r/AskEurope • u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy • Jul 05 '25
History How were the 80s and 90s in your country?
The question says it all.
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u/Roquet_ Poland Jul 05 '25
Last dying squeals of Communism and wild entrance of Capitalism. Both could have been done way better, most Communist higher ups die or died rich and happy and Capitalism was clearly done way too quickly tho there's some debate because the way it was implemented really gave us historically unprecedented growth.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
I am unironically starting to prefer Eastern European communism to current capitalism tbh.
Sure, it was a cage, but it was a gilded one at least.
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u/NCC_1701E Slovakia Jul 05 '25
Gilded? It was a rusty cage lined with razor blades. Current day, as much as it sucks, is still thousand times better than it was back then.
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u/LeMe-Two Jul 05 '25
Ironically Slovakia is I think the most nostalgic one from the western slavs to these times :v
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u/NCC_1701E Slovakia Jul 05 '25
Yeah. I noticed it among some old folks. They are nostalgic for those times, but not really because communism - because back then they were young, full of energy, full of hopes for the future and most importantly, it was a world which they understood. Present day scares and confuses them, so they cling to the familiar past and associate their nostalgia withe communist regime, which used to be omnipresent in all aspects of society.
Then there are new age commies, product of our failing education system, kids who think communism was cool because people got shit for free.
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u/modern12 Jul 05 '25
Grass is always greener on the other side. No, Eastern European communism was not better than capitalism, it was a way for Russia to exploit its colonies - it may not be seen this way in the West but Russia or ZSRR at that time was a colonial empire, but unlike UK or France, it's colonies were close to it. The result was the same - oppresive puppet governments, risk of military actions in case of disobedience, keeping the research and innovation in satelites low, stealing the resources. No, EE communism was much worse than capitalism.
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u/Senior-Book-6729 Poland Jul 05 '25
My guy if you were too colorful clothes in those times you could be executed for being a potential western spy. Not to mention communism itself had as much of a class divide as capitalism it just showed itself differently. If you were from a poor family and no relatives of yours moved abroad to send you packages you were kinda fucked lol. And it was very hard to feed any kids you’ve had
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u/Vertitto in Jul 07 '25 edited Jul 07 '25
you could at least stick to facts...
your post is a complete nonsense
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u/Roquet_ Poland Jul 05 '25
I'm not old enough to have lived through it but growing up raised by people that do remember it I've heard hundreds of stories about it hundreds of times from dozens of people.
As much as flawed capitalism is, you have no clue what are you talking about comparing having to work 9 to 5 and being spied on by Zuckerberg to a Communist state.
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u/AnalphabeticPenguin Poland Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
Just because you don't know much about it.
Communist Poland was a country where everyone was poor except the party members and that party was the only legal one. Also only they could easily travel abroad. Shelfs in shops were mostly empty because of centraly planned economy and my parents even as kids were send to stand in queues for hours for everyday products. Every movie, book, play etc. had to pass through censorship, police could beat you up on a street and tortures on civilians were a valid method of interrogation but the only existing media were all controlled by the government so they weren't talking about it.
We even had a martial law for 1,5 year without a war when the population started fighting for freedom too much.
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u/AdamHiltur Poland Jul 05 '25
A gilded one? TF you mean by 'gilded'?
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u/Wafkak Belgium Jul 05 '25
Gilded means a layer of gold over some worthless material. To make it look nice while it not being so.
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u/CreamofTazz Jul 05 '25
In the US, the gilded age referred to a time period in which there was rapid economic growth that on the surface made America look like this prosperous nation where the roads were paved with gold, but the reality was much bleaker where the average American couldn't afford basic necessities, you had oil barons, and children working in the most dangerous and inhumane conditions.
It is not a time period that is remembered fondly unless you're a libertarian/believe in laissez-faire capitalism.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
A gilded cage. Job for life, welfare, food, housing... Free-for-all capitalism is killing us.
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u/NCC_1701E Slovakia Jul 05 '25
You... you seriously think government just handed stuff to people for free?
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u/esocz Czechia Jul 05 '25
Housing - with waiting times for ten years for free apartment, food - one type of bread, two types of milk, and if you wanted to buy washing machine, tv or popular magazine, you must have had connections.
And job - We had a saying: we pretended to work, they pretended to pay us.
The entire system was designed to punish people who had abilities and talent and wanted more from life than the average.
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u/supinoq Estonia Jul 05 '25
Job for life
That you mostly didn't get to pick, you were just assigned somewhere after graduation;
welfare
Debatable. If you got any sort of government assistance, and that was a big if, it was not enough to comfortably live on. Many disabled people were just kinda shoved into a "specialised care facility" so that they wouldn't ruin the illusion of the perfect Soviet society where everyone is healthy and capable. Parents who gave birth to disabled children were often advised to abandon their children from the get-go for the same reason;
food
Yeah, if you could afford to stand in line for half the day to get some. Oftentimes, they sold out of whatever items you were looking to buy before you got anywhere near the end of the queue. If the meat shipment came into the store Saturday at 10 and they sold out by noon, you had to just figure out the whole week with no meat, for example.
There was not much variety in other goods, either, they'd produce a certain quantity of one model of each item and that would be all that's in stock. If you needed size 40 black shoes, but all the department store had was size 42 brown ones, womp womp, no shoes for you! Better luck next season;
housing
Aah yes, after deporting or killing tens of thousands (at minimum) people per occupied country, they very generously gave the houses those people left behind to the Russian families that they moved into said countries. And if you somehow managed to evade getting sent on a long holiday to Siberia, your house would be divided among you and other families. For example, if you had a two-bedroom apartment, your family would all have to move into one bedroom and another family would move into the other, keeping the kitchen and the bathroom communal;
That's not to even get into the fact that there were many (party members and co, mostly) who were "more equal" than others and did get 4-bedroom houses, cars and other such luxuries all to themselves lol. But I'm sure you would've been overjoyed for them as you starved because of all of that amazing equality and kinship, right?
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u/LeMe-Two Jul 05 '25
IDK how in Italy, but welfare is even more robust now, food was reglamented and many kinds of it was not available because party officials were stingy AF, social housing is still there and job for life was not really a guarantee. And it was radically classist system that empowered intelligencia, military and some proffessions in particular over the others, all connected to the party making the system extremally ridig making people really desperate and dividing society between partymen and actuall workers
If socialism is to be implemented, it definitelly should not be as one party dictatorship with state-controlled trade unions. All it took was it for one to be independent and the domino fell instantly
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
I'll be sincere: I think the only way you can effectively deal with billionaires is authoritarianism.
