Progressism at a crossroads

Progressism is a political movement that arose in the US at the end of the 19th and early twentieth century, the essence of which was to demand the separation of the interests of the state and large business. "What is good for" General Motors "is good for America." Everyone knows this famous statement. It is much less known that the American politicians of the twentieth century, including the famous Franklin Delaino Roosevelt, made great efforts to make this maxim incorrect.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the powerful development of capitalism threatened the capitalist system in the United States as a whole. It became clear that the government, acting in the private interests of the captains of the big business, was mired in corruption and inefficiency. Progressers tried to correct the situation, in other words, to increase the effectiveness of the capitalist system as a whole by infringing on the interests of individual capitalists.

Antitrostic legislation (primarily the famous Law of Sherman), the introduction of direct elections of US senators (before that they were elected states legislatures and all knew that the Senate seats were sold), local referendums, the right of voters to withdraw the confidence of elected officials - all this is a legacy of progressism.

The question is - is the Russian political system that the Russian political system has matured? Perhaps President Dmitry Medvedev is her harbinger? However, if we turn to our history, we will see that Vladimir Putin was the first progressive leader of the new Russia. It was under him that in Russia the “equidistance” of the oligarchs from the authorities occurred. At the same time, power itself was consolidated - the appointment of governors was introduced, the media fell under government control. Outwardly, Putin’s policy is opposite to the policy of American progressives. But in reality there is little distinguishable from her.

American progressives tried to rely on the nation, civil society, the voice of the people in the confrontation of the special interests of large capital. But in the Russian situation, only one nation existed - a nation of the bosses, in other words - bureaucracy. In conditions of total atomization of society, democratic mechanisms worked extremely poorly - people did not know how to defend their rights in the face of power with the help of democratic mechanisms, and they themselves did not really have rights. Therefore, the Putin policy of curbing individual oligarchs in order to strengthen the oligarchy as a whole, weakening of individual officials in order to exalt the bureaucracy as an estate was a pronounced progressive character and enjoyed the support of society in this capacity.

It was during the reign of Putin thanks to the separation of the authorities from business that the emergence of a weak, but civil society became possible. The media, delivered from total control by the oligarchs, began to write what they think and correlate with the interests of readers. Finally, an ideological discussion between power and the opposition, liberals and guardians, nationalists and supporters of multiculturalism became possible. All this was not in the 90s, when the power merged together and the groups of special interests promoted that the country has only one path-the one that Yeltsin leads.

However, Putin’s policy, being progressive at the initial stage, degenerated into its opposite. Yes, the oligarchs were equivalent from power. But now we are talking about the equidistance of a bureaucracy that is too close to it. And the solution to this problem went to the current president Dmitry Medvedev .

It is impossible to introduce democracy without a strong party system. And that, in turn, is impossible without strong parliament and honest elections. And the latter is inconceivable without the separation of powers. In other words, the problem of pursuing a progressive of politics, limiting the omnipotence of the bureaucracy for its resolution requires serious institutional reform. Indeed, in America, progressives relied on an already developed civil society, powerful parties, strong democratic traditions, the most developed economy of the then world, finally. There is none of this in Russia.

The country needs a meaningful economic reform that allows you to raise the standard of living and eliminate the raw material skew of the economy. In the meantime, it has not been carried out, the authorities will consider himself the only European in Russia. And the president is the only progressive.