Business
An economic transformation does not need broad opposition to fail. A handful of self-interested players placed at key points can bend the whole change toward their own gain. Reform is only as sound as the people who end up holding the levers.
Reformers who lack a power base of their own have to ally with some existing group to push change through. Picking a small clique of rich insiders may be the only workable option at the time. It can still leave the government and the country worse off, because the ally gains power the reformers cannot later take back.
When a state sells off its wealth before it has the rules to police the sale, insiders can strip it bare without breaking any law. The lack of crime does not mean the result was fair. The gaps in the law become the means of the theft.
A small group of economists given a free hand to apply their ideas to a whole society can achieve a great deal fast. Their mistakes, though, become built into the society's structure and can distort it for generations. Speed and boldness raise both the gains and the long-lasting costs.
Moving from state ownership to private markets does not automatically produce liberal capitalism. Once a few tycoons are entrenched, an open market economy still has to be fought for against them. The fight goes on long after the first wave of reform.
A country where corruption, authoritarian rule and a shrinking intellectual life reinforce one another heads toward decline. Seeing those forces at work early made it possible to predict where the country was going.