Saying Nyet to Freedom

Leaders of the world’s freest countries will flock to an increasingly unfree nation next month. That’s when the annual Group of 8, or G-8, meeting will draw the leaders of Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and the United States to Russia.

The first seven have plenty in common, including a commitment to democracy, liberty and the rule of law. It’s no surprise that in the post-World War II era these countries have built the strongest economies in the world.

It was invited to attend meetings of the then-G-7 in the early 1990s. The idea was to prop up the flailing Boris Yeltsin by making Russia look like a member of the club, even though it didn’t actually qualify based on income or economic growth. Eventually, though, this Russia photo-op turned into a full membership.

But the Russian economy falls woefully short of first world standards. Recently, in fact, it’s regressed. It claims to support free markets and the rule of law, but under President Vladimir Putin (a former KGB official elected in 2000) Russia increasingly serves as a haven for corrupt government officials and uneven law enforcement.

Ask William Browder, an American businessman who works extensively in Russia. At least he used to, until six months ago when Moscow denied him a visa to return to the country.

Browder, the foreigner with the most money invested in Russia, recently told Newsweek International that dealing with the Russian government is “like trying to fight the shadows. You’ll never know who your opponent is.”

Browder points out that many Russian companies aren’t merely linked to the Kremlin -- often they’re partially owned by the government. That includes energy giant Gazprom, which is 51 percent state-owned.

That socialist approach breeds corruption. “In 2000, we discovered that the management of Gazprom had stolen 9.6 percent of the reserves for their own economic benefit,” Browder said. Still, it took eight months for Putin to fire Gazprom’s CEO.

Because the government is so involved with the economy, businessmen such as Browder often find themselves dealing with the Russian secret police. That’s a particular problem, Browder says, because “they are accountable to nobody; they don’t ever justify their actions.”

Businessmen aren’t alone in struggling against the Russian government. Non-profits are being targeted as well. With a recent law, the Kremlin gave itself the power to regulate some half a million NGOs, including 148,000 public policy organizations. Last month Putin signed executive orders that gave the Russian bureaucracy broad control of these non-governmental organizations.

The Heritage Foundation’s Yevgeny Volk, a Moscow-based analyst subject to the new law, says the regulations spring from the Russian government’s concern about the famed “color revolutions” such as those in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Foreign NGOs supported those revolts, which replaced autocratic, Soviet-style rulers with democratically elected governments.

Putin’s obviously concerned the same thing could happen to his government, so he’s making it clear he won’t allow foreigners to finance political activities in Russia. His government will hassle NGOs and tie them up in so much red tape they won’t be able to function effectively. For example, NGOs now must explain how much they spend for office supplies. Putin wants to highlight that his government’s sword is mightier than an NGO’s box of pens.

The world’s freest economies aren’t doing the Russian people any favors by pretending that Putin’s government belongs in the G-8.

It’s time for the democratic leaders to drop the charade and insist that Russia prove it’s dedicated to open markets and the rule of law. When it does, it can earn its place in the international community and make life better for its citizens.

The same "reversion to the norm" law has pretty gloomy implication in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, BTW.

From a practical standpoint, I agree up to a point. What the law can't predict is the desire by the Afghanis and Iraqis to remain free and independent. If we examine this solely from a statistical perspective, you are correct; all our efforts in those two countries will likely be for naught.

However, when we throw human will and human passion into the mix, the playing field has the potential for change in defiance of the law. I don't know anymore than the next guy whether the Iraqis and/or Afghanis truly have the will to resist the pull of their former political structures, or if they will support their new paradigm and go forward.

If you, or I, or anyone knew how this would turn out, they could probably make a mint consulting with both public and private enterprises wishing to involve themselves in the post-war economies of these two countries. Right now, all we can do is wait and see.

That same "human will and human passion" surely have not been absent from there over last 4000 years, have they? Here is what Huntington was calling "civilizations" - cultural entities with sufficient homogeneity within themselves and sufficiently distinct from one another to consider them as entities, and pretty stable on 1000 years time scale. "Reverting to the mean" is merely a technical description of the mechanism providing such stability.

That same "human will and human passion" surely have not been absent from there over last 4000 years, have they?

I think that in many respects they haven't been absent, just supressed. The tenets of Islam are not necessarily conducive to freedom, free will, or free thought. When one is constantly and routinely oppressed over time in the name of religion, the human will and passion are still there, but they are maintained and controlled far below the surface.

Therein lies the real risks of the gamble Bush took when he invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq. As Putin is currently proving in Russia, when the change is too drastic or sudden from a previous status quo, the national character doesn't take that long to revert to their prior "comfort zone". In Russia's case, that comfort zone is rooted in communism, as odious a system as it is.

The same may well be true of both Afghanistan and Iraq. However, there is a glimmer of hope when we look at the undercurrents in Iran. After gleefully overthrowing the Shah in the late 70s in the name of the Islamic Revolution, Iranians have grown weary of the oppressiveness of Sharia and the Islamic rulers. The seeds of revolution are reportedly strengthening as Iranians hope to return to the structure they experienced during the Shah's rule. He was working to bring Iran into the 20th Century and had almost gotten them there when the revolution occurred.

These, then, seem to be the influences that the Iraqis and Afghanis will have to contend with as they move forward. So, with history and statistics not favorable to a new paradigm, it would seem that the only thing that will alter the current paradigm will be that the desire to return to their previous comfort zone will become stronger than their desire for freedom. As I said, only time will tell.

The same movement is happening in Russia (Many are calling for a return to a hardline USSR like Stalin) and is evident even in the PR China (Many are calling for a return of Mao-style communism).

It is also evident in places south of the border, such as Nicaragua where Daniel Ortega has a good chance of winning an election there.

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