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the russian
westernizing government borrowed the ideas for its modernization at
a time when western governments came under the strong influence of
the neoliberal ideology. by the 1990s the doctrines of the free
market, competition, privatization, and deregulation had captured
the commanding heights of world economic thought.
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as the iron
curtain was bulldozed, russia encountered the new liberal orthodoxy
at the height of its power and self-confidence. neoliberalism
advocated the complete economic freedom of the individual, the
radical denationalization of industry, and the replacement of state
enterprises by private companies.
if russian
capitalist reforms had begun two or three decades earlier, they
probably would have been guided by a markedly different set of
principles, such as the emphasis on state regulation and the
benefits of state capitalism, which held sway in the west during
that earlier period. in any event, the russian government抯 abrupt
withdrawal from state intervention proved detrimental to the
country抯 economy.
the notion of
capitalism is an abstraction. many kinds of capitalism coexist in
the world: north american, european, turkish, japanese, latin
american, and so on. yegor gaidar and his team chose to emulate
mainly anglo-saxon economic patterns, which were not entirely
suitable to russian conditions. the liberal capitalist economy of a
country like britain is a highly complex system, which has evolved
over centuries and cannot be transplanted wholesale overnight and
set up by 揵ig bang?methods in a culturally distinct environment.
moreover,
russian reformers tended to overlook the obvious fact that the
market was by no means the only economic regulator in either britain
or the united states. in the united states, for instance, ever since
the great depression of 1929-33 the role of the state in controlling
the main parameters of the national economy has been far from
negligible.
in a sense,
the russian radical reformers strove to surpass even such
traditionally 揹e-etatist?countries as britain and the united
states in cutting back the scope of the central government抯 control
over social, economic, and political processes.
