Putin Wants ‘a Russia without Rules’ Based on Oversimplification of Reality, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 3 – Vladimir Putin’s promotion of constitutional change is not about creating new rules under which Russia will operate but about destroying rules as such so that he can rule on the basis of impulses and a simplified model of the world that will condemn his country to backwardness and threaten the world with war, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

            “By changing the constitution in the name of immediate political tasks,” the Russian economist says, “the authorities are liquidating the last illusion of immutable rules to which they are supposedly subordinate. Now, the system will enter on the path of direct and primitive answers to any challenges” (snob.ru/entry/189617/).

            This is not a change but rather the completion of a process that has been going on for 25 years, Inozemtsev says, one that has eliminated one of the most important defenses against both the danger of unlimited despotism by the elites and chaotic actions by the masses and thus opens the way to a Hobbesian “war of all against all.”

            Putin’s message on January 15 is that “it isn’t necessary to observe the rules if they can be changed.”  The problem, of course, is that once someone takes that position, then there can be no confidence that any rule will be observed at all. “And therefore, the main innovation of 2020 in essence a Russia without rules.”

            Rules, including laws and constitutions exist, not only to give predictability but also to deal with the complexities of life. Those who want to do away with them also want to deny that complexity and to act as if there is always a simple answer to any question and that “any complexity has not place in our society.”

            As a result, “complexity of explanations and argument are giving way to the simplicity of directives and orders – and this trend will last for a long time if not forever simply because in a world where there are no rules which are not backed by the ruler, there are also no methods of his legitimate replacement.”

            There are also in such a situation no reason to look beyond ideological shibboleths to understand what is taking place in the world, Inozemtsev continues; and as a result, these oversimplifications rather than thoughtful analysis drive action, often to the point of extremes both at home and abroad.

           

            Those who adopt this position, he suggests, see no need to try to understand the complexities of the international economy if they know that “the Rothschilds rule everything.”

            Such an approach is very dangerous for three reasons. First, such oversimplification is “the basis of tyranny” which always seeks to operate with as few rules and norms as possible. Second, it is a cause of war “because both society and/or the world begins automatically to be divided into the forces of good and the horde of evil.”

            “Republics, as the classics of political theory have asserted, do not fight with one another, but republics end where the supremacy of law over interests of the ruler is denied.”

            And third, in todays world in particular, “economic simplification is a synonym for degradation.” The times when any country could simply copy what others have done and succeed are past. And that is why Russia in its rush to simplification of this kind “cannot break out of its dependency on raw materials.”

            What makes this trend especially worrisome, Inozemtsev says, is that it can sneak up on people because it does not require the application of serious force by the rulers over society because such simplifications “up to a certain point appear to the elites and masses equally attractive.”

            The society will support the elites in its rush to simplification and the destruction of rules and this will be on display whenever there is a referendum on Putin’s latest demolishing of the constitution via plebiscite.

            Inozemtsev concludes his essay by recalling what the great sociologist Daniel Bell told him 15 years ago. “I am not a democrat,” Bell said at the time. “I do not believe in democracy. I believe in freedom and law. Freedom precedes democracy and presupposes the possession by individuals of inalienable rights.”

            The American scholar observed at the same time that there are not very many countries “in which one can precisely identify the date for the holding of the next presidential elections and that Russia quite possibly would not remain among their number.”

            Bell made those remarks in May 2007, Inozemtsev points out; and one can only be struck by his wisdom.