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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

A LAND OF SHADOWS

17 March, 1998 - 00:00

Prof. James Mace, consultant to The Day

Ukraine is facing elections to its legislative branch which might constitute a turning point in its history. Everyone here has got used to the existence of the shadow economy. Taxes are such that everyone flees them into "the shadows." This is because the state inherited all the social obligations of the Soviet Union, which in its ramshackle way could provide cradle to grave services to all, but now, with a per capita GNP hovering around $1000 a year, it cannot. And bureaucracy, which ought to have shrunk, has grown. At the same time the process of privatization of the country's assets remains surrounded in such opacity (and this is what real world politics are all about here) that one can speak of shadow politics. Since the state cannot really carry out such basic functions of government as controlling the streets (racketeers decide who can sell cigarettes where, when, and collect their own "taxes" for the privilege), we can even talk about a shadow state. And all the while, the polls show that a good half of the population believe that the state, which cannot even pay those who work directly for it, and not they themselves, bears primary responsibility for seeing to it that they have all the necessities of life.

This country faces a choice not of values (who can begrudge, say, the Swedes Social Democracy when they have the economy to pay for it?) but of facing realities. Before one can redistribute wealth in the interests of social justice, one has to create it. And creating wealth in this country means creating a situation where it is worthwhile for people to go out and do it. That means fundamentally rethinking the role of government in society and going back to a time when people were basically responsible for themselves, and the tax man bothered them a lot less. Nobody, it seems, really wants to face the problem that when the Constitution promises all citizens the rights to free health care, education, and higher education on a competitive basis, but the clinics, hospitals, schools, and universities cannot pay their workers or their utility bills, people's rights also move into the shadows. After all, nobody wants to tell society that it cannot afford free health care for all. After all, if people are denied access to health care, some of them will die. But not telling a society that cannot afford it that such a thing is no longer within its means is a crime. And those who live in Ukraine, it seems, have long since got used to living with crime.

 

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