Тег: Ukraine

What’s up with the khokhols?

On September 19, Ukrainian politician Gennady Balashov, leader of the 5.10 party, officially announced that he intends to run for president of Ukraine. In the five days since then, he has managed to collect about 200 thousand hryvnias, which is 10% of the electoral deposit required to run for president. An inspiring start.

The program of the 5.10 party implies a drastic reduction in taxes, deregulation, the reduction of the state by entire ministries, and so on—practically a full minarchist set. So, during the campaign, libertarianism will finally be discussed loudly in Russian on television, and this will allow us to test the waters to see how such ideas resonate with the broad layers of the population who are not used to gathering information from the internet.

Politics in modern Ukraine is competitive enough, so a refusal at the registration stage is unlikely—provided there is enough money. As for Russians, for now, instead of a libertarian presidential candidate, they will have to settle for Navalny. Not the worst choice, but Balashov is much closer to us.

https://youtu.be/bVjX0nOglYs
Wanna bet he’ll get more than Gary Johnson?

How do you feel about Saakashvili?

anonymous question

Saakashvili is not a libertarian, but he provided political cover for Bendukidze’s libertarian reforms, which is why he earned the respect of the entire global libertarian community.

He is a lawyer, like Putin, but treats current norms and procedures with much greater respect; therefore, he acknowledged his party’s defeat in fair parliamentary elections and stepped down peacefully. This was a risky move; specifically, he and his party colleagues were subsequently subjected to political persecution, and some even to criminal prosecution. Nevertheless, during his rule, public sentiment changed so significantly that now, in this parliamentary democracy, ministers resign under the pressure of public opinion, as in any decent European country. And this is the merit not of Bendukidze, but of Saakashvili himself.

It would be strange not to mention Saakashvili’s Ukrainian epic. He didn’t succeed there. But no one did. He was far from the only foreigner attracted by the prospects that opened up for the country after the Revolution of Dignity, and all of them, after some time, were pushed out of Ukraine, whether softly or harshly. So I would not hold this failure against him: Saakashvili is not a magician, but simply a clever market-oriented person who respects the rule of law, is skilled in both administration and street activism, but is not very adapted to weaving bureaucratic intrigues.

It would be great to invite him to speak at the Adam Smith Readings. While the venue was provided by HSE, such an opportunity did not exist, but now I have more room to maneuver.

Mikheil Saakashvili

For more room to maneuver, the girl could use some bitcoins: 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8

What happened with Crimea in March 2014—is it legal or illegal, good or bad?

anonymous question

What happened to Crimea in March 2014 was the seizure by one state of part of the territory of another state. Theoretically, such a seizure can lead to either a benefit or, conversely, a loss for the residents of the seized territory. Off the top of my head, I can recall only one precedent where the residents of a territory severed from another state now live wealthier and freer than the residents of the state from which the territory was severed. This refers to Texas, severed from Mexico. As for the territories that the Soviet Union took from its neighbors, all of them now live poorer than the countries from which the territories were severed. Moldova is poorer than Romania, the Kaliningrad region is poorer than Germany, Karelia is poorer than Finland… So history is not on the side of the residents of Crimea, although it is still too early to assess all the consequences of the reconfiguration of state borders for Crimeans.

However, there are also, imagine that, the residents of the Russian Federation itself, and the annexation of Crimea has already made them noticeably poorer, and there are no prospects for a reversal of this process.

Please note that in my analysis I absolutely do not touch upon international law and other interstate complications, because the problems of bandits don’t fuck honest people and shouldn’t. If Russia were minarchist, and the Crimeans had asked to move from socialist Ukraine to a freer Russian jurisdiction, I would have warmly welcomed the Crimeans’ decision—provided, of course, that they were ready to pay for the services they purchased—while the Ukrainian government’s attempts to refer to the sacred right to personally rob its serfs would have been met with a contemptuous “pffft.” But in our case, we are talking about two equally wretched bandits, and I can only hope that they both drop dead, choking on Crimea.

So you look at it—and you wouldn’t say it’s a disaster zone

I hope the answer was unconventional enough; honestly, I’m tired of all the legalists jumping around with papers about what one bandit once promised another bandit. I will gladly accept a reward in unconventional currency to the bitcoin wallet 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8