Two articles about what definitely cannot be done
One idea that rang out repeatedly at the Entrepreneurs’ Maidan was the notion of a “party of entrepreneurs.” The logic is simple enough—since no one “in power” defends the interests of small business, villains exploit this to crush it.
Such a party will almost certainly be created. It may even gain some support and enter parliament. But that it will actually prove capable of “defending small business interests”—that’s highly unlikely.
In reality, the idea of an entrepreneurs’ party surfaced the moment entrepreneurs themselves appeared. In our Palestines, they’ve always fallen into two categories. The first is clever privatizers who snapped up former state assets and cultivated connections within the state apparatus. The second is people who built their businesses from scratch—those who perhaps simply had nothing to privatize. What’s striking is that the whole notion of a party and political participation has always resonated more with the first type.
The author of these lines spent a good part of his life trying to persuade entrepreneurs to band together into political structures. Entrepreneurs always insisted they “don’t want to get involved in politics.” Meanwhile, conditions for doing business kept deteriorating, and the state’s appetite kept growing. The business climate for the “cooperators” of the late eighties bears no comparison to today’s small business—and yet, all this time, no party ever materialized. Why?
Earlier I assumed entrepreneurs simply hadn’t “come of age,” hadn’t grasped their own interests, and so on. Now I understand that under Ukrainian conditions they act quite rationally. A political party is the last thing our entrepreneur needs.
Let me be clear about what I mean. I’m all for leaving business alone—after all, business is what creates national wealth. I’m generally opposed to state interference, and yes, I believe business should have tools for mounting an adequate response to any meddling. My point is merely that I strongly doubt a party is such a tool. This view rests on several considerations.
First, such a party has no common positive program and cannot have one. What is a party program? It’s a set of measures the state should implement, in the party’s view, so everyone prospers. Large business constantly runs into state regulation—in taxes, tariffs, excise duties, bank rates, stock market conditions, and so on. For them, participation in these noble endeavors is essential. Large business is already present in most of our parties. Small business, by contrast, encounters the state mainly at tax time and during inspections. There’s simply no space here for a shared positive interest to develop. What common program could small business possibly have? Correct me if I’m wrong—leave us alone. But this isn’t a positive program; it’s reactive. It can’t hold people together on a permanent basis.
Second, for small business the fact is especially relevant that corruption here takes a personal form. That is, laws in most cases simply aren’t written for officials. One might think there’s sense in fighting for “legislative regulation” of all kinds of parasites operating as “regulatory bodies.” But practice shows these bodies routinely ignore every regulatory improvement secured through bitter struggle. There’s no point in participating in party activities if they don’t guarantee ongoing protection from official harassment.
Third, people always operate by a simple cost-benefit calculus. As long as officials take bribes, it’s easier to “sort things out” with them individually than to organize political demonstrations.
Fourth, of late the state has taken political parties in hand. This was accomplished partly through party registration legislation. Maintaining a party alone costs a pretty penny. The registration process requires considerable effort, and it can always be blocked if the Ministry of Justice receives the appropriate “order.” There’s another curious wrinkle: the Ministry of Justice forces all parties to model their charters on a standard template, borrowing the concept of “democratic centralism” and other achievements of party-building from the CPSU era. This means that if entrepreneurs devise an organizational form that deviates from the template, the Ministry of Justice will throw a wrench in their wheels.
Fifth, a party is an apparatus. If we consider that a small business party can only be funded through small contributions from a large number of people, then it becomes clear that the apparatus’s role in such a party would be far greater than usual. The result, particularly given the absence of a clear ideological program, is that the apparatus would quite quickly take over the party.
Sixth and most importantly. In Ukraine, government positions and “participation in power” in general are viewed as a source of income. The author has observed hundreds of noble oppositionists morphing into corrupt functionaries. But it’s not merely that someone, upon getting a position, will “betray their ideals.” The scariest thing is that since business and power in our country are essentially the same thing, the activities of precisely these people who have found themselves in power will, over time, come to define the activities of the entire party. “Their own” people will come to them to sort out problems, and after some time the small business party will become just another corrupt tool. I should note that the same factor gives rise to the fatal disease of Ukrainian politics—führerism. Entrepreneurs acted absolutely correctly when they refused the patronage of any politician or party. By creating their own party, they will inevitably end up with a führer and all the delights that accompany his existence—the very things they so desperately wanted to avoid.
The Entrepreneurs’ Maidan showed that the most effective method is self-organized spontaneous pressure on the state. The action should have one, clearly formulated goal. The moment it starts with “Yanukovych’s resignation, closing offshore schemes, and a referendum”—the matter ends in defeat.