TWO RESOURCES

A Russian manager at a large international corporation was asked a simple question: “What would you do if someone decides to make a garbage dump or start in-fill construction near your home?” His answer was even simpler: “I’ll move elsewhere.”

No attempts to struggle for his rights, no willingness to change anything. Why? Because pragmatic thinking rules out any opportunity to influence the course of events in the country. It makes more sense to put your efforts into improving your micro-world than the world at large.

And politics? Down with politics.

And why not influence anything? OK, let’s do it – within the span of my modest capabilities in my micro-world.

Such are the moods of the Russian people regarded as middle class – educated, active and successful social climbers, optimistically minded, efficient and knowledgeable – those who have supposedly benefited in the past fifteen years. It is this group of individuals who will govern the country in the next phase of history.

And yet they do not want to govern. They do not seek such a responsibility even at the town level, or inside a multi-apartment block. They do not believe that the country can develop in a linear way, or that a combination of subjective and objective influences can stimulate good results that are both visible and tangible for many.

There seems to be another reserve, too. Last summer it settled on the shores of Lake Seliger and materialized in an upgrade training course [summer camp of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi, where the trainees received an extensive course of lectures and practical instruction classes varying from international politics to personal fitness – Ed]. The problem regards, however, the question as to what exactly was upgraded. The activity of this category of “managers” was blatantly obvious over the past twelve months – they did not let foes inside Russia, or those abroad, sleep a wink.

It has become clear as daylight that someone channels the efforts of active protesters into explicitly pragmatic alleys. There is a lingering feeling that the cynicism of the masters of street actions, regardless of whether they get instructions from the Kremlin or from its opponents, has reached the critical point where even the forces that bred the street campaigners had to acknowledge the risks. The campaigners’ energies and skillfulness in political technologies have become dangerous. They can organize “little scurvy brawls” wherever and for whatever reason. Rumors have it that some movements are already prepared to lend their activists to anybody who needs a mob scene. This is why they are vigilantly watched and are dispatched only to carefully calculated “jobs.”

FRIGHTENING THOUGHTS

The ruling class has run into a perplexity it created on its own. On the one hand, there is governable life based on the apathy of some people and petty pragmatic readiness of others. On the other hand, the rulers have to retrieve the genuinely creative sections of society from dormancy. Governable life no longer satisfies the rulers themselves, while the unpredictability of awakening forces frightens them, even though they declare this awakening highly desirable. 

As a result, the power to map out objectives for the country’s development belongs to a rather limited group of people. This mapping-out function was never up for bid (since a real opposition does not really exist and society simply does not demand its formation); the decisions taken have not undergone unbiased expert scrutiny – the only criterion for decisions is the inner sensation of the people at the top of the state power pyramid. In such a situation, mistakes from our leaders do not arouse any public resistance or even public debate. The rulers have developed an illusion of omniscience and omnipotence, which is fraught with new errors.

Orientation to the “construed majority” offers a weighty argument in favor of one’s own rightfulness and all-mightiness. Yet it has a reverse side, too – deflected objectives and criteria of efficiency of accomplished decisions. This deflection grows as an ever-increasing number of people try to cling to the “steering wheel.” They do it for the fun of the process as such, not in the name of objectives. They do not risk anything as they do not decide anything and, most importantly, do not have responsibility for anything. They merely need the process as a source of dividends. They are the simulators of activity in a place where there exists a total deficit of understanding in society of where to move and at what speed. Such is the rule of the game: you do not ask the loyal followers huddling around you to show either understanding or knowledge.

People confuse means for objectives. Listen, for instance, to the vocal claims that victory in the election will be convincing, and a constitutional majority in parliament will be formed. A triumph of tactics, for sure, but what is it for if you look at strategy? Have they outlined a set of pressing tasks, on which they have secured a national consensus and which require an undivided majority vote? If such goals do exist, they have not been properly announced, discussed or accepted by society. Moreover, they are not accepted by those very active strata that constitute a critical mass and keep the country moving forward.

