Loy bykanakh Loy bykanakh Vykhli khlay Vykhli khla-a-ay Vykhli khlay Loy bykanakh
Boris Grebenshchikov, “Song of Usheltsy”
As it turned out, all the talks and polemics around the so-called “pension reform” don’t amount to much. The reason is simple: there is no “pension reform.” Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the entire “reform” amounts to raising the retirement age for women and a few other cosmetic measures. Why?
To understand, let us first try to formulate the problem. It has several aspects. First, let us define the goal we must achieve—whether with the help of “pension reform” or without it. Obviously, this goal is ensuring that elderly people don’t starve. Second, let us define what prevents us from achieving it. The answer: people have no savings for old age. Why? For many reasons, but the main one is that they were once promised a guaranteed state pension. Why won’t this pension materialize? Because it depends entirely and completely on the state budget’s capacity—a budget whose expenses grow, whose income shrinks, and which is managed in the most unprofessional way possible.
At this point, two approaches to solving our problem emerge. The first is what the government is busy with today and calls “pension reform.” It essentially comes down to reducing the number of people to whom the state must pay pensions, thereby lightening the budget’s burden. This is achieved by raising the retirement age, a process phased in over several years and producing only a marginal effect. Ultimately, this approach leads to the state pension disappearing altogether or extending only to former government employees. Does this approach achieve our goal? Obviously not. A significant group of people has already failed to save because of the promised pension, and they may find themselves with nothing in old age.
And this is the best-case scenario. The unfavorable one is far more probable. This probability stems from the fact that whatever adjustments to the number of pension recipients the government makes, pension amounts and their very payment still depend on the budget’s current state. That is, if the budget runs into trouble, pensions may simply disappear, be slashed, or be paid erratically. Such problems seem likely. Plans to print thousand-hryvnia banknotes and plans for a miserly little reform that withdraws coppers from circulation confirm this. The conscious policy of spinning up inflation has already begun, and when the public understands this, things will go badly. The belief that inflation can be “managed” is profoundly mistaken, and it seems we will soon have to learn this lesson once again. Inflation, inflated for the sake of self-deception in state reporting, always ends in hyperinflation and the collapse of state finances. One shouldn’t dismiss the world crisis, which no one has canceled. Western leaders are currently busy finding pretexts to postpone financial decisions, while those very finances continue to deteriorate confidently. If the big crash happens—and more precisely, when it happens—it will go badly for everyone, and for countries like Ukraine especially. Thus, the first approach is unsuitable both in favorable forecasts and in unfavorable ones.
The second approach tackles the problem directly: ensuring that elderly people don’t starve. We must finally understand that this is exclusively our concern. After all, the state pays pensions from our money, which gets depleted and wasted inside the system and emerges noticeably thinner.
We must help elderly people regardless of what the state does. But it is crucial to strip it of the ability to raise all sorts of claims and dramatically wring its hands, proclaiming, “You don’t pay us taxes, and now your elderly will starve!”
The point is that it’s time to begin the movement of usheltsy—or, more precisely, the movement of rozkripachennya. No solutions instantly improve things for everyone equally, and moreover in a better direction. But processes can and should exist within which local solutions can emerge that ease the situation. The movement of usheltsy is a movement for buying oneself out of slavery to the state. Its essence is proposing an honest deal to the state: I will pay the pension to so-and-so myself, but in return I won’t pay into your pension fund, and my employer won’t deduct for me from the wage fund. And if I fail to pay the pensioner, I am automatically returned to slavery.
This is easy to implement and monitor if we create a dedicated social network. Ivan pays the pension to Pal Palych, and Sergey and Vasyl pay for Pyotr Sergeyevich. Everything is transparent and clear. Online payments are quick and simple. Account status is just two clicks away. The same can be done with other “social” taxes. I don’t pay into the state unemployment fund because I pay into a network mutual aid fund. Here is the certificate. Here is the protocol. All of this must exist within a single system, accessible online around the clock—all these alternative funds must be there, and my payments must be immediately visible. Now everyone who wishes can tell the state: “We don’t need your services; we’ll manage on our own.” And, by the way, there will no longer be any problems with “envelope wages.” And if you genuinely want to eliminate the shadow economy, here’s your solution.