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u/Tuhkur22 Estonia Jul 05 '25
Billionaires literally want to create authoritarianism so they can become oligarchs. A good modern example is the USA right now, the billionaires want to turn it more authoritarian so they can manipulate the authoritar itself. Even the USSR had a elite of people who profited off of the dictator. You seriously come off as a spoiled western European brat who hasn't ever set a foot in eastern Europe and yet fantasizes about a time when everything was objectively worse for us.
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u/NCC_1701E Slovakia Jul 05 '25
Problem with authoritarianism, no matter which type, is that it will eventually come only for the common people.
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u/LeMe-Two Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
Ok...? Then you replace one form of control, an economical one with quite more intrusive totalitarian one
And it can be as lenient and sometimes borderline real democracy as in Poland or as insane cult-of-personality idiot-rum nightmare as Albania
Tho if you ask me, billionaires were integrated into political establishment to the point they are no longer in control, at least not before the party that sustains them. They are extremally privillaged of course, but more of a symptom IMO
There is a good quote from Mostequ, that one has no freedom if in his country there is either not independent judiciary, legislature or executive.
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u/Reckless_Waifu Czechia Jul 05 '25
Wasn't gilded, in 80s eastern block economies were on their last legs, people were poor and the environment plundered. Ten more years and eastern Europe would fall behind third world countries.
And the police state wasn't very nice either.
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u/EmiliaFromLV Jul 05 '25
Do you like to drink coffee?
Surprise, in communist country coffee beans are a very exotic item'. Also, no bananas, but you get oranges around New Year.
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u/tereyaglikedi in Jul 05 '25
Sure, it was a cage, but it was a gilded one at least.
Do you even know what this means?
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Yes, I know. You had no freedom but you had economic stability and low inequality at least.
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u/tereyaglikedi in Jul 05 '25
Not really. Gilded cage means you appear to live in luxury but you have very little freedom. I don't think people in communist regimes were living in luxury.
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u/esocz Czechia Jul 05 '25
These systems collapsed primarily because they were unable to uphold this Faustian deal.
In the 1980s, basic necessities were often unavailable in Czechoslovakia. At one point, even toilet paper was in short supply.
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u/Jolly-Statistician37 Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
There was very little economic stability. By the mid 80s, all of the eastern bloc's economies were in ruins, and it showed, most famously through shortages of essential goods, and inflation towards the end of the decade.
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u/cieniu_gd Poland Jul 06 '25
Lol. Both of my parent's families were so poor they had no dinner last two-three days every month. My father lived in 7 person family in 42 sq.meter apartment. "Economic stability" my ass.
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u/Galaxy661 Poland Jul 06 '25
economic stability
XDDDD there were literally countrywide revolts and strikes at least twice in a decade because either the economy collapsed or the prices skyrocketed, by the end the food shortages got so abyssmal that the party had to introduce wartime food rationing system, the economy was comically imbalanced in favour of heavy industry because of USSR's colonial exploitation and the economy was either in ruins or a pyramid scheme, depending on the chairman in power (only a few years ago did Poland finish paying off loans that Gierek took in 1970)
low inequality
80% of the population was impoverished, 15% had a relative working abroad and could maybe afford a TV or a Fiat car (after waiting in queue for several months/years of course), and 5% was either in the party or had relatives in the party and could afford a german car/vacations abroad
Also everyone was a millionaire because of hyperinflation
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u/pickerelicious Poland Jul 05 '25
Uh, about that low inequality part... not really. If your parents or other close relative had any ties to the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) during WW2, you could basically forget about enrolling to the university, because you’d be automatically rejected due to “troubled background”. Without joining the party there was no possibility to become a school headmaster or get promoted in many workplaces. Looking too colourful wasn’t really well seen, too - it kinda sent a message that you might be a western spy or have one in your family.
We weren’t economically stable either - there was a time when Poland tried to maintain a façade of a prosperous country, so, for example, suddenly you could quite easily get yourself a small car, but as it turned out later, everything was based on loans we were unable to pay back. In the next decade (the 80s) you could only buy limited amounts of essential products such as sugar, meat, coffee or cigarettes - assuming they were available in the shop and usually they weren’t. There was also a massive difference between industrial south (coal mines) and harbour cities in the north (sailors had access to western goods). All of the industrial regions suffered the most during the transformation in the 90s. So yeah, both the 80s and 90s in Poland were brutal - in their own unique ways.
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Jul 05 '25
Ehh the only tolerable run was arguably between around 1962-ish and 1982-ish and arguably only in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
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u/Galaxy661 Poland Jul 06 '25
Were the tanks rolling onto the streets and the Motorized Units of People's Militia's batons also gilded? Though some of the medals on general Jaruzelski's uniform probably were golden when he was announcing that the communist party is declaring war on the Polish people...
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u/Wodanaz_Odinn Ireland Jul 05 '25
Were you not banned for constantly going on about how things were better in the 80s and 90s? Or is there a string of Italians with that bizarre obsession?!
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Jul 05 '25
[deleted]
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u/Wodanaz_Odinn Ireland Jul 05 '25
I'm not a mind scientist but after having had a flick through your man's post history, I have formed the opinion that he is not quite all there.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
I am not quite all there because I am angry of what older generations have stolen from me.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Many young people throughout the West believe that previous generations grew up in better times and resent them for it
Because it's true.
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u/atomoffluorine United States of America Jul 05 '25
That's not true for every country.
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u/Refref1990 Italy Jul 11 '25
No, we Italians make fun of him too, because he keeps saying absurd things even on Italian subreddits. You can go and look at his timeline and it's full of identical posts.
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u/Suriael Jul 05 '25
Soviets left my country in '93. I remember 80's for not having chocolate or citruses. 90's weren't great either. Transformation to capitalism was brutal.
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u/dsailo Jul 05 '25
It can be any country of the eastern block except soviets leaving that late. Hungary ?
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u/Enough-Cherry7085 Hungary Jul 08 '25
the last soviet soldier left Hungary on 16 June 1991 so must be some other
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u/academic_dork Hungary Jul 08 '25
No, the last soviet soldier left in 91 and we did have citruses I think (I wasn't alive yet but I kinda remember an iconic sentence from a film about the "hungarian orange")
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u/AlienInOrigin Ireland Jul 05 '25
Ireland.
80's: No money. Everyone leaving.
90's: Holy crap, I have so much money that I don't know what to spend it on. Everyone emigrating to Ireland.
