As the painful economic reform phase continues in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, citizens can more clearly see the destruction of the nation’s human and industrial potential instead of the formation of a basis for economic revitalization and growth. Not only is there a sharp drop in the volume of investment, but there is disincentive to invest, and the corresponding accumulations are either used or go abroad. Such drastic pauperization can hardly be protracted without a dangerous deterioration of the demographic situation, of the conditions for the population’s normal reproduction and its capacity for productive activity in the economy and in other spheres of social life. Contrary to expectations, the middle class has rapidly disintegrated instead of growing stronger. The question is pondered: How difficult and costly are measures for combating extreme forms of poverty, which are quite destructive and very dangerous?
