Good morning! The welfare state or the state of social justice is a taboo topic in Montenegro that is not discussed. Something like Djokovic in the pantheon of Serbian nationalism. The social state is also cemented in our constitution. What does the Yugoslav example of the welfare state teach us and was Tito’s golden age really so golden?
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Why did Yugoslavia really disintegrate?
Yugoslavia, the big one, still evokes nostalgia for many in the territory of the former state. And those who hated it, don’t like it for the wrong nationalistic reasons. However, if you ask people about the economy and the sense of social security, you will also find the biggest critics of the social organization of Yugoslavia, who readily agree that it was a society of social justice and a state that knew how to make sure that everyone was employed, fed and housed.
People are safety-oriented. Our primate amygdalae are wired to fear anything.
Former Yugoslavs are also Mediterranean in everything, including the fact that they stay with their parents until their thirties. That is why they remember with sadness the system in which the state took care of them, educated them, medically treated and housed them.
The only question is at what price and what quality were those services. What kind of free education, healthcare and housing was that? And was it free at all?
Misa Brkic wrote an excellent article in “Danas” last week. He writes about the Yugoslav welfare state, which at one point went bankrupt, after which it fell into a social crisis, from which it entered the war that finished it off.
Misa uses the question “Former Yugoslavia was a welfare state where the working class had courage, power and voice. How did that strength disappear”? posed in an interview, to prove how firmly and rooted in public discourse is the mythologizing of the role of the working class and the Yugoslav welfare state.
And he gives the answer: “Unable to articulate a reformation vision of the future, we often return to the past, sifting through the dustbin of history to find a solution to our current problems.” And in that warehouse of historical waste, we dig up socialism and the working class, try to recycle them and turn them into a ruling ideology and class.”
The Yugoslav welfare state, like any welfare state after all, cost a lot. In cash. That money was secured by Tito, with his charisma and unquestionable war legacy. Money was found in various ways, mostly from capitalist countries and their financial institutions.
The imbalance between government spending and GDP came to light after the death of the leader, and in 1981 the federal finance minister said that the country was in danger of collapse. Yugoslavia was in the group of the most indebted countries in the world. Queues for fuel, even and odd license plates, shortages in stores, were just some of the indicators that something was not right with the state’s economy.
Federal Prime Minister Milka Planinc admitted bankruptcy at a secret meeting of the state-political summit in the summer of 1982, and on 3 July 1983, in front of the delegates of the Council of Republics and Provinces of the Assembly of Yugoslavia, she harshly accused the communist leaders: “The total social and personal consumption is significantly above real possibilities of our society, and the economy lives on only 16% of its own working capital”. So, let’s make it clear: Yugoslavia was a welfare state that went bankrupt because it was a welfare state – it spent what it did not earn”, Brkic writes in his text.
As for the working class, it did not rule the country. The illusion of ruling was created by allowing that class to raise their hands in workers’ councils. Brkic also notes well that the country was ruled by the warrior class, not the working class, almost until the end. The class of war commanders, who took power after 1945. In addition, civil consciousness did not exist and was not developed among the workers, and we suffer the consequences of that even today, when people are first of all members of the nation, and only then maybe citizens.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