The ushelets concludes a contract with the state specifying which social “services” of the state he intends to refuse—and in the case of the pension tax, names a specific person to whom he will pay. The pensioner, for their part, refuses the state pension as long as the conditions of the contract with the ushelets are observed. Rather than calculating meaningless formulas that describe nothing and help no one, we should establish the principle immediately: no more than two usheltsy per pensioner. Usheltsy will, of course, first conclude contracts with their relatives. This is very good. It is also clear that people approaching retirement age will approach their own savings more responsibly, as they will realize they may need to turn for help not to an abstract state but to specific people. Young workers will also have no illusions about state pensions. It is gratifying that finally all of us will have a direct reason to think about inflation and its role in the destruction of our savings, and therefore to make well-founded demands of the state to stop doing these stupid things.
Thus, the state “pension system” will simply dissolve into thin air over time. In its place will come either personal savings or private (voluntary) pension funds.
Someone may ask—what about pensioners who won’t find their own usheltsy? For some reason, I think this won’t happen, but if it does, then finance their pensions from the budget. This happens now anyway and raises no objections. In the hypothetical case where revenues from social taxes reach zero and pensioners not covered by usheltsy still remain, the state declares bankruptcy and liquidates its pension fund and honestly pays remaining pensions from general revenue. Something tells me these last ones will be precisely state pensioners with pensions in the tens of thousands. Well, let the state deal with them.
We must understand that the state’s task is reporting. All talk about how wonderful everything is and how beautiful everything around is—you just don’t want to notice—is conducted on the basis of this reporting. In the language of bureaucracy, a low deficit of the pension fund is good. Our task is the opposite. We don’t need reporting; we need to help pensioners who once believed in state pensions. Thus, for us, what matters is the number of people receiving real help, not the mythical deficit of a mythical fund. If my idea is implemented, this will mean precisely the growth of the pension fund deficit. Thus, when the state tells you this cannot be done because the deficit will increase, don’t believe it.
Someone may also say that our generation—I mean people with roughly ten years to retirement age—will bear a heavier burden than other generations: pay pensioners and save for themselves. Yes, this is true. However, our generation will suffer regardless. The state social insurance system is doomed to collapse within this generation’s lifetime. Only those who will receive a pension in one to five years—and, moreover, die shortly thereafter—will manage to enjoy the joys of pension life. Everyone else will become victims of collapse. Personally, I prefer the role of a person consciously breaking a vicious circle to being a miserable victim. It is somehow nobler and not as humiliating. Moreover, I repeat—the matter is not about one system immediately and simultaneously replacing another, but about creating an alternative. Whoever doesn’t believe in state pensions doesn’t pay the corresponding taxes (and their employer doesn’t deduct from wages) and supports pensioners themselves; whoever believes pays taxes and awaits their pension from the state.
For all of this to work, a law on usheltsy must exist. This should be a single law, and moreover one of direct action, containing within itself all necessary templates for application and containing no references to other laws that must be adopted in the future. It should amend those laws that need changing. For example, it would seem that this year all “social” payments go to the pension fund, and there they are distributed to separate accounts—pension separately, social insurance separately, and so on. All of this must be abolished; payments must be separate so that people can refuse each one individually. It is also necessary to create space for private funds, including foreign ones.
Of course, the state will oppose such a law with all its might; however, its moral positions will be, to put it mildly, ridiculous, because here’s how it looks:
State: “Oh, we are poor, unfortunate, we have a deficit of the pension fund, shadow economy, pensioners are dying of hunger!” Usheltsy: “So let us pay pensioners ourselves, if you can’t manage.” State: “Well… no… I’d rather, I’d rather let them die…”
To adopt such a law, concerted action is needed. There is no need to “go into politics,” God forbid. A coalition of voters is needed that will focus on one point. The plan may be as follows:
Adoption of a law on elections by open lists and either reduction of the Rada’s term to two years (the best option) or the promise of early elections. This is the most difficult; however, here the principle of American parties may already be included—that is, voters supporting the law on usheltsy pledge to vote for parties that promise to adopt the law on open lists. This could create a very broad coalition of voters.
After such a law is adopted—before the next elections—agreements with candidates for deputies who promise to vote for the law, with mutual voting promises. Coalition members—to the candidate; the candidate—to vote for the law.
If many deputies are elected—the law is adopted.
And I would very much like to see those who, after all this, will violate such a pledge.