Oil and politics

"Nature of evil: raw materials and state." Conversation with the author of the book, cultural historian Alexander Etkind

What is shale oil and why are it afraid of it in totalitarian oil states? Russia and the oil economy.

Oprichnina and hemp, Vikings and tar. Empires of iron and potatoes, furs and diamonds. The paths of silk and cotton. How did natural resources dictate the political geography of the world to a person?

How is the age of iron and mining industry associated with the theory of political economy of Marx and the classics of social revolutions? Why is the revolution on the model of 1917 impossible now?

Is it possible to refrain from their operation with rich natural resources? Why are oil wealth often associated with autarcies and quasiTotetetitam structures? If not oil, then what?

Ecology, politics and morality: will humanity agree on the principles of peaceful coexistence with the planet? Or will the planet respond with the destruction of mankind?

With the author of the book, the historian of culture Alexander Etkind, we discuss what the raw material economy and the dependence of the policy on resources are, which threatens Russia with the "oil needle", whether people can avoid global environmental disaster.

Elena Fanailova is running

Video version of the program

Elena Fanailova: Alexander, I read your fascinating book with a rather difficult feeling. I would like to say to the whole population: citizens, you behave like Russians during the extermination of fur animals, as a German observer wrote: Russian colonists exterminated animals so that they are not left. People, you cut the bitches on which you are sitting, you deplete energy resources, you pollute the environment. What should we do next? This is not anti -utopia, you directly say that if people do not stop behaving like that, that is, to pollute the atmosphere, and we already have a problem of air, and not the oil problem is the main one, then we will all die in 20 years.

Alexander Etkind: This process is not considered human advantages, disadvantages, wealth or poverty. Rich, of course, as always, will be easier. I am glad that you had such an impression of my book, from its end, I strove for this. But the end of my book seems to me the most trivial, I repeat the truths that are known to everyone, many thousands of scientists have signed under them, in fact, this is the result of a consensus. Whereas the first three quarters of my book are the results of the original study.

Elena Fanailova: The huge building of literature has been worked out by you, but this individual impression, apparently, makes the text thanks to the method that it is assembled. This is an instrumental conversation about resources, about the inseparability of morality, politics and economics, and now also ecology. You introduce ecology and morality as components of the general movement of mankind, the main components. You say that without a moral attitude to consumption, we will not rebuild anything.

Alexander Etkind: Yes, morality is an important part of my book, it is called "the nature of evil." I hear different response to the name.

Elena Fanailova: I read it directly: nature is evil, the nature of evil in relation to man, and if a person does not cease to go beyond what is laid by nature to him, then the earth will simply punish everyone if he does not execute.

Alexander Etkind: In this name there is a double game, that is, the nature of evil - it means that there are sources of evil, what generates it.

Elena Fanailova: You say that resources have almost magical qualities, but to be evil or kind to-this is still a human solution. And the human attitude to natural resources, to development and in the future to labor and political relations - the choice of man.

Alexander Etkind: Of course, evil is what a person does, and what is done in relation to a person. What, as is happening to me personally, with you, with us, with people who are similar to us with something, or in general with humanity-this is an important choice that also needs to be made when we talk about good and evil.

Evil is what a person does, and what is done in relation to a person

Elena Fanailova: Why does the topic of ecology in Russia not reach people? People consider her something secondary and with some ridiculous laughs they say that the catastrophe is waiting for us all, and so on. The movements of environmental activists remain marginal to this day.

Alexander Etkind: In environmental terms, this is a relatively prosperous country, despite all the garbage dumps.

Elena Fanailova: It sounds surprising for me, because completely egregious problems in this area were exposed - garbage riots, popular uprisings ...

Alexander Etkind: The crash of aircraft due to garbage dumps and birds that nest on them, and the terrible air in Moscow and many other places of huge Russia. But in general, Russia is a sparsely populated country with a huge territory, forests are still standing, although many of them are burning. It all depends on what to compare with. Global warming of Russia is somewhat beneficial. For example, the record export of grain, which has shows Russian agriculture for a year now, is partly explained by global warming, and partly - fuel megatons, which the government subsidies this very agriculture. And permafrost, so inexorably retreating, which once, according to Soviet sources, was covered with 60% of the territory of our country, now there are probably much less. And when the eternal permafrost retreats, something begins to collapse, and where it will collapse-this is unpredictably. These forecasts are known, and nuclear stations, thank God, were not built on permafrost, but railways, gas pipes, aqueducts, interchanges and entire cities are on the eternal permafrost.

