Between 1990 and 1994, the Georgian economy experienced one of the sharpest declines in economic activity in recent history, with GDP per capita falling by more than 70 percent. Since then, however, especially after 2003, it has been growing quite fast, with the Georgian GDP per capita overtaking the 1990 level in 2013. However, the Georgian agricultural sector, in the same period, has been characterized by a quite different trend.

In 1991, the former finance minister of Chile, Alejandro Foxley, said in an interview: “We may not like the government that came before us. But they did many things right. We have inherited an economy that is an asset.”

In the old times, particularly after major crises, humans always looked for someone whom they could hold responsible. Ancient societies had scapegoats (either animals or humans) that would be sacrificed after a disaster. People believed that the sacrifices purified the community and helped avoid the punishment of the gods.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent state underwent serious turmoil, including civil war, deteriorated governance, depreciation of critical infrastructure, and endemic corruption. But after the Rose Revolution in 2003, the country began to implement major political and economic reforms

Some twenty five year later, the world is once again rife with “contradictions” (the elimination of which is key to understanding Fukuyama’s end-of-history Hegelian thinking). These contradictions are most evident in the ever intensifying migration debates in Europe and the US, renewed trade wars, geopolitical rivalries and religious conflicts.