The Day: What Now?
02/10/2001 | Broker
What Now?
Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day
Prof. Volodymyr Shkoda of Kharkiv University has begun an extremely interesting and hopefully fruitful debate on Ukraine’s less than happy ten years of independence. He sees, I think rightly, the most important achievement of the post- Soviet decade as the emergence of liberalism and the understanding that independent individuals can see to themselves, if only because nobody else will, least of all the state. A good state is one that leaves people alone to grow their own cabbages. And how right our learned author is.
I am far from being a stone-age liberal, who thinks that those who do not work should be allowed to starve to death, but the problem is that this particular state can neither provide cabbages nor let people alone to grow them; it forces them to try to grow them in the dark. Some years ago I asked why and came up with some answers that may or may not be true. The obvious thing is that those in a position to do so should steal less, but I doubt that even such self-abnegation by the nation’s self-consecrated elite would do much good. To repeat (and I know it must be boring), whenever those in a position to steal or demand bribes cannot make ends meet on their official incomes they will supplement their incomes outside the law. Shoot somebody as an example, and they will still do it anyway. What has been happening for a decade is that Ukraine’s economy has been sinking under the weight of its own state, which only pretends to be doing what it is supposed to, does not pay its bills on time, and gave its bureaucrats time enough to think up ways to justify even the most outrageous regulation, from which, after all, somebody makes a living. And saying the shadow economy and corruption must be dealå with is fine, but how do you do it? Unless there is a thorough and fundamental rethinking of the state — what it has to do, what it could do if we could afford it, and what it should leave alone — this country, and I repeat yet again, a potential economic powerhouse, will never get off its knees, where those in charge of it have put it not only through their venality but their unwillingness to change what has to be thoroughly revamped.
I know that analysis was not encouraged in the Soviet Union that produced such people, but the frustration of hearing “what he is saying can’t be true” is beginning to get on my nerves. Let them look and come up with answers to enable this country to get out of the sty where it has been wallowing up to now. The answers exist. Poland (among others) has demonstrated this truth. When will the people running this country actually show some concern for the country they are running and make some sacrifices? More to the point, when will the people here get organized and force them to do so? For the state will not do anything until forced by an organized civil society. Until that time, it will simply remain a self-legalized form of organized crime.
¹4 February 06 2001 «The Day»
Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day
Prof. Volodymyr Shkoda of Kharkiv University has begun an extremely interesting and hopefully fruitful debate on Ukraine’s less than happy ten years of independence. He sees, I think rightly, the most important achievement of the post- Soviet decade as the emergence of liberalism and the understanding that independent individuals can see to themselves, if only because nobody else will, least of all the state. A good state is one that leaves people alone to grow their own cabbages. And how right our learned author is.
I am far from being a stone-age liberal, who thinks that those who do not work should be allowed to starve to death, but the problem is that this particular state can neither provide cabbages nor let people alone to grow them; it forces them to try to grow them in the dark. Some years ago I asked why and came up with some answers that may or may not be true. The obvious thing is that those in a position to do so should steal less, but I doubt that even such self-abnegation by the nation’s self-consecrated elite would do much good. To repeat (and I know it must be boring), whenever those in a position to steal or demand bribes cannot make ends meet on their official incomes they will supplement their incomes outside the law. Shoot somebody as an example, and they will still do it anyway. What has been happening for a decade is that Ukraine’s economy has been sinking under the weight of its own state, which only pretends to be doing what it is supposed to, does not pay its bills on time, and gave its bureaucrats time enough to think up ways to justify even the most outrageous regulation, from which, after all, somebody makes a living. And saying the shadow economy and corruption must be dealå with is fine, but how do you do it? Unless there is a thorough and fundamental rethinking of the state — what it has to do, what it could do if we could afford it, and what it should leave alone — this country, and I repeat yet again, a potential economic powerhouse, will never get off its knees, where those in charge of it have put it not only through their venality but their unwillingness to change what has to be thoroughly revamped.
I know that analysis was not encouraged in the Soviet Union that produced such people, but the frustration of hearing “what he is saying can’t be true” is beginning to get on my nerves. Let them look and come up with answers to enable this country to get out of the sty where it has been wallowing up to now. The answers exist. Poland (among others) has demonstrated this truth. When will the people running this country actually show some concern for the country they are running and make some sacrifices? More to the point, when will the people here get organized and force them to do so? For the state will not do anything until forced by an organized civil society. Until that time, it will simply remain a self-legalized form of organized crime.
¹4 February 06 2001 «The Day»