Monday, April 03, 2006

Back in town

We were out of town for a couple of days visiting family out in the country--the village. That is a story that needs to be told in full. I have tried to tell some of it but it is not near enough to capture what is going on there in full.

LEvko has made the case for Julia these past couple of days very ably. I made that case for her after the OR. I also defended her in these pages against some baseless charges made by Russian interests. I would make that defense again. I'd much rather have some evidence to base charges on than identification with Lazarenko or on some "that-is-the-way-they-do-things-there" kind of assessment.

There is no doubt that she won the votes she got with an effective campaign and that she is a very remarkable woman. My problem with her has been the policies she espoused and at times acted on during her time as PM. That they were not good for business is clear.

Some have commented with a so what? She has better things to do than to keep business happy. That's a nice abstract view of the world where causes can be neatly separated from effects. I don't know how you can get people better jobs here unless attention is paid to business. (And an argument can be made that the robber barons took what they took becasue not enough attention was paid to business originally.)

Maybe they could re-nationalize all the industries and make everyone government employees again? Some here would welcome that though it would be a small minority. But then we could look away as the champagne flows and the caviar is piled high in lush suites or exclusive dachas by civil servants because we know they are acting in behalf of the people--or because it is ideologically congenial to us. Abstractions in conflict with reality.

People here need jobs and good paying ones. If there is a better idea around than creating more businesses and business activity, I'd love to hear it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think the underlying issue is that wealth creation is something that all gov'ts ought to concern themselves with.

Have you ever read, "Adam Smith Goes to Moscow" by Walter Adams and James Brock? I think you might like it.

I don't think some judicious(moderate) use of price controls in cases where there likely is some market power is necessarily anti-wealth-creation, particularly when a good deal of the problem is the depression caused to the human spirit by the unstability caused by robber barons running the gov't and lack of effective predictable enforcement of law. Some would call this "rule of law", but I think that's ludicrous. All of the concrete laws that govern our economic-political-social relations are human-made and have no authority in and of themselves.

Anyways, asI understand, Tymo has also backed away from reprivatizations and so that shd calm foreign investors....

dlw