hand. "Swindles and bribes are hardly a new phenomenon in Russia," correspondent Celestine Bohlen observes, and were familiar in the "old Communist system" -- again, unlike the US and its clients.

During the same days, the Times was reporting the saga of President Fernando Collor of Brazil, the fair-haired boy of Washington and the business community, who broke new records in corruption in a richly-endowed country that has been a "testing area" for US experts for half a century (see chapter 7). One may recall a few domestic examples of corruption as well, from the days of the Founding Fathers, no slouches in this game, and on to the Reaganites and Wall Street in the 1980s. Corruption is an intrinsic feature of "the old Communist system," the ideological institutions (correctly) proclaim: under "capitalist democracy," it is an aberration, quickly corrected.

The new "ostentatious wealth sets most citizens' nerves on edge," Bohlen continues, describing the standard consequences of neoliberal remedies. "Crime has soared in Russia after the collapse of Communism, as it did in Eastern Europe," including white-collar crimes, which have "taken off." But "the levels of crime are still well below New York's standards." There is still room for progress towards the capitalist ideal.

The economies of Eastern Europe stagnated or declined through the eighties, but went into free fall as the IMF regimen was adopted with the end of the Cold War in 1989. By the fourth quarter of 1990, Bulgaria's industrial output (which had previously remained steady) had dropped 17 percent, Hungary's 12 percent, Poland's over 23 percent, Romania's 30 percent. The UN Economic Commission for Europe reported in late 1991 that the region's output had declined 1 percent in 1989, 10 percent in 1990, and 15 percent in 1991, predicting a further decline of 20 percent for 1991, with the same or worse likely in 1992. One result has been a general disillusionment with the democratic opening, even some growing support for the former Communist parties. In Russia, the economic collapse has led to much suffering and deprivation, as well as "weariness, cynicism, and anger, directed at all politicians, from Yeltsin down," Brumberg reports, and particularly at the ex-Nomenklatura who, as predicted, are coming to be the typical Third World elite serving the interests of the foreign masters. In public opinion polls, half the respondents considered the August 1991 Putsch illegal, one-fourth approved, and the rest had no opinion.

Support for democratic forces is limited, not because of opposition to democracy, but because of what it becomes under Western rules. It will either have the very special meaning dictated by the needs of the rich men, or it will be the target of destabilization, subversion, strangulation, and violence until proper behavior is restored. Exceptions are rare.²⁰

²⁰ Feffer, Shock Waves, 22, 112, 129. Brumberg, NYRB, Jan. 30; FT, Feb. 3; Robinson, FT, April 28, 1992. Haynes, European Business and Economic Development, Sept. 1992. Economic indicators; FT, Sept. 28, 1992. Engelberg, NYT, Feb. 9; WSJ, Feb. 4; Glaser, NYT, April 19; Bohlen, NYT, Aug. 30, 1992. Continental Illinois, see p. 63. Children, see DD, ch. 7; ch. 9.5, below. Polanyi, Great Transformation. Miller, Founding Finaglers. On the Costa Rican exception and US attitudes towards it from the 1940s, see NI, 111f., App. V.1; DD, 221f., 273ff.