While a crisis of faith, of sorts, has resounded in western discourse on the economic effectiveness of austerity, this scepticism, rather ironically, dissipates when you cross over into the remnants of the Iron Curtain.
Neoliberalism’s flagellants reside east of the Elbe. There, ideological purity remains, if not redoubled. Former patients of shock therapy are now its most devoted converts. This was not only demonstrated by Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovak, and Polish officials’ unyielding support for ‘tough reforms’ in Greece, but the general lack of sympathy among their populations for the Greek people. Past shock therapies have left them numb, docile, and inured to the calamities of neoliberal logics.
The neoliberal faith is expanding further eastward as well. The Ukrainian leadership have shown their unbridled readiness to exchange one master, Russia, for another: western finance and corporate capital. Even in light of the Troika’s ‘fiscal waterboarding’ of Greece and the utter failure of austerity as economic policy, the Ukrainian government is willing, even enthusiastic, to implement reforms prescribed by the IMF not only with the blind faith that they will stimulate economic recovery, but also in the name of ‘European values’, which are now subject to much scrutiny.
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