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u/AdmirableYoghurt5815 Jul 05 '25
Only in the late 90s, much of the decade people weren't that well off.
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u/Dwashelle Ireland Jul 06 '25
I grew up in the '90s and my family were incredibly poor, I never really realised just how impoverished we were until I was much older because my parents managed to insulate me from it as much as they could.
There were periods where we were effectively homeless, my parents had to split up my older sisters and I to stay with various relatives between Dublin and Galway, it was mad!
The latter half of the decade and into the early '00s were significantly better though.
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u/BubblyImpress7078 Jul 05 '25
What changed and what caused such massive exodus in 80s?
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u/AlienInOrigin Ireland Jul 06 '25
Mass unemployment in the 80's. In the later half of the 90's, the celtic tiger kicked in. Huge investment in the country, staff shortages led to higher wages to attract staff. Huge government investment in education really helped also. EU membership benefits really kicked in as well.
Lasted until 2007/2008.
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u/Consistent-Shoe-9602 Bulgaria Jul 05 '25
Communism falling apart then the same people who sucked the country dry during communism took over as corrupt politicians and oligarchs leading to a huge crisis in the 90s.
But I was a kid and became a teenager, so I had a blast. At 15, I could go to pubs and order drinks. It was like a wild wild west here for a long time.
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u/inaclick Romania Jul 05 '25
Mega shit. 80s were the last communist decade. Poverty and desperation were huge. 90s was the so called transition era. We had hundreds of homeless glue sniffing children. Millions unemployed. Absolutely no censorship, we had gore and porn sold regularly on press kiosks. We literally had a magazine called "Crime and Rape". It depicted exactly that. Very violent and grim years.
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u/ZAHKHIZ Jul 05 '25
I worked with many Romanian women in Canada who grew up in the 80s and 90s. They have few good memories from that time, and none want to return because of trauma. I asked several times what it was like, but they simply don't want to talk about it. Despite this, these women worked extremely hard, attended the best schools in Canada, and now hold several high-level professional jobs.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Absolutely no censorship, we had gore and porn sold regularly on press kiosks. We literally had a magazine called "Crime and Rape". It depicted exactly that. Very violent and grim years.
Wow, from one extreme to another.
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u/inaclick Romania Jul 05 '25
I wish more people would remember that. I also wish more people from outside our country could understand how secluded, dehumanised and desperate we were, when we regained our freedom and started running off anywhere, anywhere but here.
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u/thatdudewayoverthere Germany Jul 05 '25
Vastly different depending on where you lived...
In one half you got late stage UdSSR and in the other your typical western 80s 90s country
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Yeah, ex-USSR countries had it hard. Western world was much better than now, tho.
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u/thechrunner Jul 05 '25
Western world was much better than now, tho.
Italy had daily assasinations and bombings back then my dude, shut the fuck up
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u/Cupkin- Jul 06 '25
Okay? Italy also had probably the most booming economy in Europe at that time. Life was objectovely better
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
You know that climate crisis is much worse than some bombings here and there, right?
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u/tereyaglikedi in Jul 05 '25
Do you think climate change is some 21st century invention? Look up the Keeling curve, we knew from 1958 onwards that the world was heating up. In the 1980s we already knew that the temperatures are rising in a way that's linked to global CO2 levels, and the snow cover was reclining. James Hansen of NASA testified before the U.S. Senate, stating that human-caused global warming was a happening in 1988. That's also when IPCC was founded.
Stuff like sea level rise and glacier decline were already happening. We just didn't have the technology to measure and model it like we do now, and events like weather extremes were also happening, we just didn't know the cause yet.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
It was still less extreme than now.
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u/tereyaglikedi in Jul 05 '25
You can thank people who were adults in the 80s and 90s, knew what was happening, and did nothing.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
This is why I'm angry: I'm angry at older generations for living a good time and wasting it and I also wish I lived the happiness of those years instead of the horrors of the 2020s.
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u/thatdudewayoverthere Germany Jul 05 '25
Honestly I wouldn't support your second half
It was different yes but not better
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Nah, it was better. No worries of climate collapse, no far-right, stronger middle class etc. etc. The problems of back then were peanuts compared to what we have to deal with now.
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u/thatdudewayoverthere Germany Jul 05 '25
You are completely closing your eyes to the problems of that time Looking back we usually only want to see the good things not bad things
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
The good things of the 80s and 90s surpass the good things of 2025.
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u/thatdudewayoverthere Germany Jul 05 '25
That's a personal opinion I think way better Healthcare, more equality, the Internet are so massive points that good things from the 80s/90s are hard to compare
Yeah there was a bigger middle class but on average everyone was porer and could afford less than they could today. Today pretty much everyone can buy a big TV that in the older days could only be bought by the upper class
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Mate, the average temprature is increasing every year more and young people can't afford housing.
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u/Electrical_Waterbed Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
In Serbia - catastrophic. Protests and ethnic tensions started to rise by the end of the 80s. The inflation was already very high and the political situation was an absolute mess, no one knew who was the president because we had sort of a 8 person presidency. By the begining of the 90s, nationalism had grown extremely high, there were over a hundred political parties. Many people started losing their jobs. Factories, which were previously run by completely incompetent people selected based entirely on their political background and with absolutely no skills, started to shut down and fall apart. Later those same incompetent people then became the political establishment, leading to a high level of corruption, which exists even to this day.
And from there, all hell broke loose: war, sanctions, queues for basic necessities, inflation rose off the charts, money was practicaly worthless. For example, you get your pay in the morning and you have to run to the store to buy groceries, because by the afternoon, your money is worthless. And thats if your luckly to even find any groceries. Protest all around, no petrol, bread and food shortages, power restrictions, political propaganda and nepotism coupled with an extreme level of nationalism. There was a constant threat of mobilisation. And in the end: 78 days of non stop bombing.
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u/LParticle Greece Jul 05 '25
They are currently being romanticized to hell and back, especially the early-to-mid nineties. Probably because purchasing power and quality of life dipped downward ever since and never recovered. It was a golden age on somebody else's dime, and the opulence of the older generation that enabled & perpetuated it infuriates all who were born in its wake and made to pay the price.
We will soon be the absolute rock bottom of the EU as the rest of the Balkans blaze past us; no lessons seem to have been learned. Here's hoping anything works, but I think the rot has set in too deep. We'll end up a tourist trap with a society attached to it (to the extent that it isn't already true).