Elena Fanailova: And if she sails, we can expect disasters that are commonly called technogenic, but in fact they are anthropogenic.

Alexander Etkind

Alexander Etkind: Mass migration is one of the consequences of global warming, scientists already understand how it is happening today. These are constant crop failures in the countries of the Global South, in North Africa, in Central Asia, where millions of people appeared thanks to traditional agriculture, which was possible and accessible there. The climate on Earth has changed several times, now it begins to change again. In the very multi -sized places, the planet in the conditions of inexpensive wars begin, mass migrations. And the southern borders of Russia in this sense will not be easy. And in such cases, states do what they can: build walls, mobilize armies, and declare a state of emergency.

Elena Fanailova: That is, the states, as always, include the apparatus of violence.

Alexander Etkind: Of course. We saw how Europe, especially Germany, tried to avoid this reaction, but it is impossible to restrain this. This leads to a further restriction of the rights of all citizens of the countries involved in these processes, not only migrants.

Elena Fanailova: Because the security system in the eyes of the state means tightening control and limiting the rights of citizens. The raw material economy is a monorsursial, raw material state produces one product - exports oil and gas. Why is it dangerous, why is this the subject of evil?

Alexander Etkind: This is rather a source of evil than an object. The state owns the sources of raw materials, sells this raw materials, sets its monopoly prices or enter into cartel agreements with several other countries that are also the owners of this raw material, and the state receives overpridemns. In some countries there are different private companies that do this, they compete with each other, which also depends on the nature of fuel. For example, in relation to shale oil, diversity, many producing companies are much higher than in the extraction of traditional oil. Sleep oil is produced mainly in different American states, this is a relatively new invention, but a significant part of the global oil is already extracted from Sleeza. These are completely different technologies, social institutions, the other nature of corporations engaged in them, there are a lot of them, and they are very technically sophisticated. But most of the global oil is the so -called traditional oil. There were decades in Russia, when oil was privatized, then all the companies were returned to the state, the owners of these enterprises - who left the country, who was planted, served for a long time and then went abroad, many are already gone with us. The legal nature of these private-state partnerships can be different, but in fact in Russia, all this is controlled by the state. In this, I think, one of the sources of evil. The state mines, sets its prices, receives superprofits, distributes this capital between itself and, relatively speaking, by the people. And in this state there is a part of the people-the oligarchs, I tried to somehow call them Oligarchs, from the English word "oil", from the Russian "oh-e-e". This concept did not take root, and in the book and in my articles I introduced such a definition - "Petromacho".

This is rather a source of evil than an object

Elena Fanailova: Yes, you say - "Petro -state", "Petromacho", that is, people who receive all overprinds, incredible megapers, megagans. This is not even a business, it seems to me that it's time to call it in some other words. You very convincingly prove in the book that the economy no longer works according to the principles described by the classics of Marxism, because technology has changed. Civilization of coal, and you associate industrial revolutions with coal production, and social relations, social strata of that time are no longer relevant to the present time of neoliberalism, oil as ours and so on. Why super -profits do not get ordinary people - for me it was always a terrible mystery. Being in the Arab Emirates, I saw that the common people go there: amenities for disabled people, privileges for citizens. And the meaning of oil wealth is this. In Russia, it is quite difficult to find these meanings. Perhaps now the cities begin to be equipped with us, but, nevertheless, there remains a tremendous, incredible gap between the owners of the oil steering wheel and ordinary citizens.

Alexander Etkind: You need to correct a little, in Moscow the positive influence of oil money is visible at every step: everywhere repairs, good architecture, tiles, buildings are in order. And if you go to Novgorod, other cities, the difference will be dramatic. This is due to the fact that energy financial flows within the framework of the Russian Federation end in Moscow. And besides, they, of course, go abroad. But there are common benefits, for example, a stable currency. Inflation is a very unpleasant thing, and if there were no oil, it would be long, and it would end very deplorable. This is security, protection against terrorists ... Those who are standing at the helm love to reason, but this has its own fraction of the truth. There is another truth: according to the French economist Thomas Picketty , with whom I prefer to agree, but many economists criticize him, about trillion dollars were taken out for the post-Soviet decades, most of the illegally, abroad, to the countries of Western Europe, Western America, and Eastern Asia.

Elena Fanailova: That is, people who are near the oil steering wheel and receiving their tremendous money have been carried out, they withdraw capital outside Russia.

Alexander Etkind: This capital or the capital that was originally received from the sale of energy resources, and then washed, was disposed of several times, after which it was taken abroad. Trillion dollars is a lot.

