ABSTRACT
The logic of the 1930’s Soviet industrialisation drive and World War II shaped its (and later ‘bloc’) economy along centrally planned lines. The collapse of the USSR permitted these economies to be restructured. This process, however, was not always democratically determined. Instead, great pressures were applied to create and maintain these economies along neoliberal lines. Nowhere was this done with more force than in Latvia and the Baltic states generally. The social consequences were devastating as Latvia saw both the world’s largest GDP collapse after the 2008 financial crisis and then deep austerity policies applied to restore its macro-economic fundamentals.