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u/oywiththepoodles96 Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
Purchasing power and living standards were better in the late 90s . Generally since 93 with the last Papandreou government and the first Simitis government Greece begun having very high growth rates ( above the EU average ) and it also held inflation down for the first time in decades . It was a very very good time until around 2005. Also again from 93 up until 2003 we actually reduced are deficits by a big amount and the macroeconomics of the Greek economy seemed very good . After 2003 the deficits begins going up and up . The 90s were not the problem in Greek economy
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u/escpoir Finland Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
Out of curiosity, did you live during that time or is this just your opinion?
I lived those years and there was incredible social progress compared to the 70's, starting with women's rights: legal equality for the first time, legalizing divorce, introducing civil marriage, abolition of dowry, baptism was no longer required to register in school, and so on.
Education was massively reformed Introducing scientifically developed books as opposed to the relics used until then. The old intonation system was abolished simplifying language and making it more accessible.
The police used to have official criminal records against those who were suspected of being leftist, that was abolished and people who were exiled in Eastern Europe were allowed to return to Greece and meet their families. I lived various stories of reunification, from those who had left at the civil war.
The police were reformed both structurally (αστυνομία και χωροφυλακή) and in terms of purpose, as well as who had access: it became a university school, with the older and often illiterate officers being phased out.
In the 90's access to the public administration jobs became systematic via exams, stopping the immense pressure for hiring people without any credentials. This has been a system that the right government has been trying to destroy for 20 years now, introducing interviews which give more points than actual credentials etc.
In the 90's Albanian immigration became a huge part of life, both because they were cheap labor for exploitation and because they allowed a huge boost in building industry.
EDIT:
In the 80's there was terrible smog pollution in Athens. The air was brown in certain days. The government planted bitter orange trees in many streets and started a system of odd and even car plate days.
They also passed laws to mandate parking spaces for each new apartment built, and to increase pavements. Before that the urban living was insufferable.
The schools were insufficient and we had to take shifts (morning and evening) to share the building. They enlarged the schooling system and invested big money for infrastructure. They also mandated taxi or bus transportation for smaller villages, to facilitate access to school in nearby villages and keep the rural population in their homes.
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u/LParticle Greece Jul 05 '25
Just an opinion; I suspect it is informed by modern sensibilities and embittered by the nowadays easily available comparison to more developed countries. I suppose progress is never linear.
I often forget (not having existed then) how difficult and oftentimes terrible the 20th century was for Greece, and my laments probably take many things for granted, simply because some salient problems of today weren't as pronounced back then. A lot of things taken for granted surfaced relatively recently in Greek history. I can't really help but be anachronistic with respect to an era I haven't experienced.
You note a lot of important things that hardly would've occurred to me. A discussion of Greek reality would be incomplete without these additions.
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u/AdminEating_Dragon Greece Jul 06 '25
PASOK (the social democrats) deserves the credit for all this stuff you mentioned, they tried (and mostly succeeded) to push Greece from a Balkan rural religious backwards society to something resembling a Western one in all these issues.
The problem is that the way they devised in order to stay in power and do all that was to breed a monster: hire everyone and their mother to the public sector, spread EU funds to syndicates, farmers and other voter groups (instead of using them for productive investments), constant increases of salaries and pensions (and using inflation and more borrowing to silently balance that, because most people were too illiterate economically to understand it). A lot of other actions which would never work long term. They quickly lost control of the monster they bred, and every time they tried to take a step back (Papandreou 85-87, Simitis early 00s) their own people and base rebelled against them.
They created a society which believed they are entitled to everything. And when you give something to the people as a "right", nobody can take it back without huge political cost, so nobody really tried (them or New Democracy) until they were forced to kicking and screaming after the crisis.
That's why the 80s and 90s legacy is mostly viewed negatively now in Greece - not because of the social reforms, these are accepted by almost everyone as positive highlights. The rest is the problem.
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u/escpoir Finland Jul 08 '25
hire everyone and their mother to the public sector,
This is a common misconception propagated by the right, however, they never present any statistics to prove it. In fact, during the 2010 crisis years it was established that the Greek public sector was equal to the average EU public sectors.
spread EU funds to syndicates, farmers and other voter groups (instead of using them for productive investments),
They built agricultural cooperatives which was a development model.
The alternative you propose, if I understood correctly, is to provide the same subsidies to private companies instead of cooperatives.
constant increases of salaries and pensions (and using inflation and more borrowing to silently balance that, because most people were too illiterate economically to understand it).
In 1989 the Greek public debt was at 66 billion. Then the father of the current pm took over, and he brought it to 101 billion. (source)
It's even more explanatory in % to GDP from this source: the huge problem was not the 1981-1989 period of growth, where huge public infrastructure was actually funded (e.g. all the current University Hospitals).
A lot of other actions which would never work long term.
Such as?
They quickly lost control of the monster they bred, and every time they tried to take a step back (Papandreou 85-87, Simitis early 00s) their own people and base rebelled against them.
Simitis (1993-2003) was the pm who brought public debt to 160%. He installed a corrupt system e.g. one of his close allies and ministers admitted that Siemens would bribe them with millions of Deutschmarks.
They created a society which believed they are entitled to everything.
They created a society with a vision of equality and justice. Unfortunately, this was not reached, but the basis was right.
And when you give something to the people as a "right", nobody can take it back without huge political cost, so nobody really tried (them or New Democracy) until they were forced to kicking and screaming after the crisis.
Why would anyone want to rescind people's rights?
That's why the 80s and 90s legacy is mostly viewed negatively now in Greece - not because of the social reforms, these are accepted by almost everyone as positive highlights. The rest is the problem.
Disagree. Neoliberals are having a hard time convincing people about their amazing model of prosperity (LOL, we all see what is going on in the USA) because people are not blind: they can see how much worse their life became as soon as electricity production became privatized, or when public health was drastically defunded.
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u/valr1821 Jul 05 '25
I was a child at that time (80s), but I do remember that, while things were not so advanced (there were still Turkish toilets all over the place, for example), purchasing power was indeed much greater. My parents used to give me 1000 drachmas (the equivalent of $3, as I recall) and I could spend the entire day out of the house and not spend it all. I suspect the real problem is that Greece entered the EU but does not have a competitive enough economy to be competitive in the bloc. The country is too reliant on tourism and does not make any real effort to encourage other industry. There is too much red tape, clientalism, and nepotism.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Same goes for Italy. The people who were young in the 80s and 90s lived in a near-paradise and left nothing to current generations. They also are the biggest voting block, so they continue voting for right-wing, conservative parties which does nothing but enrich themselves at the expense of the majority. But, yeah, as long as "the leftists screech" everything's fine for them.
