MOSCOW (Academician Nikolai Shmelyov, Director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for RIA Novosti) - Bad morals are the cause of a bad economy. I have written several times about this and I insist that this simple formula is true.
I am glad to say now that the essence of this formula of economic success is becoming an element of state policy. At least President Putin declared this in his annual state of the nation address.
Here is what the president said. Despite the well-known outlays, morals in the office and at home were a highly important element of rating of people's reputation in tsarist Russia and in the Soviet Union. It is undeniable that friendship, mutual assistance, trust, comradeship and reliability have been unquestionable values in Russia for centuries.
Without respecting the moral standards generally accepted in civilized societies, modern Russian business can hardly be expected to become respectable in the world and, most importantly, in its own country. Many problems of the modern Russian economy and politics are rooted in the ordinary people's mistrust of the privileged class. The president believes that Russia will prosper only when the success of each person depends not only on his/her prosperity but also on decency and culture.
The ultra-liberal Russian reforms launched at the beginning of democratic and market changes in the early 1990s, which were exceedingly painful for ordinary people, failed not so much because of objective factors (such as the obsolete and inflexible industrial structure) as because of purely moral, human factors. The most important of them was the "neo-Bolshevik" disregard for the people, the "gray masses" that thronged in the cities and villages and were expected to silently tolerate everything, even the most ruthless, decisions of the authorities.
The leaders made their first mistake a few years before that during the perestroika period. They subconsciously disregarded the crucial task that was difficult to formulate and even more difficult to fulfill - the need to revive the creative enterprise of the people, their business instincts and possibilities, which can be described as the spontaneous "grassroots energy" that can move mountains.
For the 70 years of the Soviet regime, that energy was ruthlessly stifled; the state viewed independent entrepreneurs - farmers, artisans, traders or doctors - as the enemy. Instead, it built giant industrial enterprises, even though small and medium-sized businesses had long become the driving force of the economic, research and technical progress, the main agents of the market and employers everywhere in the world. "Small is beautiful," the world said. "No, only big can be beautiful," retorted the Bolsheviks.
The Chinese began their post-1978 reforms in the small and medium-sized sector, which quickly revived the half-dead economy and created a full-grown market in the country. It took them 20 years to accomplish this task, and now they will spend another 15-20 years reforming the big industry, "corporatizing" and modernizing it and eliminating the hopelessly unprofitable enterprises.
The Russian attempts to revive the energy of the people in the late 1980s were limited to a modest rebirth of the cooperative sector. But, frightened by its quick rise from the ashes, the authorities soon strangled it with unbearable taxes and sky-high prices of all supplies the sector needed. Regrettably, this approach tantamount to self-harm to the small and medium-sized business has not been eradicated to this day.
However, perestroika had a positive effect: For the first time after decades of state arbitrariness and absolute immorality ("the end justifies the means"), the nearly forgotten moral criteria, respect for the individual and his/her rights started to return gradually, step by step, to political life.
Unfortunately, the ultra-liberal reforms launched after the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 undermined the fragile moral stability. The brazen confiscation of people's savings in 1992 and 1998; "free" privatization; wage arrears; the impoverishment of a vast section of the people; the gap between the wealth snatched overnight and mass poverty that was greater than anywhere in the world; the sway of crime and corruption; and many other things dangerously made the situation worse in the country again.
I think that the current Russian authorities are coming to see the importance of moral values. I am heartened by the clumsy attempts they have made to change the unique formula of dividing the incomes and super-incomes between the Russian oil and other raw materials tycoons, on the one hand, and society, on the other hand. A period of absolutely amoral and socially irresponsible business that has lasted for more than ten years is probably ending.
Or is it? The disregard of the authorities for the ordinary people is still a fact of everyday life and will hardly cease to be soon, especially if the recently passed "social" laws (including on replacing benefits in-kind with cash payments) will not benefit the people (as claimed by the law's authors) but infringe on their interests. The critics of this dangerous turn in the state's social policy warn of this possibility.
We should stop believing in chimeras and start respecting the individuals and their rights and formulate understandable tasks. We should build homes and plant orchards. Build roads, hospitals, schools and hospices for the old. Bring up children and give them education. Support science, culture and the church. Strengthen defenses, develop cities, revive the dying Russian countryside, and develop Siberia and the Far East, which have been neglected.
In short, we should at long last develop the country as it should be developed. This is the task facing Russia and it will be enough for many generations. The main national idea is to build and create, to preserve the people and ensure their prosperity.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.
