>You pretty much have stated what Stefan told me. One thing he mentioned was that before the fall of the USSR people ate better and usually had 'jobs' (they pretended to work and the gov pretended to pay them). After the fall, the former communist bosses became the current mafia leaders, bent on stealing the country blind which, he said, was what they were doing while communist leaders.

Worse. While they were party leaders, they had to keep the pretenses. After the system collapsed, they took on the task to prove that the new system is far worse, because it's so much easier to steal, get rich and get away with it. Of course, they fail to mention their own merit. Modesty, I figure.

As for the work ethics, can't say anything about the real-socialism countries because I haven't worked there. I know the waiters and shop clerks were not really polite, they seemed to hate you for disturbing their leisure. In Yugoslavia, the system was supposedly different, and should have provided the incentive and the support for the initiative (ah, the usage of words :), but each time the productivity was raised due to workers' effort or invention or just sheer intelligence, the reward failed to come. Or worse, it started coming, and then The Party came in with stories of how some individuals here want to get rich, disrespecting the needs of others. In the end, there were two tunes: "radio ne radio, svira mi radio" (whether I worked or not worked, the radio plays for me - rhymes fine in Serbian as you see), and "they can never pay me as little as little I can work".

On the other hand, the same guys worked their asses off and made good money in Germany, France, Sweden etc.