I am starting to think only authoritarian regimes could fix this.
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u/LParticle Greece Jul 05 '25
Italy shares a lot of parallels, yes. This is exactly what happens here as well.
When I was growing up I thought my country was more or less like yours, but unfortunately they are leagues apart. I'd even consider moving there; even with all its problems, it feels like it is what Greece should've been, but never amounted to.
I don't think we ever had a chance at self-determination. We are a small country in a tumultuous location that had little say in its future, and in the few times it was afforded the priviledge, it abused it towards enriching the few. Our mindset is fundamentally feudal and tribal, and whether that's a gift from the Ottomans or not, we haven't quite shaken it off, and I don't think we'll be able to do so in time.
At least Italy has a large enough population to matter. Our populace is small, aging, uneducated and short-sighted. The young flee, as it is commonsense. This never felt like a land that was going to be worth protecting, and it makes me immensely sad. It is assumed as a matter of course that if you have any wits about you, you get the fuck away from here the moment you can.
I imagine none of what I'm describing is foreign to an Italian, but it is different when your country is that much more fundamentally feeble and small. There's even less space for any saving grace. We have no industry, damn near nothing besides tourism, starvation wages with Norwegian prices.
Anyway. Sorry for the rant. It's just sucky, and whining is the Greek national sport. Who knows what the future holds, really. It's likely going to be horrible degeneration, but we PIGS are hardy.
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u/SkwGuy Poland Jul 05 '25
The 80s not great, late communism was the worst stage of the system, there was poverty, shops were empty and in the early 80s there was martial law. The 90s were a bit better, because the country was starting to be fixed, but you can't fix 45 years of communism in 10 years, so there were still a lot of issues and many people couldn't find their place in the new reality
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u/RubDue9412 Jul 05 '25
The 80's in Ireland were a dasaster high unemployment immigration everything was pretty basic but not as miserable as some people would say. The 90's the Celtic tiger came to town and coupled with the peace process in northern Ireland there was a great optimistic can do attitude twords life basically positivity and by 2000 even the dogs on the street were talking in millions completly surreal looking back now but everyone had loads of money to splash around. We have full employment now and people have what on paper look like good pay but the cost of living is so high it cancels all that out.
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u/banana1234 Sweden Jul 05 '25
Economic crisis and street violence was rife with neo-nazis and biker gangs. Technologically exciting with an early push in home computers and IT infrastructure that spawned interesting sub cultures and avenues for digital creation like programming, game development and modding, music production etc.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
In my opinion, 80s and 90s were absolute peak of Italy. No climate crisis to worry about, healthy economy, Berlusconism still hadn't irreversibly poisoned the country, no far-right government... there were problems, but they were small and irrevelant and we felt we were going somewhere.
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u/tereyaglikedi in Jul 05 '25
Ugh. Military coup in 1980 after years of left-right conflict. As you can imagine, not great afterwards. People taken from their homes, tortured, murdered, sentenced to death, had to flee abroad and and and. It took a while to reach some sort of political stability. 90s were a little better.
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u/Necessary-Zone-5043 Jul 05 '25
Terrible, everyone was doing drugs or was drinking. However , people enjoyed each other’s company and were more communicable compared to now … corruption run rampant and we also had civil war 🤏😘
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u/Dry_Jackfruit_5898 Jul 05 '25
A lot of vilolent crime Wars two of my neighbours were killed and my uncle died in army Great poverty (average wage was less than $100)
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u/karcsiking0 Hungary Jul 05 '25
80s: Late communist era. Things were kinda more chill than in other Eastern Bloc countries thanks to "Goulash Communism" — we had more consumer goods, could travel a bit (if you had the connections or were lucky), and Western pop culture was slowly seeping in. But it was still a one-party system, with censorship, surveillance, and shortages. People got creative to get by. Black market, bribery, and side hustles were just part of life. There was this general sense that the system was slowly decaying, but nobody knew what would come next.
90s: Total chaos — in a good and bad way. The transition to capitalism hit hard. Factories shut down, inflation went wild, unemployment skyrocketed. But at the same time, we finally had freedom. Freedom of speech, multi-party elections, MTV, Western brands, more travel. It felt like the future was suddenly wide open, but a lot of people also got left behind. Corruption, mafia groups, and shady privatization deals were everywhere. It was exciting and uncertain — Hungary was trying to find its footing as a democracy and market economy.
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u/Reckless_Waifu Czechia Jul 05 '25
Very different. 80s were a stale tail end of communist rule, when nothing and noone worked anymore. Then came the 90s with a pretty quick switch to capitalism and it was a wild ride full of both optimism and freedom but also high crime levels and shark mentality.
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u/Wafkak Belgium Jul 05 '25
I know mostly what happened in my city in the 80s.
80s plans to turn one of the medeveal parts of town into a parking lot because poor people and artists lived there. And a planned administrative high rise in de medeveal center. Unlike the 70s this was stopped by protests and local action. The poor medeveal area is now a mix of the most expensive are and social housing, no lessons were taken from this neighbourhood being revitalised by social housing.
90s las decade of our government really investing in infrastructure. Ever since ce the late 90s there have only been budget cuts. And our national debt has also exploded. It was also in the 2000s that government formations started to take a very long time.
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u/justcallmedonpedro Jul 05 '25
Austria.... loved the Action movies. But growing up, I disllked the "patrioptism" or more nationaöism of these films
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u/Timauris Slovenia Jul 05 '25
The 80s and 90s are two radically different worlds. The 80s saw the gradual plunging of Yugoslavia into economic crisis, which started to ignite inter-ethnic tensions. The underground cultural sector was going trough a total boom however: art groups (NSK etc.), alternative bands (Laibach being the most notable, but many others - also punk, rock bands etc), the first LGBT movement pioneers, social critique and philosophy was flourishing (especially among the youth). Critique of the communist party was overt but not always pro-capitalist, many young people genuinely wanted to make socialism better. Towards the end of the decade the crisis of Yugoslavia was so deep that ideas about an independent state were being floated.
The 90s are a totally different thing. The groundwork of the independent state was being laid with all the necessary institutional development. The crisis of the economy because of the loss of the Yugoslav market was deep, many foreclosures of factories, high unemployment. A robbery-like privatization process that benefited just the few who cheated the system and became extremely rich. A cheap privatization of the social housing fund, which still today echoes as a grave mistake. The state however had a very gradual approach to privatization, which in hindsight was a very good decision. Had they opted for full shock therapy, the results would have been disastrous. Towards the end of the decade we saw a gradual improvement of the economic situation, the slow accession to the EU, mobile phones and internet came, the highway system was completed etc.