Elena Fanailova: Yes, and the “Open Russia” of Khodorkovsky recently published about the same numbers that caused a terrible howl from their opponents - it cannot be. These numbers cannot but amaze.

Alexander Etkind: Trillion dollars - the price of what? This is the price of the institute, which we will call conditionally - post -Soviet power. What can this be compared with? For example, Norway is a prosperous oil country, it manages to maintain a human face, despite the abundance of oil wells.

Elena Fanailova: and support civil society, ensure the normal standard of living of citizens. It seems to me that for the apex, which we have in our oil feeder, the population is superfluous. Only the population that serves the pipe is not superfluous. And their taxes have no sense in comparison with those huge money that is obtained from the beautiful oil and gas pipe. And what about this population to take care of if it is superfluous?

Alexander Etkind: Yes, 1% of the population, according to the Russian government, is needed in order to extract and transport resources, but you need a relatively many population in order to protect flows. Sociologists estimate the number of these guards of different ranks of 5-10%.

Elena Fanailova: That is, no one needs 85% at all.

Alexander Etkind: They need themselves, to each other, they work for each other.

Elena Fanailova: I have no illusions and understand that the people who listen to us and understand that the matter of their survival, salvation, the meaning of their life are in their own hands, and not in their hands ... no matter how we call people who guide this space, but in reality lead the pipe.

Alexander Etkind: I completely agree with this. I compare this with two circles of blood circulation in the human body - small and large, arterial and venous. Venous is much larger, it enters all limbs, life depends on it, but the blood in it is poor in oxygen. And oxygen appears in a small circle that is associated with the lungs. Both circles support human life. A small circle is that part of the economy that is associated with the export of oil and gas, oxygen appears from there. A large circle is hospitals, universities, workshops, legal advice, hairdressers, people work everywhere and serve each other. These circles are usually connected both in the economy and in the body. The trouble is that there are hearts where all this is not very combined. In addition, on planet Earth, air physically ends. And one of the conclusions of my book, the formula to which I came, is that oil will never end on Earth, the air ends.

Oil will never end on the ground, the air ends

Elena Fanailova: And this is your warning that oil, gas and coal is enough, we just can’t get something else, but we don’t have enough air that is polluted by hydrocarbons, we will have to do something with this. If you return to the problem-oil and society, pensioners, state employees, ordinary people ... After all, in some countries, Holland or Norway, people learned to bypass "oil curses", and the Russian "oil curse" has such a specific person?

Alexander Etkind: How is this technically done if there is a civil society, good institutions, a free press that can criticize the authorities, an independent court and parliament? Technically, Norway produces oil in gigantic quantities comparable to Russian oil production, sells it at world prices and locks almost all this profit, many billions every year, in a special fund, it is called the Future Generation Fund. The government can spend 5% of this fund per year on a special kind of need. What it is spent on is very visible. For example - the opera theater in Oslo. Any other waste of money can occur only with the permission of the parliament. This is a rather paradoxical situation. Moral problems arise, for example: was it worth it to extract all this? All this is burned, as a rule, not in Norway, Norway consumes a very small part, and for what all this is done, for what this machine works if the profit is not spent? This fund has accumulated about trillion dollars, this Norwegian trillion is transparent, every year this fund writes lists of those shares of global corporations in which this trillion is invested. A considerable part of this money was announced earlier in the shares of American, Western European oil corporations, because these are stable actions, they gave stable growth. But this year a decision was made using parliament-to withdraw money from oil shares and transfer it to some others.

Elena Fanailova: Because investing in these shares is, which means that it is to continue to develop this business, in the end, which is a danger to humanity. The greatest temptation, the greatest wealth, but in the future a great danger. You also have the theory that these families, which bring money abroad, support not their state, if we talk about the theory of sealing of goods, but the education, health care and social development of those countries where they withdrew their money.

Alexander Etkind: And the ecology, by the way.

Elena Fanailova: Yes, and thus, Russia is again in a stupid position: being one of the richest countries of the world in the sense of natural resources, it is doomed to poverty. This is, of course, some kind of managerial paradox.