It appears that the impressive set of political and nonpolitical efforts taken by the political leaders recently have no aim to ponder the future. Rather, they are aimed at bolstering the present situation as long as possible or simply serve as a tactical justification for the people making the efforts. These actions do not contain elements of strategy or targeted willingness.

THEY WOKE NEXT MORNING…

The active strata of society, its potential modernizers and creators, have drifted sideways to satisfy their private interests; they all have leisure activities that they indulge in – regularly and with excitement. As for the actions taken at all levels of government, they have stopped producing any public discussion, to say nothing of a search for alternatives. They are simply too boring. And even if something really stirs the public – seldom as this happens (like the debates around a new interpretation of ‘extremism’) – animated discussions go on for about a week before the commotion dies down. Russia offers a remarkable example of the dying oscillation effect.

Many in the political administration apportion blame for this to the “abutment” class itself, but they seem to be wrong. The active class has slid into stagnant apathy because it sensed that it was unneeded.

A poll conducted by the Levada Center reveals three main groups in the section conventionally referred to as the elite who view the class of decision-makers critically. These are businessmen, mass media people and elected officials at the regional and local levels. Most of them, however, prefer to keep silent about their discontent.

The forms of communication with the government can vary from embedding with it, to co-existence, to oblivion. Many from the class of winners – the ones who could turn into an abutment stratum – have taken the following position in relations with the upper class: “We are ready to get involved but don’t hold us responsible.”

As a result, members of Russia’s creative class, which in other nations are innovative and productive, have turned into a passive category. They may continue acquiring new knowledge, experience and skills, but they do not work toward building up the national cumulative effect.

PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE, YOU KNOW

Strange as it might seem, the problems of Russian democracy today are universal and typical of all civilization. In the West, political scientists have been stating for decades that representative democracy (which existed over the past two hundred or so years) is witnessing a crisis.

The West seems to be facing the same problems as Russia. The voters are inactive and growing more and more disillusioned with traditional democratic institutions (for instance, only 30 percent of Americans have trust in Congress today) and with the cynicism and falsehood of professional political windbags. The voters are disenchanted with politics as such and long for new personalities and fresh ideas of some kind, but for one reason or another these never appear.

The number of people who participate in elections is declining. Data from Ipsos indicates that only 52 percent of Americans vote at elections regularly. Other developed countries show a somewhat higher electoral activity. For instance, a total of 73 percent of Canadians go to the polls regularly. The Germans and the French stand next in line at 71 percent. These nations are followed by the Spanish (65 percent), the British (60 percent), the Italians (55 percent) and South Koreans (54 percent). Retired voters display the highest percentage of participation, while the young are the least active. Even the most democratic nations do not have much confidence in the fairness and objectivity of ballot counting. The percentage of those who trust the procedure stands at only 48 percent in Canada, 46 percent in Germany, 42 percent in Britain, 33 percent in France and Spain, 26 percent in the U.S., 24 percent in Mexico, and 20 percent in Italy.

Political experts began to speak about the crisis of liberal pluralism back in the 1970s. The most stable and developed democracies registered a general fall of voter activity from the 1970s through to the 1990s. The Council of Europe’s report for 2005 registered a 7 percent drop in electoral activity in European countries, and also predicted that not more than 65 percent of voters in Old Europe, and even less people in Central and Eastern Europe, will go to the polls by the year 2020. Strangely enough, the electoral situation worsened after the collapse of Communism. Freedom and democracy no longer make up the main content of political agenda today.

Politics has become a marginal field of activity for most citizens in the majority of developed democracies today. Involvement in politics is mostly confined to voting, signing of random petitions and – which is far more rare – participation in mass actions of some kind. Politics per se is the realm of narrow groups of the population, and that is why modern political parties a priori cannot boast mass membership. Professional political technologists are now the ones responsible for motivating the masses in political activities.

