December 19, 2016, 00:42 / Opinions

Liberalism and electoral victory

Where liberal principles and a populist program can converge

Konstantin Sonin Economic efficiency and political expediency can come together here. Stop feeding the rich may, after all, be a liberal slogan

Alexei Navalny has announced that he will run for the presidency in 2018. This is very good simply because, like in a supermarket or a car dealership, the consumer always benefits from increased competition. In this case, Russian citizens will have a choice they haven't had for many years, and even if Navalny doesn't ultimately make it to the ballot, the parts of his program that appeal to voters will have to be used by the eventual winner. Having an alternative to the current course - for example, in the field of economics - is already a great benefit: it would be too sad if the current option were the best possible.

The economic program proposed by Navalny is not even a sketch yet, but rather an invitation to conversation. There is no general, big theme in it, but there are unnecessary details. As an economist, I would like to see it promise large-scale privatization, radical reductions in government regulation, and law enforcement reform. In other words, reducing the cost of doing business is what makes people's lives better. As a political commentator, I understand: in order to play a role in politics, so that you are listened to not by dozens of economists and hundreds of managers, but by tens of millions of citizens, you need to be a “populist” who cares not about the profits of businessmen, but about the wallets of these very tens of millions. Yet a right-wing, liberal economist can find common ground with a politician seeking to win an election.

Navalny's participation in the presidential elections could be useful for the Kremlin

Politics / Democracy

One such topic: everything is “free” - for example, education. It would seem, what could be in common between the views of a liberal economist and what tens of millions want to see? It seems to me that it is worth paying attention to how archaic the Russian education system is in terms of its payment. Almost all (huge) government (i.e. general) money is directed to supporting talented and successful children, instead of being directed to helping those talented and successful who need this help! I know several children of billionaires who studied on a budget (i.e. free) place at a university and even received a penny scholarship. Because these children were very gifted (to tell you a secret - the correlation between IQ and wealth is high, and between the IQ of parents and children - even higher), studied with good teachers, passed the Unified State Exam very well or won competitions. I can understand why there might be free education somewhere in Scandinavia: there is low inequality and almost all citizens give about as much to the state as they receive. But in a country with levels of inequality like ours, a system where the rich pay for their children's education is absolutely necessary. (Yes, we need the American system, not because everything is good in America, but because it is a country that, unlike Sweden and Switzerland, faced problems similar to ours several decades ago, in particular high inequality.)

This is not easy to do - we need laws that will enable public schools and universities to openly compete for private money, and a positive attitude towards private initiatives (the money of the rich will subsidize the education of the poor to an even greater extent than now). However, this is where economic efficiency and political expediency may converge. “Stop feeding the rich” may, after all, be a liberal slogan.

The author is a professor at the University of Chicago and the Higher School of Economics.