Saburov's Gambit: political hypotheses

Russian Journal: On what basis does a person make a political choice?

Evgeniy Saburov: Like any choice. On a rational basis, that is, assessing - based on one’s capabilities - the benefits and costs of a particular decision. Not always consciously and accurately, but always based on one’s own interests.

RJ: What could be your own interest in political elections?

E.S.: Every person and Russia as a whole have human capital. It is not homogeneous. In some ways man has modernized, but in others he has been traditional. Someone has adapted to the new social conditions of life - the market, freedom, the desire for success - and wants to continue along this path, while others are grieving for Russia, which they lost, where they lived in poverty, but there was no need to stick their neck out.

RJ: In other words, do you think that part of the population is interested in modernizing society, and part is interested in returning to the old?

E.S.: Firstly, there is no talk of returning. The dynamics are different: modernism is openness, entry into the world community; traditionality means isolation, the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall. Secondly, the line between modernist and traditional interest often lies within the individual.

RJ: Are you saying that part of our human capital can be modernist, and part traditional?

E.S.: Of course. For example, a former military-industrial complex engineer earns money in the shuttle business. He modernized his professional skills. I bought a house and a foreign car. Resting in Spain. He is competent in the new government system: he knows which issue to go to the district government and which to go to court. But he drinks and grieves that he has become a “huckster” from a scientist. It is worth assessing not parts of the population, but the total human capital.

RJ: So what happens? What do you think are the estimates of Russia's total human capital?

E.S.: We carried out such assessments on the components of human capital, differentiated by age, with the involvement of a variety of experts. The result practically coincided with recent sociological studies by T. Kutkovets and I. Klyamkin, made on completely different grounds. The traditional part of Russia's total human capital is 10% larger than the modern part. It must be said that in 2008 the picture will be the opposite. The modernist one will become larger than the traditional one by the same 10%. Approximately.

RJ: Unexpected conclusion! It turns out that 40-45% of Russia are right-wing voters. It is more profitable for these people to support those who strive for openness of the country, for market behavior, for freedom and civil society. Meanwhile, right-wing parties are on the verge of the 5% barrier. How so ?

E.S.: These are the right-wingers we have! Lack of faith in their voters forces them to rush either to the “liberal empire”, then to the “Third Rome”, or to “social responsibility”. They won’t attract isolationists and homeless people to their side anyway, but they will scare away and lose their human capital.

RJ: How harsh you are about them!

E.S.: It's a shame. This is the only path to success, to the country’s prosperity and a sustainable civil society. What to do? We have no others.

The conversation was conducted by Elena Penskaya