Travel with Rick Steves · Saturday, August 29, 2026
Jacob Miknowski discusses the "transition happiness gap," noting that Eastern European countries that transitioned from socialism to capitalism experienced a period of decreased life satisfaction, marked by issues like alcoholism and suicide rates.
“Eastern Europe was less happy than the West. You could poll people about their happiness, their life satisfaction. Any kind of measure you would find at a rate.”
“You can measure it in physical things. You can measure it in alcoholism, escape drinking, short people, suicide rates. Hungary and Lithuania, Latvia used to be the suicide capitals of the world.”
“And that transition capitalism, opened the floodgates of kind of chaos. And it took many years, over a decade for things to stabilize.”