>It's funny you should mention that. There was just an article in the NY Times the other day about some people (more than a few) in the former Yugoslavia who are nostalgic for the good old days of socialism.

One of the reasons for this exception is that we were outside the bloc, actually outside both of them. We really were an independent country, with market socialism which had to suck up to the working class all over the country to prove it's better than both. So most people don't really care that they couldn't form a political party, or start a private business larger than a hairdresser's or a bar, because in every other way they did have the best of the both and then some: could travel all over the world (which a lot of people really did, this wasn't an empty promise), had cars, housing, had 4 weeks vacation, free health (deductible was worth about one city bus ride), state guaranteed retirements, plus any disability earned at work would land you squarely with a hefty early retirement. The extra was that there were forms of democracy you couldn't imagine.

While USSR and most of the Eastern bloc had to keep their borders closed (in Romania almost anyone had a passport, but it was kept in a safe in the police HQ), ours were wide open. We regularly made about $1 billion off tourism every year (though that much money never went through regular channels - that's $1b if you count under-the-counter exchange). I've actually talked to several American tourists between 1966 and 1978 (and they were probably still coming - it was I who stopped ;). And we have traveled all over Europe (Spain and Greece were fashionable destinations, though Tunisia and Egypt were getting popular) and all the way to China (and the guys from the agency were trying to get more tourists to Sri Lanka then).

It was a nice country.