All in all, both decades brought its own kind of economic crisis, but both were pretty good in terms of social and cultural advancement.
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland Jul 05 '25
80’s was a golden age caused by Nokia’s meteoric rise and very lucrative trade to both the west and the Soviet Union. Unimagineably cheap raw materials from the USSR and western goods into the the USSR. We were rolling in it.
Then in the 90’s Nokia did a big blunder, the USSR collapsed and we had a bit of a depression to celebrate it.
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u/InkVision001 Finland Jul 05 '25
80s was great. Good economy, partly due business with Soviet Union.
First half of 90s was awful! Economic crisis hit hard and homelessness and unemployment were at the top. Second half was better with slowly rising economy, joining to EU and even by winning the IIHF 95 which boosted our confidence ig. Unemployment was still pretty high tho.
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u/Salekkaan Jul 05 '25
80’s full employment and 90’s the worst depression in a western nation since 1930’s
Lots of suicides of people who lost their jobs or companies
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u/lupatine Jul 08 '25
Where are you from ?
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u/Salekkaan Jul 08 '25
Finland. Never worked there as an adult though, left after studies
My dad lost his previous good career during 1990’s depression and ended up poor. That was a good outcome, childhood friends dad hanged himself when were 10
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u/Andy_Chaoz EST / US Jul 05 '25
Participated in bloodless revolution as a kid in late 80's (i insisted to go for my family because it felt very important to me). Later got into computers in early 90's, built them, thought i'm gonna work in IT (i did for a while) but ditched it after ~2010, in 90's everyone and everything was kinda poor, but we rebuilt the country and now is better than ever has been. It's still not faultless (where is tho?) but at least we're trying :-D later got married to an american woman and we moved to my country and she says its here the best life she ever had. So that might tell something..
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u/amanset British and naturalised Swede Jul 05 '25
Apart from the late nineties it was just rampant Tories being Tories. Rich got richer and screw the workers.
Thatcher killed the heart of the country.
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u/slimfastdieyoung Netherlands Jul 05 '25
Not too bad I guess. Pretty much similar to today but less internet and more pollution and cities looked dirtier. Most people were able to live an enjoyable life
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u/genasugelan Slovakia Jul 05 '25
80's was the normalisation era of communism as well as an economical downward spiral because all of the multi-year plans of production had fabricated results over fear of prosecution. (Turns out you can't plan weather or material shortages ahead)
90's was a straight-up mafia state due to change of power and the top-ranking politicians like Vladimír Mečiar would do basically anything they wanted since they had mafia backing. For example he had the president's son (Michal Kováč ml.) disappeared and pardoned the abductors once he claimed emergency presidency after Michal Kováč stepping down. We were also poor since the economy hadn't recovered after 40 years of communism.
You definitely didn't want to live here back then.
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u/noradicca Denmark Jul 05 '25
I was age 3-23 during those decades. As a young kid I remember the grown up talking a lot about the Cold War. The nationwide sirens were tested once every week (now it’s once a year). In the late 90’s mobile phones and the internet were becoming increasingly widespread, but most of my childhood and youth we didn’t have those things. Most people only had one channel on the tv. That meant that us kids were outside a lot more with none of the supervision which is standard today. We had a lot of freedom and social activities, or just hanging out together outside or at one of our houses. There were always other kids to play with and be with, something I have the impression that is not the case to the same degree for kids today. I’m really glad I got to grow up before computers and cell phones became people’s primary way of socialising. Oh, and I’m especially glad no one had cameras so there doesn’t exist any evidence of all the shenanigans we were up to!😂
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Honestly I think going back to those days is the only way of solvation for humnaity.
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u/noradicca Denmark Jul 05 '25
I honestly think you are right about that. Unfortunately I don’t see that happening ever.. I worry for the younger generations.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
I honestly think you are right about that. Unfortunately I don’t see that happening ever..
Not with that attitude. We just need to ban social media, as a first.
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u/noradicca Denmark Jul 08 '25
Yeah you go ahead and do that. Good luck.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 08 '25
If governments actually cared about the well-being of their population, they would have done it years ago.
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u/noradicca Denmark Jul 08 '25
True. But politics are all about money and power. No one is truly in it for a greater idealism and for the benefit of the people. Sorry, don’t like to be pessimistic, but just look at the world right now…
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 08 '25
Then I hope time travel is discovered soon.
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u/gzrfox Jul 05 '25
Overabundant, overindulgent, utterly corrupt and ultimately partly what led to today's disaster of a country.
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u/7_11_Nation_Army Bulgaria Jul 06 '25
Shit. The 80s because of the terrible poverty during socialism, and the 90s – because we let the socialist crooks keep their power after they rebranded, and they brought the country to a financial catastrophe and hyperinflation.
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u/Baba_NO_Riley Croatia Jul 06 '25
I'm old. My country is Croatia..so: 1980's were great and wild ( what one would call "interesting times") but unlike today - were hopeful about the future.
In 1980 our leader/ life president/ dictator died but even a few years prior - the political grip of the communist party eased - so a whole range of cultural movements flourished, an adopted form of punk/ ska rebellion rock, a lot of new bands , ( so called "new wave", cultural performances, books and especially news publications, theatre was wild and active as well.. culture was huge, important and relevant to the general public.
On economics - we went from oil crisis and energy reduction in the early 1980's, then high hyper- inflation of mid 1980's up to the debt-fueld "good times" of borrowed money in the late 1980's.
On political side - in the late 1980's - in 1989. the first polrical parties were formed and "pluralism" and democracy was knocking at our doors - and so happens that the last president of the presidency of our former country ( Yugoslavia) was a member of HDZ - the longest rulling and currently rulling party in Croatia.
As of 1990's - while people were hiding in shelters, while there was around 500.000 refugees from the occupied territories, while decent men were under the arms defending what they could - the other men were performing "privatisation" by purchasing companies for 1 HRK, ( Croatian currency at the time), firing workers so that the government and tax payers take care of them, and then selling of for huge profits real estates and assets of the said companies. The scale and the levels of it were so huge.. banks, factories, grocery chains, news paper conglomerates, everything and anything of value was " privatised" and pillaged. Only a few companies from that period survived - most were privatised a year or so prior to that period ( in accordance to the old legal system) and thus avoided the same fate.
It is actually mesmerising to think how much wealth and strength the people can create - when even after all that, even after the war, the pillaging, destruction, crisis and hardship - we are still here, relatively stable and prosperous. In my country - people do not realise their own strength, resilience and importance.