Meanwhile – and this is of crucial importance – the very elaboration of goals for society and socially significant decision-making are not concentrated exclusively to narrow political circles. An extensive creative class (which tends to account for about one-third of populations in the developed countries, although its specific contours and size may vary in individual states,) either participates in, or influences the process through networks of public associations, NGOs, and mass media. Opinion polls, too, can initiate important political steps without elections, impeachment or voting. Society–government feedback works, among other things, through power institutions, such as the independent judiciary, smoothly functioning bureaucracy, and oppositional organizations, which were established and adjusted at previous stages of the development of representative democracy.

THE BALKANIZATION OF POLITICS

Of the three models of democratic rule – representative, direct and deliberative – the developed countries have been showing a tendency toward some form of direct or deliberative democracy over the past few decades. Elections remain inviolable, but they are increasingly complemented by other manifestations of social activity, which produce much the same – and sometimes even larger – effect on social processes than elections do.

Public activities are not only shifting from representative to direct democracy (which, first of all, manifest themselves in direct referendums), but also from the national to the local and – simultaneously – cultural/ethnic levels (see, for example, the rise of various cultural/historical associations across Europe, from the Bretons in France to the Lapps in Finland). Also, they shift to the professional and “special interests” levels, where adherents of one or another occupation or pastime can use other means than political institutions to protect their interests.

These tendencies are largely explained by the very character of contemporary society. Its distinctive features are basically an environment of new information, higher level of general education, and sharp diversification of interests among different groups of the population. The ability of political parties to coordinate and balance the different interests of people in a classical 19th-century way has become impossible in practical terms. This reality can be named as “Balkanization of politics,” which tends to embrace ever more factors of influence, including an individual blogger who can upturn the political situation to a degree that no political party would deem feasible just a short time ago.

Simultaneously, all of these processes not only make people disappointed with traditional mass political parties, but also motivate voters to drift toward local problems. With new forms of democracy, local – not national – referendums come to decide all sorts of issues. These range from bans on smoking in public places, to taxation, to problems of purely political nature, such as migration policy.

ARE THERE ALTERNATIVES?

Russian political parties and imperfect democracy are both at a totally different stage of development, and they still have a long way to go before they sense the above problems. Moreover, improving the political system is complicated by the need to simultaneously solve two extremely different groups of problems. The first group includes building political parties as institutions that have a set of functions: electoral (mobilization of voters for polls); ideological (formulation of the goals for the development of society and its separate sections); and staff-building (creation of the elite, recruiting of new cadres for it, and a healthy rotation of government bureaucrats on this basis). The second group of problems involves reacting to increasingly diversified interests of social, ethnic, professional, etc. sections of the population in a situation where society has acquired a basically new state in terms of information.

However, the main challenge facing Russia’s under-reformed democracy is bigger than just the failure of its leading political parties to perform any classical party functions. Russian society shows a lack of initiative for direct-effect public activity, to say nothing of direct local referendums of any kind.

In this context, attempts to set up ‘sovereign democracy’ in this country can have a more complex interpretation than analysts usually offer. The idea of sovereign democracy partly arises from the awareness of the crisis of classical pluralistic democracy in the form that it acquired by the mid-20th century and that was fixed by political scientists in the West. This factor naturally brings us to the question: What shall we add to the form of classical democracy that Russia began to take over at a time when this form became actually outmoded?

On the tactical plane, answers like “Russia will go its own unique way” will do, for instance, to suit the goals of simple electoral rhetoric. But for strategic purposes it seems expedient to accept the answer which has been long elaborated by other democratic nations and which has proven to be universal. It suggests evolution toward some form of direct democracy, toward enacting the creative potential of broader sections of the population rather than the narrow group of professional politicians and political administrators.

This is precisely what should constitute the next stage of sovereign democracy development. All other paths will only lead us to historical deadlocks, as well as to social (and, consequently, technological, informational and industrial) conservation.

BITS OF NOTHING FOR NO ONE IN PARTICULAR

Even if we rule out all contingencies during the election race, it is necessary to wake up the creativists by next spring or fall because there remains still another problem.

A change of political power, granted that it takes place, will require new actions, plans and intentions and, consequently, numerous new people willing to act prudently, invest their efforts and knowledge not only for the sake of process (or its simulation), but for the sake of results.

