I think you’ll find this analysis of Russia of interest. It looks at what happened when Russia moved from Communism to Capitalism in ways that free market advocates applauded, but in the end the free market and privatization did not work as life span, income and wealth of individuals dropped. Why? It turns out that more than privatization is needed. The article quotes Milton Friedman saying:
I used to be asked a lot: “What do these ex-communist states have to do in order to become market economies?” And I used to say: “You can describe that in three words: privatize, privatize, privatize.” But, I was wrong. That wasn’t enough. The example of Russia shows that. Russia privatized but in a way that created private monopolies-private centralized economic controls that replaced government’s centralized controls. It turns out that the rule of law is probably more basic than privatization. Privatization is meaningless if you don’t have the rule of law.
KZ
