Beyond Marketization: Rethinking Economic Development Trajectories in Central and Eastern Europe

Recently the marketization thesis which holds that the commodified realm is stretching its tentacles ever wider and deeper across the globe has been challenged in the context of Western economies and the third world by an emerging post-development corpus of thought. The aim of this paper is to extend this critique of the powerful narrative of marketization by turning attention to Eastern and Central Europe. Interrogating the nature of work and trajectories of economic development in these post-socialist societies, it unravels not just the continuing presence of a multiplicity of non-market economic practices but also evidence of diverse development paths being pursued. The outcome of this re-representation of the nature and direction of economic development in Eastern and Central Europe is a call to transcend the view that 'there is no alternative to capitalism' and for debates about the future of work to become more open to the evaluation of alternative possibilities.