However, problems concerning the questions of who is running for election, and according to what election platform, have become totally irrelevant in the tactical and political sense since such questions do not bother anyone anymore.

Amidst excessive political passivity, the result of the elections would be highly predictable and beneficial for the party in power: about half of those who would turn out at the polling stations would cast ballots in favor of that party. Since the minimum turnout threshold has been abolished, voter apathy has little significance in the tactical sense.

This is true for the short term, but what about the long-term perspectives?

Russian society has no clearly conceived and formulated requirements, nor does it make any demands on what path the country should follow in the long term (to say nothing of such specific elements of such development as taxes, education and social policies that are present in any classical democratic election campaign these days).

Policy documents of Russian political parties that have ostensibly entered a competition for seats in parliament are quite consonant with the passive state of mind of the electorate.

If we remove titles and tentative indications of party affiliation of these programs, few political technologists will be able to differentiate between the doctrines of the right-wing, left-wing, or United Russia’s center. As a rule, these programs cover everything, yet nothing in particular. They seem to be addressed to the entire population. They are saturated with promises of “justice” and benefits of every imaginable variety. These words evenly coat every provision, but they do not contain any specifications as to what instruments or what laws will be employed to translate them into reality. Most importantly, these promises fail to tell the population what they stand to gain from that “justice.”

THEY ARE DIFFERENT NOW

In the meantime, the structure of society and, correspondingly, its interests have changed dramatically over the past years.

“If you take all the classical attributes of the middle class, such as the level of current spending, the size of savings and property, the level of education, the areas of activity, access to the benefits of civilization, etc., the percentage of such people barely reaches 7 to 8 percent in Russia,” says Yevgeny Gontmakher, the director of the Social Policies Center at the World Economics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “But if you proceed from the Russian reality and consider just the basic features – because only 15 percent of Russians have savings at the moment – then we find that 20 percent of Russians can be categorized as middle class.”

According to Gontmakher, the lower, or impoverished strata, comprise 17 to 20 percent of the Russian population. He indicates that it is impossible to rely on official data in this case, since such data simply does not exist. However, the available data for calculating the numbers of the most deprived citizens is accurate enough.

But what about the remaining 60 percent? Who are they? “They would be the middle class somewhere in the West but not here,” says Gontmakher.  “Quite obviously, these 60 percent incorporate three additional strata, 20 percent of nationals each. The lowest of them embraces those who are poor or can drop into poverty at any moment. Take, for instance, a person working at a factory where payment of wages stops suddenly. It is precisely this stratum that shows the highest mortality rate among men, who do not take care of their health, as their earnings do not allow it, while proper healthcare facilities are inaccessible. Children in this stratum have no opportunity to get a good education. People in this stratum do not have future prospects. That is why there is a danger of driving whole generations of people into a marginal position. Coupled with the stratum of the poorest, these Russians make up 40 percent of total population!”

The upper 20 percent are leaning toward the middle class (in Russian terms), while the real status of the middle 20 percent stratum depends on objective circumstances. Yet to lean toward some position does not mean to belong there. Thus, these 30 to 50 percent of the populace will present the greatest problem over the short term and during the next political cycle. Their fate actually depends on the conditions that should be created in the country. But they are not being created!

The ruling class has a unique ability to build its decisions, actions and plans either on its own notions about life (they suit some people, indeed, but no more than one percent across the country) or on its own notions about the poor. If you read scrupulously the main political manifestos, all of them address the lowest classes –or the outright marginalized – in one way or another.

The concept of society structure espoused by the ruling class took root in the years immediately after the major financial crisis of August 1998 or, in some cases, in the last years of the Soviet era. The fact is reflected in the election programs, seemingly tailored to suit all and sundry.

