After reading a story about economic liberalization in Cuba, I wondered (somewhat tongue in cheek) whether we should trade Obama for Castro.
I also blogged about the former socialist president of Brazil, who seemed to have more sense than Obama because he recognized that you can’t redistribute unless people first produce.
We now have another example of a foreign statist who has had an epiphany. Here’s an excerpt from a Canadian Press story about the President of Russia recognizing that big government is a recipe for stagnation.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday challenged the legacy of his powerful predecessor, Vladimir Putin, condemning the state’s heavy role in the economy and the centralization of power at the Kremlin… “The proposition that the government is always right is manifested either in corruption or benefits to ‘preferred’ companies,” he said. “My choice is different. The Russian economy ought to be dominated by private businesses and private investors. The government must protect the choice and property of those who willingly risk their money and reputation.” …Medvedev said that the country must begin to tackle the problem immediately to avoid “the point of no return from the (economic) models that are moving the country backwards.” “Corruption, hostility to investment, excessive government role in the economy and the excessive centralization of power are the taxes on the future that we must and will scrap,” he said.
There’s a serious point to all this, of course, and it’s the fact that we know we are on a road that will lead to a Greek-style economic collapse. Yet Obama’s response is to step on the accelerator.
(h/t: Powerline)
In the ’90s, under the tutelage of Columbia University economics professor, Jeffrey Sachs, the Russian government adopted a policy of “cold turkey” capitalism during which time most of the valuable state properties were auctioned off in a corrupt process that saw the rise of the so-called “oligarchs” who literally stole the wealth of Russia.
For ordinary Russians, this was a horrible decade that soured them on the merits of free enterprise. Most Russians welcomed the return to state control of some sectors of the Russian economy and are still very happy with Putin. Daniel, not every ethnic group is naturally entrepreneurial. After all, do we find a Russian restaurant on just about every corner as we do Chinese restaurants? No, the Russian people have a collective consciousness and welcome a central authority. It is their historic legacy.
As to the Greeks, they are very good entrepreneurs especially as regards the restaurant business. But their entrepreneurship is limited to the service sector. Greece has no manufacturing base to speak of (unlike say Italy) and no valuable natural resources and just doesn’t produce the wealth needed to support its people in the lifestyle that they demand and which their corrupt politicians accomodate through borrowing.
Art, this moral relativism has to stop. It doesn’t matter that the majority of Russians chose to back a gulag state. The persecuted minority, the smallest minority being the individual, certainly didn’t back it. And what happened? All opposition to collectivism was suppressed, demoralized, and eliminated. This is not moral. And no supposed accounting for ethnic differences, or “blood and soil” theories, can excuse the Soviet Russians behavior.
I would agree with you that the fault for the catastrophe of Soviet rule lay with the Russian people. They may be victims, but they were also victimizers. But there is nothing nationally or racially particular about free market capitalism and the individualism that sustains it. If we are to be cultural relativists, we must also acknowledge that cultures are malleable and shifting. They can be reformed, renewed, and redirected towards moral ends.