Strange enthusiasm

The enthusiasm that filled the liberal democratic community after a series of speeches at the international economic forum in St. Petersburg is not entirely clear. As a rule, two reports stand out - those of President Dmitry Medvedev and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. The President focused on Russia's relations with the outside world and assessed the global financial crisis, which erupted shortly after the previous forum. Shuvalov spoke about the internal problems of the Russian economy and what the government sees as ways to solve these problems.

With the international part, everything is more or less clear: “Transforming Moscow into a powerful global financial center, and the ruble into one of the leading regional reserve currencies - these are the key components designed to ensure the competitiveness of our financial system, and the corresponding action plan will be adopted in the very near future.” time". Vladimir Putin, who was then still president, spoke about the desire to turn the ruble into an international reserve currency at the last forum, and even at the forum before that. Moreover, a year ago he did not limit himself to a promise to develop an “action plan”, but was much more specific regarding the means of achieving this lofty goal. In particular, he proposed trading Russian commodities on the Russian platform and for rubles. There was also a presentation of the commodity and raw materials exchange in St. Petersburg, to which the city gave the historical building where the exchange was located before the revolution.

“We have already achieved some success in attracting capital and have now begun to stimulate investment by Russian companies abroad. We need this both to ensure equal competitive conditions on world markets and to make a serious technological breakthrough,” and in this phrase by Medvedev there is not a single fresh thought that was not voiced at the last forum. It was last year that the president said that accumulated Russian investments abroad had come very close to accumulated foreign investments in the Russian economy.

As for Igor Shuvalov’s speech, he, in his own words, only summed up the numerous policy statements of the new government regarding the country’s development strategy until 2020. However, many were inspired by his words about the excessive influence of the state on the economy. For some reason, I was especially pleased with the idea of ​​replacing officials on the boards of directors of state-owned companies with professional managers. It’s not entirely clear what to be happy about. The difference between an official and a manager in a private company is not at all that one works efficiently, while the other is a complete mediocrity, incapable of anything except receiving bribes and salaries. It lies in the fact that the first is hired by society to organize certain works, the purpose of which is to create the so-called “public good,” which cannot always be measured in money. And the second one is hired by the owner of the company to organize its work in such a way that it brings maximum profit. The meaning of the existence of state-owned companies and corporations - if you believe Shuvalov and other government liberals - is to create the notorious “public good”, and not at all to earn money for the budget. The budget is replenished and even overflowing with tax revenues. Thus, there is no point in replacing officials with managers. Where the activities of state-owned companies are aimed at making profit, it is much easier to privatize state-owned companies, and then the shareholders themselves will hire effective teams. If the goal is to create a “public good,” then officials are needed. And if they are thieves, stupid or unprofessional, then this is already a problem for the government personnel department.