Societies, whether traditional or modern, experience tension between spontaneity (individual freedom) and control (regulation). Consequently, economies as a subsystem of society experience it too. More specifically, they experience a tension between economic individualism and economic collectivism, which in modern economies revolves around the role of the state in the economy. Since the collapse of communism, this tension has manifested itself not as a tension between market capitalism and command socialism but as a tension between the free market and the interventionist variants of market...

No modern economy can escape open unemployment as long as free labour and a free labour market exist. In any modern economy, there exists a tension between economic individualism and economic collectivism, but market forces cannot forever be denied. While Part 1 examines open and hidden unemployment in capitalist market economies and socialist command economies prior to 1989, Part 2 concentrates on the issue of unemployment in post-communist economies between 1989 and the end of 1993. Finally, Part 3 summarizes, re- examines, and expands on those selected dimensions of the issue of...