Meanwhile, the population has changed and has become widely stratified following 15 years of reforms and almost ten years of economic growth. Russian society shows a wide spectrum of groups and sections, each having particular economic interests, level of education, cultural and material interests, everyday concerns, etc. As time passes, they will invariably arrive at the realization of their specific needs. They could achieve this more rapidly with the aid of parties that have the goal of mapping out program objectives for society’s development. But today’s parties are unable to draw up clear ideological platforms.

The lower strata of society must have the right to growth and protection (in the broad sense, protection from arbitrariness of the upper classes, in public health and in education). The government has the task of reducing the number of the poor and bringing it to the commonly accepted norms (10 to 15 percent). But this stratum should not constitute the source of state policy-making, or serve as a support structure for the regime.

Meanwhile, the assortment of actions taken by the authorities more often than not multiplies marginality, parasitism and irresponsibility (let us not mention the problem of corruption and inefficiency that immediately begins to grow when there are imbalances in the distribution). Worse, all of these approaches are translated into the sphere or non-material relations and start shaping the new national rules of life.

These sections of society do not determine the country’s future; the quality of the country that the people entering the election race now will leave to future generations depends on the personal, social, material and career prospects of the upper 20 percent (and the 30-40 percent standing below them). In the meantime, the ruling clan overlooks exactly these key sections.

WORDS ONLY

In the current arrangement, the electorate and political parties have no connection.

Party leaders seem to recognize the problem. Look, for instance, at what Vyacheslav Volodin, the secretary of the presidium of the United Russia party’s General Council, said in an interview: “It’s very important for us to suppress populism as much as possible on the eve of elections, to minimize slogans and to rule out lies [...] United Russia would like to make the election campaign a competition of parties’ proposals for how to address various problems.”

Shortly later, United Russia’s leader Boris Gryzlov uttered the following comments concerning his party’s proposals on healthcare: “By saying ‘healthcare system reform’ we mean a radical improvement of medical services offered to the population, including the unemployed, against the policies of compulsory medical insurance, legislative provisions for government guarantees of free medical care, and a leveling-out of conditions in which it is provided in the Russian Federation constituents and a changeover to payments of salaries to medical workers upon the concrete results of patients’ treatment.” What kind of specified information can a voter glean from such formulations, and what do these fancy words mean?

Or take the following passage that deals with corruption: “We must build a compact but highly efficient ‘state of professional governance’ that will replace the ‘state of sweeping plunder.’ Political democracy enjoys respect when and where it relies on a respected professional class of administrators who understand state interests as being in strict compliance with law, and view service for the benefit of Russia as the highest honor.”

Who could say whether that comment came from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, United Russia or the Liberal-Democratic Party? In fact, it came from the Union of Right-Wing Forces, although any political party might have undersigned the text as well.

Even in those cases where party documents contain specific details (like the Liberal-Democratic Party’s program that carries many proposals, including some exotic recommendations for how to reform Russia’s structure and governmental agencies), they are formulated in such a manner that the average voter fails to understand how these reforms will impact one’s private life in the future. The world of politics continues to display a competition of party images, as opposed to ideas, which one or another group of voters would find appealing.

Yet the future will require more specific appeals to various sections of society. What will happen to bank loans for education, for instance? It is not enough to say, “They should be accessible.” Tell us how it is possible to access them.  Or how should insurance-based healthcare be structured?  It is not enough to deliver rosy utterances on “common accessibility.” In the realm of economic policy, a politician should be able to specify a well-grounded percentage of the Unified Social Tax and Value Added Tax, or a new level of the individual income tax, before calling for Socialist-style changes. And what does “affordable housing” mean? Today it more resembles the mockery of voters rather than care for them. And who can resolve the problem of mortgage loans? What exactly will the system of pension accruals be? Today, candidates simply scrawl figures as on a school blackboard. The slogan, “Let’s make the aged affluent and dignified!” does not suffice any more; it simply sounds demagogical.

AN EXPECTATION OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Many analysts believe that in the past two or three years vertical migration has ceased to exist in Russia. When a girl from the southern city of Krasnodar, for example, moves to Moscow to work as a shop assistant, it is not migration; it is a desperate search for a better lot. In most cases it will end up in nothing because the passage to anywhere farther and higher than her shop is barred for this girl.