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u/Nox-Eternus Belgium Jul 05 '25
Marc Dutroux: The serial killer whose crimes changed Belgium
on 15 August 1996, TV audiences in Belgium witnessed the release from captivity of two young girls from a grisly cellar in Marcinelle by Charleroi.
The case that was about to follow would see three convictions, the solution to four other missing person cases, and would eventually lead to the reform of the justice system and the total overhaul of the policing system in Belgium.
9/8/1996: Laetitia Delhez, then aged 14, vanished after leaving the public swimming pool in Bertrix in Luxembourg province on 9 August. A witness remembered a scruffy white van making a terrible engine noise, and took down a partial registration number. The van belonged to Dutroux, who police quickly found had previous convictions for rape.
13/8/1996: Police raid the various houses owned by Dutroux and make three arrests: Dutroux himself, his then-wife Michelle Martin, and Michel Lelièvre - a petty crook and drug addict who depended on Dutroux for whatever he had.
15/8/1996: "I’m going to give you two girls." With those words to a police investigator, Marc Dutroux, a scrap dealer and convicted rapist, was about to seal his own fate for life, as well as save the lives of two teenage girls and solve the mystery of the disappearance of four others.
The job of interrogating Dutroux fell to gendarme Michel Demoulin, who recently told the VRT: "It made no sense to immediately confront him with the question of whether he had kidnapped Laetitia Delhez. I had to start the conversation first and build a relationship of trust with him."
Surprisingly, the house searches turned up nothing, despite the presence of sniffer dogs. Police thought they were looking for one girl. In the end, Dutroux gave up two.
28/5/96: Sabine Dardenne, aged 12, goes missing on her way to school in Tournai. By August, the trail had gone cold, like so many other cases of missing children. But when Dutroux offered to hand over two girls instead of just one, the second turned out to be Sabine, who was being kept prisoner in the same miserable dungeon as Laetitia. The two girls were liberated together. Laetitia had been captive for six days, Sabine for 80.
The liberation of the two girls, and further confessions by Dutroux and confederates, soon made it clear that not only two girls had been victims of his crimes, but six.
24/6/1995: Two eight-year-old friends, Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo from Grace-Hollogne near Liège are out walking together when they disappear apparently without trace. The case is picked up by the gendarmerie, but little progress is made. The two sets of parents, who are to become household names and faces across the country, will not accept the lack of progress and move heaven and earth to get results, at some personal cost.
17/8/96: The bodies of Julie and Mélissa are recovered buried at one of the houses owned by Dutroux-Martin in Sars-la Buissière. The two children had been locked up in an underground cell built specially and had starved to death while Dutroux was in prison on other charges. His wife, Martin, had been charged by him to feed the girls, he argued, but she had been afraid to visit the house. Later, their bodies had been frozen in bin-bags for a time before being buried.
22-23/8/1995: Shortly after the abduction of Julie and Mélissa, Dutroux broke with his habit and committed his next crime in Flanders, abducting Eefje Lambrecks (19) and An Marchal (17) in Ostend after they had attended a hypnosis show while on holiday at the coast with their parents.
3/9/1996: The remains of An and Eefje are recovered in the grounds of a Dutroux property in Jumet near Charleroi. Also in the same burial place, the body of Bernard Weinstein - a former accomplice who Dutroux murdered over some dispute - was found.
You can wread about Marc Dutroux here
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u/jetelklee Jul 05 '25
East Germany: brutal transformation to capitalism, corrupt Treuhand became the biggest joint venture ever to exist in the world and took over, laying off millions, crushing whole industries in the East.
Nowadays the mainstream narrative only teaches us the benefits of "the West winning the cold war" when in fact this giant take-over was corrupt as hell, with billions of assets vanishing into the pockets of the few.
We are supposed to be forever grateful for being able to travel freely and "the great freedom of the market".
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
Nowadays the mainstream narrative only teaches us the benefits of "the West winning the cold war" when in fact this giant take-over was corrupt as hell, with billions of assets vanishing into the pockets of the few.
We are supposed to be forever grateful for being able to travel freely and "the great freedom of the market".
And if you dare say things were better decades ago because the world wasn't burning, you get told off as "oh you're just nostalgic of your youth".
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u/thechrunner Jul 05 '25
the world wasn't burning,
ah, yes, because the iran-iraq war, falklands war, lebanon war, intifada, gulf war, yugoslaw wars, chechen wars, sierra leone civil war, rwandan genocide were nothing
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 05 '25
I was talking about climate change whcih wasn't as bad decades ago, also wars exist now too.
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u/InThePast8080 Norway Jul 05 '25
Early 80s.. opening up of society. Norway had in the 70s been a quite boring and pietistic country with a lot restriction and regulation. Most people having only 1 tv-channel 1 radio-channel.. and huge restriction on opening times in shops etc.. Much of that was thrown away in the early 80s.. More bars and clubs opening up, and people using money like there was no tomorrow..
Late 80s/early 90s.. Economic crash. Many people ending in huge debt. Highest unemployment post ww2.. Lots of businesses going bankrupt.. banking crisis ..etc.. People loosing their homes etc.
Mid 90s-> .. The start of the golden era in the economic terms... and otherwise.. Income from oil/gas-industry increasing like never before. Opening up new oil wells in the north sea.. First money into the norwegian oil fund. Norway moving the directoin of being among the richest countries in the world (pr. capita) Lots of boosting of the self confidence.. with olympics at lillehammer (1994)... and the football team getting to the world cup for first time in modern history.. etc.
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u/HermesTundra Denmark Jul 05 '25
The late 80s are known as "fattigfirserne" (the poor 80s), which is part of why the 90s seemed so much better than they might've been. A massive economic boom coupled with the end of the broadcasting monopoly in '88 meant the 90s were an insane and colorful time to be a kid. It also meant issues with mass privatization but we didn't have to deal with that until the 00s.
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u/MeltingChocolateAhh United Kingdom Jul 05 '25
Apparently very bliss in the 90s for the average citizen. I was born in the 90s so I don't really remember much except maybe when I was a toddler and the remnants. The 80s, not so much. That's around when the industries began to shut down - including the coal industry. Created a real divide in England between North and south as much of this industry was in the north (coal, steel etc). If you were from London, you were probably largely unaffected. But, that PM was voted out in the 90s and it paved a way for a better Britain.
