BOOK REVIEW. ‟DEPENDENŢĂ ȘI DEZVOLTARE. ECONOMIA POLITICĂ A CAPITALISMULUI ROMÂNESC” [DEPENDENCY AND DEVELOPMENT. THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ROMANIAN CAPITALISM] BY CORNEL BAN. CLUJ-NAPOCA: TACT PUBLISHING HOUSE, 2014, 293 P.

Abstract

The book takes us through the past century and a half of Romanian history, analyzing in each of its seven chapters what Cornel Ban sees as distinct phases of the country’s position in relation to the world economy: the early departure from a feudalistic organization in the 19^th century that marked the actual constitution of the Romanian nation state and its position of classical and then semiperipheral dependency (Chapter One), the five decades of state socialism (Chapter Two) followed by the various stages of post-socialist capitalism (Chapters Three to Seven). Coherent with the Polanyian framework it stems from, the analysis simultaneously follows the indicators of a gradual transformation of an agrarian economy into one of complex industry and services, and the ones related to the extent and depth of social rights (health, education and labour protection).