The Chart of (Ownership) Surrealists

In an additional explanation to Dnevnik daily on February 19, Marjanovic said "all companies are being allowed to decided whether to change owners and sell shares but they have to do that under market conditions". He didn't explain whether that means the republican assessment agency which did everything to push private property down 5% of state owned capital is out of the game.

Since this is a topic that has gone the rounds more than once we are publishing some of the latest arguments by the pro-socialist lobby.

1. Mirko Marjanovic, Serbian prime minister: "Certainly economic reasons will cause a change to mixed shareholders' societies in many state companies. Employees will show the greatest interest in buying shares with the aim of bringing in more capital to develop the company. That will mean the implementation of the SPS party program under which state property is seen as a social capital in shares managed by companies. It has its ownership subjectivity, appears on the capital market, has a price, brings in profits and is legally protected." (SPS Belgrade election conference, February 17).

Questions: What are the economic reasons?

- If employees have surplus capital to develop their companies why shouldn't they invest in other things,

- What kind of shareholder is society, what is its status in the company and how does it decide to go into the capital market, how do you share profits between society and real shareholders.

2. Bosko Perosevic, Vojvodina Government President: "The basic assumption to start privatization is a market, market institutions and all other elements, and the existence of owners of domestic and foreign capital to invest in local companies." (Meeting on privatization by the Vojvodina Reformist Party, February 8)

Questions:

- How can a market exist in an economy 95% owned by the state,

- Do owners of capital who want to invest in this economy really exist.

3. Dragan Tomic, minister and SImpo Director: "Who is forcing to complete privatization overnight? If factories and companies are operating normally, if they operate well, if they can be competitive on the international market, if employees have no complaints, why rush into uncertainty which could bring a better or much worse situation." (Radio Kragujevac, December 24)

Questions:

- Is it possible that a minister doesn't know that factories and companies aren't operating normally, that they aren't competitive, that strikes have been ongoing for months,

- Did Tomic get his Dedinje villa as a private or social owner.

4. Professor Oskar Kovac: "It isn't true that the EU is setting privatization as a condition for cooperation. They will invest here if they have an interest, if they feel legally safe, if the system protects debtors, if they can protect their share from risk." (BK TV, February 20)

Questions:

- Did Kovac read the rules and protocols of the European development bank which explicitly conditions support on democracy and privatization;

- Who in the FRY feel legal security and how brought insecurity to this country, was it his party (SPS) or someone else;

- How does Kovac interpret official figures that 98.7% of the capital in our companies is local and just 0.3% foreign and 1% mixed. What does that have to do with the fact that foreign debt is now equal to the social product level.

5. Vuk Draskovic, SPO party leader: "We do not accept bringing social capital out on the market and sharing it out equally among all citizens of age, which the Democratic Party insists on. We feel that is demagogy, uneconomical and unjust. Why should multi-millionaires get as much as people who have nothing. That might seem egalitarian to some but the SPO demands the sharing out of what is there to share, primarily to the poor and the young, educated and unemployed citizens of Serbia. We want the privatization process to take care of the social welfare of most people." (Duga fortnightly, December 23)

Questions:

- Capital is capital because it is on the market, did you forget that from your course at law school;

- Can you name a just privatization which didn't see multi-millionaires fare well and do you think privatization is not implemented out of purely economic reasons;

- Why are you urging giving capital to people who didn't make it; don't you know that the nature of property is that someone has to make it;

6. Ljubisa Ristic, Yugoslav United Left (JUL) President and KPGT director: "JUL is not against private property but feels that every social company should become private if the private capital is there to pay for it (more than it is worth or at least as much), not less or even nothing as in Montenegro or Bulgaria." (NIN weekly, February 16)

Questions:

- Why in Montenegro if state companies there are paid less than they're worth or nothing are 95% of companies not private;

- What is the sugar plant worth that Ristic took over for his social theater and how much is that theater worth;

- Will Ristic sell shares to get money to equip his theater or will it et money under government decisions;

7. Professor Milos Aleksic: "Socialism as an ideology has many political theories but the socialist principles that lead towards communist society are relevant to transition." (Politika, October 10)

Questions: No comment