Capitalism and Economic Transformation in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic

Syllabus

4. 10.

Úvodní přednáška – kapitalismus lokální, národní a globální 11. 10.

Podnik, místo a aktéři – představení lokální případové studie 18. 10.

Proměny globálního kapitalismu v poslední třetině 20. století  25. 10.

Podnik v pozdním socialismu – přísliby a skutečnost přestavby 1. 11.

Revoluce 1989 - manažeři, dělníci a demokracie v průmyslu 8. 11.

Hospodářská transformace – budování kapitalismu po pádu stáního socialismu 15. 11.

Privatizace I: Kauza Baťa - kapitalistická tradice a budoucnost 22. 11.

Privatizace II: Podnik pro novou dobu 29. 11.

Práce a gender v hospodářské transformaci  6. 12.

Trh a podnikání – od výrobců k prodejcům 13. 12.

Dvě globalizace – od socialistická globalizace ke globálnímu kapitalismu 20. 12.

Deindustrializace jako globální a lokální fenomén 3. 1. 

Závěrečná diskuze

Annotation

The changes that took place in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic after 1989 are usually characterised by historiography as a transition from dictatorship to liberal democracy. However, less attention has been paid by historians to the analysis of this period as a transition from a socialist economy to capitalism.

The aim of this course is to examine the economic transition in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic as a case study in the history of capitalism, which, in this particular case, was emerging from the ruins of a centrally planned economy. The lecture will attempt to capture three interconnected levels of this development - local, national and global.

While the national level will reflect the transformation policies of the Czech and Czechoslovak state, the global level will place the developments in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in the context of the development of global capitalism in the last third of the 20th century. The central part of the course, however, will be the local level, which is intended to show how these profound systemic changes were manifested in a particular place and industry.

The interpretation will therefore be based on a case study of the development of Svit Gottwaldov and, after 1989, Svit Zlín (the former Baťa company). Linking research into the local, national and global contexts of the history of post-socialist capitalism (and its roots in the late socialist period), it will show how major transnational economic trends and national economic policies manifested themselves at the local level and how local actors (managers, workers, politicians) responded to these 'big' historical processes and events.