Ukraine, contrary to common belief, is not all that different from developed countries when it comes to formal institutions. In the 1990s, Ukraine borrowed a very specific type of state organization—along with ideas about how and why this state should function. This type of state is called the “welfare state.” In its pure form—in terms of institutions, declared intentions, and methods used—Ukraine differs little from EU countries, and only slightly more from the USA. The differences we do see are products of culture, traditions, and the like. Transplant our legislation to somewhere in Europe, and it will “work” there. They’ll patch it up a bit, grease the wheels, and everything will be fine.
That is the first assertion. The second is that the protests we see here, in Europe, and in the USA all have one and the same cause: the crisis of that very “welfare state.” The symptoms are the same everywhere—overload from “social obligations,” the state’s inability to manage the financial system it has appropriated for itself, the dead end of state regulation, growing interference in private life, police control.
In our case, the legal political-economic mechanism has completely broken down. After 2004, when it finally became clear that it doesn’t matter whose flag flies over Bankova Street, people gave up on the state, and since then society has been searching for a way out. Status-based “power” and status-based “opposition” are dead—there is nothing to look for there, nothing more to expect from them. Of course, they will still do a lot of harm, but that is simply agony and convulsions.
In the West, the process of the status-based state losing control over society has only just begun.
And now the third assertion. In both our case and the West’s, we are dealing with a “reboot” of the system. Interestingly, in modern political jargon, the word “reboot” has a positive connotation. The literal meaning, however, is to return to the initial state—to preserve the system’s foundations by stopping “extraneous” and “erroneous” processes.
I suspect politicians and journalists borrowed “reboot” from pop culture, more specifically from the film The Matrix. There it is revealed that the revolt of people against machines—and in particular the revolutionary Neo—is nothing more than part of a cunning plan to preserve the system, the Matrix. This plan is managed by a certain Architect, and, as it turns out, several such Neos have already operated under him. “Reboot” here means stopping processes harmful to the system and returning to basics.
With the “welfare state,” a reboot is happening exactly in this sense. The current elite cannot cope with the situation and must leave—but the regime must be preserved. Of course, there are certainly people who consider themselves “Architects” in all this. But they greatly overestimate their role. In reality, a far more effective self-organizing process is underway.
Notice that all revolutionaries (with the exception of the USA, where counter-system “tea pourers” exist) do not say “leave us alone, we will manage without you.” No—they demand “their own,” “legitimate” power, regardless of the fact that this “legitimate” power can only come into being through the seizure of property from others. The rich must share; otherwise, something feels wrong. Revolutionaries demand even more state, even more interference and control—that is, they work for the system. This is the reboot: an attempt to preserve a system that does not work because it is flawed at its core, not because errors have accumulated in it.
The strength of the system lies not in the “architects” but in its anonymity and self-organization. And “system” is also nothing more than a loud word. In reality, we are talking about patterns of behavior—what yields results and what does not, what can self-reproduce through conscious or unconscious imitation. Extortion and parasitism yield results. Honest labor does not. There you have the whole matrix. Sometimes, as now, the system gets too clogged up, elections and other feedback mechanisms stop working, and a reboot occurs. How? Very simply. People begin to seek justice within the framework of their ideas and their practice. That is the Matrix and its capacity to reboot.
In different countries, this process will proceed differently and take different amounts of time. But it is absolutely certain that sooner or later, the system will find its own heroes. The politicians currently despised will leave, “elites will renew,” laws and even “forms of government” will change—but the system will remain. The reboot is already underway. Be happy.