Suchergebnisse

The relationship between economics and politics is a complex one. Economics no doubt has important areas of theory where politics does not play a significant role, yet politics enters into the picture whenever the question is raised of mobilizing human and physical resources for economic ends. What is true of economic activity in general is particularly true of economic growth, where changes in attitudes and methods of work lend great importance to organizational problems. In discussing this question much depends, of course, on what one means by "politics." The term may be used in a very narrow and partisan sense or, much more broadly, be applied to policy-making in regard to strategic choices among alternate courses of action. It is in this broader sense that politics is inherent in all economic action, and policy-making in this realm may be handled by a variety of agencies. When it comes to studying different systems of economic growth, policy decisions must be taken into consideration as much as rates and levels of achievement.

It is doubtless a truism to state that Europe is on the wane, at least as a center of political power. Few would deny that a change of major proportions has taken place since the turn of the century in Europe's role in world affairs. But once this is stated, agreement ceases. The causes and mechanism of Europe's decline have received the most varied interpretations, and the bearing of this change on the future is so profound that each school of thought tends to evaluate the destiny of Europe in terms of its own political philosophy. The widest assortment of scholars and prophets have been drawn to this problem by the fascination of its perplexities, and their treatises already comprise a formidable library. Yet the solutions proposed can scarcely be said to have resulted in a clarification of the problem of Europe, and even the most distinguished and influential of these writers have found relatively few areas of agreement.

The constitutional development of the governments of eastern Europe in modern times has varied with the particular circumstances and personalities of each national group. Yet in its broader aspects this development has revealed a remarkably uniform pattern. The minority peoples of the Habsburg, Romanov, and Ottoman empires met the challenge of alien laws and discriminatory economic conditions in the nineteenth century by adopting as their program the political principles popularized by the French revolution. By the outbreak of World War I, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Albania had achieved an independent status, and with the exception of the last-named had established a tradition of parliamentary government and the beginnings of a liberal democracy. A new era of opportunities and problems, inaugurated by the victory of the Allies in 1918, saw the creation of the enlarged Yugoslavia and Rumania, and of the new Czecho-slovakia. Two years later, with the stabilization of Russia's western frontier, Finland, the three Baltic states, and Poland were established as independent states. Albania and Bulgaria continued with modest changes of frontier and political outlook, and took their place beside a recalcitrant Hungary and a chastened Greece.