“The most dangerous thing now is to conserve the situation,” says Yevgeny Gontmakher. “The chances of climbing to the top are now practically non-existent, while the chances of tumbling down are abounding. Incidentally, it is partly due to realization of this truth that Russia occupies the world’s second top position as regards the number of suicides.”

The loss of hope looms large for many Russians – and not only them, since the migrants (and it seems that few people argue that we need migrants) also come to Russia in search of a better lot.

There are other opinions about vertical migration. Some analysts believe it is even growing, although in most cases it does not mean an opportunity to move from one class to another, but merely to regain the levels of current consumption (the things that cost 500 rubles in the past cost $500 now). Consumption runs an additional risk of being upset any minute by private mishaps (redundancies at work, a change of managers and the ensuing ‘cleansings,’ or a reform of the network of offices) or by some unforeseen external fluctuations, for instance, a general slide of exchange rates of the national currency. Undoubtedly, the growth of people’s purchasing power influences economic performance and the spirit of reforms. But still, the rise of wellbeing does not look to be steady.

“Consumer boom has a compensatory nature,” says Dr. Vladimir Mau, the president of the National Economy Academy reporting to the Russian government. “The boom can bring about a new structure of consumption that, in due turn, will put up new requirements to internal production.” This is possible if the economic policies are competent and efficient, he adds.

Dr. Mau indicates, however, that one must use caution even in this case. He cites the 19th-century situation when the development of railways in Russia produced booming economic growth across the country. “Spain began to build railways at much the same time, which led to economic growth – in neighboring France. France was considered a more stable country, and that is why investors preferred to place production facilities there.”

A NORM WITH A SHIFT

As the Russians wonder about the Franco-Spanish miracles, they get a helping hand from a peculiar national trait – a misplaced notion of the ‘norm.’ “People in Russia are ready to keep their demands in check without reducing their own self-evaluation,” states Boris Dubin, the director of the Social and Political Research Department at the Levada Center. “At the same time, they put on pretences of being worse-off to impress others. With the Russians, the norm has eroded boundaries. They accept drinking and petty aggression – ranging from manhandling to driving in the oncoming lane – as something normal, and yet this ‘negative adaptation’ plays a certain reassuring role, since it helps maintain certain social concord. The tram services are poor but they are there, the wages are small but they are paid, and television pours out dullness yet it exists. This unifying mechanism is negative but it helps maintain relations between people and helps to slow (or at least it seems to do so) a slide into anomie, that is, complete disintegration.”

However, a lowering of requirements does not promote a dynamic multi-factor change in the country, since it leads to equality. But the fact is that some need an environment, others want opportunities, still others seek support and some categories look for aid. This implies different mechanisms, actions, tools, and money.

Russia’s problem is that we often pile things up indiscriminately. Money is offered to those who are not needy, while the poor are fed with promises that someone will address their needs tomorrow. The winners and creators (scientists, experts and managers) are driven into hobbies and self-contemplation, while avaricious youth movements and pop music communities enjoy patronage. As for others – government employees, the military, and a huge army of hired workers – they are simply ignored.                          

Russia will change and make a leap forward if it eliminates institutional barriers, since a critical mass that creates breakthroughs cannot accumulate without their elimination. Meanwhile, the deflected notions of the ruling class may cause Russia to become attached to some awkward mode of existence typical of Latin America or Africa.

Structural limitations will then again plunge Russia into cyclic development, for which it will pay a dire price. The country has lived through similar things in the Soviet era, when even members of the CPSU’s Central Committee noted structural lagging behind the ‘capitalists,’ but no one made any steps to rectify the situation. Russia followed an extensive model of development in the hope that quantity would eventually grow into quality some time. But it did not happen.

John Stuart Mill said in the 19th century that society becomes progressive when enough security for property and personality is introduced so as to make the onward growth of wealth and population possible. It would be worthwhile to underline the words ‘progressive’ and ‘onward’ – these two notions are vital for the current stage of Russia’s development.