The respected magazine Foreign Policy has an excellent article arguing that oligarchs are the main obstacle to a country’s development and a drag on any reform.
As you can see from the headline and the accompanying photo, the article is about Ukrainian oligarchs.
But exactly the same applies to Russia. If, as a result of some events, Russia were once again to have a chance to build a law-governed state on democratic principles, the main obstacle would be the oligarchs.
They will crawl out from under the sofas where they are hiding now and, just like in the 1990s, rush to buy up media outlets, judges, parties, and politicians. They will form blocs in the Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament), push their own laws, obstruct any anti-corruption effort, and support any kleptocratic regime.
This is how the authors describe oligarchs and their world in Ukraine. Just replace “Ukraine” with “Russia” and “gas” with “commodities,” and every statement remains 100% true.
The Foreign Policy piece is remarkable for its bluntness. Usually, the “delicate oligarch question” is discussed much more vaguely, especially in serious publications like this one: mumble mumble—on the one hand, mumble mumble—on the other hand, mumble mumble—we mustn’t turn this into a campaign, and so on.
But here it is stated point-blank. Oligarchs are harmful (and they are harmful—this has been proven) and must be crushed. They must be stripped of their ill-gotten fortunes, including through criminal prosecution and special taxation:
Every time this discussion comes up, people come running clutching their copies of Ayn Rand to their chests, shouting, “You want to destroy entrepreneurs,” and “What are the criteria—who exactly are you going after? You can’t just fight the rich.”
Such people need to be patiently told that oligarchs—both Russian and Ukrainian—have nothing to do with entrepreneurship. More than that, they are enemies of entrepreneurship and its spirit. The source of their wealth is the state, the bureaucracy, and the effective construction of corrupt schemes. That, too, requires cunning and intelligence—and oligarchs certainly have those qualities—but it has nothing to do with entrepreneurship.
John Galt would show up at a meeting of the RSPP (Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs) and beat half the presidium with a baseball bat. Russia’s oligarchy merges with the state and quite literally “stops the motor of the world.”
Volozh and Yandex—that is entrepreneurship. Galitsky and Magnit—that is entrepreneurship. But Abramovich and Sibneft, Potanin and Norilsk Nickel, Rybolovlev and Uralkali—those are oligarchic parasitic schemes.
So yes, criteria can be developed, and they can be clear and transparent.
The full article in English is here. The Russian translation is here. Give it a read—it’s useful.
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