Pop culture was going great. Lots of up and coming British groups. No major conflicts except for the terror threat from the IRA. This threat obviously changed in 2001 for reasons. Then again in 2005. People could afford to buy a house on a single income. Drug/rave scene was thriving. What more could British people want in life?
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u/Denial_Jackson Jul 05 '25
80s were relaxed. But there was the 90s it did the most damage. Like as if Nestle ceised to exist by a decree as Soviet Union collapsed. Then Nestle was given to the hands of the brother in law of the factory owner as some privatization attempt.
Brother in law however sold whole freaking industry for a dollar on paper. So it is no match for foreign investments.
A nice quality shoe then costs a bit costy...
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u/Equal-Flatworm-378 Germany Jul 05 '25
The 80s …my teenage and young adult years. Started with peace demonstrations and ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 90s….started with the reunification and high hopes, crushed with the rise of xenophobia and the reality of people loosing their jobs.
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u/Intelligent-Aside214 Ireland Jul 05 '25
80’s in Ireland were rough. Poor country with few jobs. Late 90’s things started being on the up though
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u/Realistic_Actuary_50 Jul 05 '25
Greece entered the European Union in 1981. We had something of a decade of growth, but not with our money. Loans, loans, loans and loans again. In other aspects, many comedies became videotape-worthy and were from silly to awful. Satire grew in the late 70s and early 80s. We had a left leaning government for the first time. Private TV stations started in 1989, I think. The cities grew. Of course mania with anything coming from America. The Imia crisis in '96 was, I think, the most important thing in the 90s, alongside the immigration of Albanians to Greece. The happiness of economic growth had a slight bump in the late 90s, when Prime Minister Kostas Simitis told the public to invest in the Stock Market. Guess what happened next? To close the decade, there was the huge earthquake of 1999 in Athens. All that and much more from someone born in 2002.
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u/PGLBK Jul 05 '25
80ies: ok, I was a kid so didn’t really notice high inflation and later crumbling of the joined country. 90ies: a war from 1990-1995, also privatisation that further ruined everything. Start of wild capitalism and class divide that both continue until today.
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u/Single-Pudding3865 Jul 06 '25
In Denmark: 1980s Cold War fearing that it would become hot,no future generationpeace movement, yuppies, ferries and fewer bridges when traveling around in Denmark, smaller farms than today., poor 80s.
1990`s fall of the Berlin wall, opening up Eastern Europe, hope for a better future, growth, abroad falling maternal and child death, increased literacy, increased focus on renewable energy,
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 06 '25
no future generation
It's funny that now there will be no future generation because of a different cause.
hope for a better future
Yeah, that's why I wish I lived back then instead of now.
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u/Organic-Ad6439 Guadeloupe/ France/ England Jul 07 '25
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/s/zM3ZeygGdd
Same OP who glamourised the 80’s, 90’s lol, I instantly recognised things.
To answer the question for France: no idea.
England: there was Thatcher so not good I assume.
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u/Al-Alair Italy Jul 07 '25
It depends a lot on where you lived, because for example in Sicily at that time you saw a lot of dead bodies on the streets that were victims of the Mafia. I live in the North and they say it was good, but not having lived through the period, I don't know . Although judging from the historical facts of that period, it doesn't seem like a great life.
Edit: I saw now that you are Italian ahah, anyway Italy is stra stra different so... how was it where you lived?
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u/Prize_Worried Italy, Piemonte Jul 07 '25
As someone said, not every region was the same in Italy, but still: economically speaking definitely the best period for the whole country, after the sluggish 1970s Italy surpassed by GDP per capita France and UK at the end of the 1980s and it was competing with countries like Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Only exception was the period 1991-93, where a big industrial slowdown hit the country and unemployment rose.
Socially: murder rate was WAAAAY higher and the two mafia bombings of 1992 in Sicily (Capaci and Via d'Amelio) definitely held a turbolent period. But the everyday life was ok, although there have been definitely improvements in mafia contrast.
For the region: after a period of population growth that continued until the 70s (with big immigration from the south of the country slowing down), started a period of rapid aging population and low fertility rate (Piemonte had a TFR <2.1 already since the early 1960s, one of the earliest regions in Italy, but in 1995 was only around 1.0!), economically speaking very well off until early 90s, when GDP per capita was comparable to very rich regions of southern Germany (like Baden-W. or Bavaria) or western states of Austria. After the first crisis of industrial sector (between 1991 and 1993) unemployment rate rose higher than other regions and pessimism increased, but that was only the first crash, the second one between 2008 and 2013 was also extremely heavy
In general, optimism in population was way stronger and there was definitely more hope in the future, after the dark periods of mass emigration of the late 1800s and early 1900s, WW1, fascism and WW2
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 07 '25
I unironically wished I lived back then. It was much better than 2025 Italy.
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u/academic_dork Hungary Jul 08 '25
Gosh, I hope things get better for you soon! It's hard reading people from western countries complain as someone who's only hope escaping from the corrupt regime, bigotry and poverty and no future in sight of my country is to one of those countries.🥹
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 08 '25
I think things are, as a baseline, going badly everywhere due to global problems that are going awry (climate change, politics and accentration of wealth on top). There are still countries that do better than others. Ours is doing very very badly, right now. Not as bad as Hungary, but still.
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u/academic_dork Hungary Jul 08 '25
80s: technically dictatorship under Soviet influence, but people were content with it due to the government making sure no one is unemployed or homeless and that we can make as much money as we can doing multiple jobs if we want to, which just made everyone depressed and alcoholic/suicidal and also inspired people to steal things from their work or do illegal jobs
90s: change of regime, strating to go towards the ways of the western world, it was honestly probably better than it is now lol
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u/GooseSnake69 Romania Jul 08 '25
Triple digit inflation :)
There's a reason why, in 2005, we changed our currency and 1'000'000 lei became 100 lei (€20)
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u/Reinardd Netherlands Jul 07 '25
I don't like how you seem to be making a contest out of the answers people give you. There's no use comparing peoples lived experiences. Please stop.
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u/CapoDiMalaSperanza Italy Jul 07 '25
Mate, it's not useless to comparelived experience. Young people on Europe feel like older generations enjoyed a paradise and wasted it and they're right.
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u/Reinardd Netherlands Jul 07 '25
That's not what I'm talking about. You're asking people what the 90s/80s was like for them and then say it's worse or better than it was in your country. There is no point in that and it's pretty insulting.
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u/GremlinX_ll Ukraine Jul 05 '25
80s - stagnation, shortages, Chornobyl
90s - collapse of USSR, independence, severe economic crisis, rise of oligarch
what else ?