I refer to Arthur's posting based on my and Ed Weick's comments on Russia
matters:
(KH)
>>The curious thought that occurs to me is that, despite the appearance of
>>near-total breakdown, both politically and economically, Russia may
>>possibly short-circuit what would have been its normal development into an
>>orthodox nation-state, and proceed into a post-nation-state somewhat faster
>>than we're doing. As already mentioned, it has a highly-educated workforce
>>and there are resources a-plenty for it to do so. It could pick itself up
>>by its bootstraps pretty quicky once it has a proper financial system.
>>.......
(EW)
>A very interesting piece, Keith. A long shot, but you may be right. The
>talent is all there, but the glue is missing. If that could be provided
>......?
Ed is quite right. My above phrase, "proper financial system", was sloppy,
to say the least. What I should have written was "a proper currency plus a
clutch of other reforms to back it up", the two most important of the
latter being:
(a) a fair rule of law, particularly of land and property law -- and
efficiently administered by the courts and police;
(b) deregulation of business creation -- particularly of small business.
A fair rule of law would gradually take the steam out of most Mafia
activities, and also ensure that crooked banks would go bankrupt.
Deregulation would do the same for the inefficiencies of bureaucracy.
>From these (I suggest), Russia could ease itself pretty quickly into the
mainstream. However ...
(AC)
>We have seen nations move from private ownership (markets, etc) to
>collective ownership of one sort or another. Is there any precedence for
>the reverse. Not counting the east bloc (who were private until WW2), what
>hope can there be to put in place the set of institutions, rule of law,
>respect for private property, contract between persons, etc., etc., that are
>fundamental to the 'reforms' now sought for Russia.
>
>Aren't many of these institutional forms or creations an expression of the
>national culture and thus difficult to put in place from 'on high'?
I'm initially tempted to agree, particularly since I've just returned from
holiday in Italy and have observed the fractional nature of Italian
government, split in almost every way, and in every policy area, between
national, regional and communal bodies. Nation-state government, which
seems so "natural" to most of us, is in no way natural to the Italians,
having been a national country only since the 1880s. Their communal culture
still permeates everything they do and policies are rarely successfuly
introduced from "on high".
However, Russia's history and culture are quite different. Theirs has been
a top-down culture for at least 200 years and the Soviet regime was
essentially no different from the Tsarist regime -- as are their present
legal and bureacratic structures. Despite having had a so-called revolution
in 1917, Russians are not revolutionary. There has hardly been a peep out
of the large numbers of intelligentsia in Moscow, St Petersburg and other
big cities, despite the fact that they have been by far the worst affected
by the recent crisis (that is, in relative terms -- the poor have always
been poor). Guidar held a "middle-class" protest meeting outside the
Kremlin a couple of days ago and only a few hundred turned up. If Russia
succeeds in proceeding to conventional nation-statehood then it can
probably only do so by commands from on top. And once again, as they did
with Yeltsin, they (the Duma this time) have promoted Primakov, one of the
few people, it is said, who has the authority to make government
bureaucracies obey him. He is also said to be independent from the oligarchs.
We'll have to see.
My bet is that Russia will not proceed this way. I don't think Primakov (or
any other father-figure/dictator) will succeed. I think the country will
fall apart into largely independent countries. (It's very interesting
indeed that the most trenchant pronouncement that Primakov has made so far
has nothing whatsoever to do with finance or government policies generally,
but with the need to get regional Governors under control. The latter, by
and large, are not trying to break away for political reasons but simply
trying to apply regional control for the sake of the physical survival of
their own populations. Well, Yeltsin spoke out similarly when he was first
made President and it didn;t make the slightest difference. In fact, he
had to yield more authority to Governors as time went on.)
_______________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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