HOW DO YOU SLAY A DRAGON?

Such a combination is destructive. These multifarious clan groups rip the very fabric of the state to shreds in trying to grab one of these monopolies for themselves. Igor Sechin came along and grabbed Rosneft. The Rotenberg brothers came along and got the Platon company to make money out of transport. And so it goes on, right down to the bottom, where you end up with situations like what happened in Kushchovskaya. All of these monopolies came about thanks to the corruption of the authorities, and they can’t exist without it. A whole vicious circle of corruption grows up, of “power – monopoly – power”, and this can be broken only by a revolution. This will go on forever, until an alternative model of political competition is presented that brings competition to these economic and social monopolies. And that, in turn, brings about political competition.

Chapter 17. The Social Choice:

a Turn to the Left or a Turn to the Right?

There are few things more deeply rooted in contemporary politics than the division between “the left” and “the right”. Yet at the same time it’s one of the most blurred distinctions. Nowadays anyone can call themselves “left” or “right” as the mood takes them. The left and right agendas have become indistinguishable. The extreme right-winger, Donald Trump, came to power with a programme built on left-wing, populist stereotypes.

At one time Putin seized the left-wing “anti-oligarch” agenda from the Communists, then carried out a harsh right-wing policy in favour of the bureaucrats and the new oligarchs. It’s become extremely difficult in today’s politics to determine exactly who is who.

A great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since it was possible to determine the left and the right depending on where people sat in the French parliament. “Leftism” and “rightism” were defined differently then.

Usually, those who were labelled “left-wingers” were the zealous supporters of state-owned property, the fanatics of “big government” and the regulated economy and the champions of high taxes for the “haves” and massive advantages for the “have-nots”. At the other end of the scale, people usually called themselves “right-wingers” if they were supporters of the free market, adherents of “small government”, preferred to give out fishing rods instead of fish, and were convinced that when Jesus Christ fed the five thousand he could have got by with three loaves instead of five, so as not to increase the national debt.

Keeping to my task here, I’ll confine myself to a working understanding of left and right, even if it’s incomplete. It seems to me that at the basis of the division into left and right lies the attitude to equality. Typical for left-wing politics is the desire to strengthen equality and eradicate inequality. In right-wing politics there is the inherent acknowledgement of inequality, but above all an attempt to stimulate economic activity specifically through inequality.

I accept that these are the extremes. Between them there are many mixed areas: we might call them “left-right” or “right-left”. But the heart of the matter is somewhere in here.

Neither in society as a whole, nor in the expert community is there a united approach to the question of equality (let’s not confuse this with equal rights). Therefore, there can’t be a united approach to left or right wing politics. Rather like fashion, the attitude to inequality experiences seasonal changes. When, like now, the level of genuine inequality in the world starts to increase, the level of concern about it increases, too. A whole host of studies appear that highlight the appalling economic, social and political consequences of inequality. And as a result, left-wing ideology becomes more popular.

When levelling out begins to triumph everywhere, and thus economic growth falls and the poverty that was the cause of the battle for this levelling out becomes excessive, another wave of studies appears, no less than the previous one, illustrating the dangers of equality and the usefulness of inequality. Consequently, right-wing views gain more adherents.

From this we can draw the very straightforward conclusion that there is no absolute, definitive truth in either left-wing or right-wing ideologies. They are like the movements into the wind of a sailing boat. In order to sail forwards you have to tack, now going a little to the right, now a little to the left. This in turn illustrates that the change from a course to right or left is a cyclical process, and generally the natural thing to do. This shows that the art of politics lies in seizing the moment at which point it’s right to switch from the left to the right and vice-versa.