s of Ante Markovic, elected as federal Premier in January 1989. Markovic, although a Communist, favored a "new socialism" based on economic reforms, most notably privatization of government business opportunities. Markovic's philosophy contrasted with Tito's doctrine of the "self-managed" economy in which workers were supposed to manage their own factories, and a complex system of worker delegates was set up to put this idea into effect. Since Tito's system theoretically belonged to no one, it was managed by the Communists by default: "Members of the [Communist] party had an enormous vested interest in the involability of this basic arrangement" (Mojzes, 1994, p. 66). Thus when Markovic began tampering with the "self-managed" economy, resistance from the Communist bureaucracy was inevitable.
At first, Markovic's economic reforms bore remarkable fruit. Yugoslavia's economy had been in a shambles, with rampant inflation and mounting government debt due to unbridled defense spending. Markovic's fiscal policies checked inflation, created tens of thousa
...