ABSTRACT
Eastern European countries seem locked mentally somewhere between the discovery of the intrinsic logic of capitalism characteristic of the nineteenth century and the post-Weimar Republic period. This is a period characterized by an incredibly fast economic growth and a passionate advocacy of the values of free enterprise and capitalism, accompanied by a good deal of anomie, fission of the body social, stark social contrasts, shocking degrees of corruption, a culture of poverty (to recall Oscar Lewis’s term which refers to low trust, self-victimization, disbelief in social ties and networks, contempt for institutions, and so on), and cynicism.