Alexander Etkind: Yes. The question is who established such a paradox and in whose interests. The theory of sealing is simple. Money appears in a separate area. If this area can spend this money, for example, a private company that does something is invented, something new has been created, the owner of this company is rich in this, he pays salaries to employees who do something, then sellers who sell something. Но у всех этих людей есть родственники, есть школы, куда ходят их дети, есть парки, рестораны, больницы, юридические консультации, куда они ходят. И получается, что богатые люди богатеют, но всем остальным, которые живут и работают рядом с ними, тоже достается что-то. Это теория просачивания в элементарном виде. Чем богаче те, кто здесь живут, тем лучше остальным, в конце концов, от этого получают даже бедные, нищие что-то получают от филантропии. Если бы этого не было сверху, ничего бы не было и снизу. Но если весь этот жирок срезается и вывозится за границу, тратится там на образование детей, на покупку предметов роскоши, кто-то делает себе яхты, кто-то строит виллы, это все просачивается туда же.

Елена Фанайлова: Еще один ваш термин в книге – паразитическое государство. Есть разные определения государства. Есть инклюзивное государство, которое заботится о социальных благах граждан. Есть экстрактивное государство, как Российская империя, в котором отношения между ресурсом, социумом и администрацией находятся в некотором балансе насилия.

Александр Эткинд: Там тоже бывали восстания, была и революция, и не раз, так что о балансе в Российской империи я поостерегся бы говорить.

Елена Фанайлова: А чем отличается паразитическое государство от государства, которым была Российская империя?

Александр Эткинд: В дореволюционной России было множество натуральных хозяйств, крестьяне жили по всей стране и кормили себя сами. Их пытались обложить налогом, это получалось отчасти. В каких-то счастливых областях империи производилось так много зерна, и ставки были такими низкими, что зерно можно было вывозить и продавать. Зерно вывозилось из балтийских губерний в Голландию в массовом количестве. В XIX веке зерно вывозилось из южных губерний и из Малороссии. В этой зерновой империи трудились все, большинство – сами на себя, а меньшинство трудилось на экспорт. Крестьяне пахали, приказчики управляли процессом, помещики управляли финансовыми потоками, и эти управленцы зависели от населения на 100%. Зарплата, не очень большая, шла вельможе от государства, но государство же тоже чем-то эту зарплату обеспечивало. А кроме зерна (в свое время мехов), у государства было очень мало других ресурсов. В экстрактивном государстве работали все, люди, человеческий труд на земле был основой экономики.

Елена Фанайлова: В 30-е люди сами превратились в ресурс, если говорить про экономику сталинских лагерей. А почему вы утверждаете, что сейчас государство паразитическое, в чем его особенности?

Александр Эткинд: Паразитическое государство – то, которое имеет все атрибуты государства, но не выполняет своих функций. Эти атрибуты государства довольно дорого стоят, для этого нужны финансы, для этого государству нужно что-то продавать или получать достаточно налогов. Если бы нечего было продавать, тогда оно могло получать ресурсы только от населения, и тогда государство зависело бы от людей. И если люди сказали: нет налогов без представительства, – что говорило множество народов, когда делали свои революции, и американскую, и французскую, и российскую. Так или иначе, государство схлопывалось.

Елена Фанайлова: Да, оно было вынуждено идти на эти условия. Нынешняя ситуация нефтяного паразитического государства ставит под сомнение любую революционную ситуацию?

Александр Эткинд: Да. До тех пор, пока соотношение ресурсов и людей сохраняется.

Елена Фанайлова: До этих пор история нас не может привести к революционной ситуации классического типа.

Александр Эткинд: Исторические события уникальны, они не повторяются. Понятие "революция" применялось сотни раз к очень разным событиям, и оно в будущем может быть применено, но это будут уже совсем другие события.

Елена Фанайлова: Вы ставите в своей книге вопрос о том, что странным образом, по прихоти природы залежи природных богатств очень часто оказываются там, где существуют авторитарные государства. Речь идет о государствах Ближнего Востока, о новом типе автократии или клептократии в России. Это насмешка судьбы, природа зло шутит над нами? И почему опять же Норвегия с этим справляется, а Россия нет?

Александр Эткинд: Где именно они есть – это причуда природы. Нефть, например, всегда добывали где-то на окраинах империй. Например, на окраине Австро-Венгерской империи.

Елена Фанайлова: Да, и город Дрогобыч был нефтяной столицей своего времени, и первые уличные фонари появляются именно там.

Александр Эткинд: Или бакинские прииски, это была далекая и труднодоступная окраина Российской империи.

Елена Фанайлова: Где обкатываются революционные практики. Там Сталин впервые рекомендует себя как политического деятеля.

Александр Эткинд: Да, и агитатора. И не только Сталин, но и Берия, и Микоян, и Киров. Там они получили свое представление о мире, о жизни, об управлении, и что важнее всего, об источнике государственного богатства. Именно на бакинских приисках они поняли, каким будет российское государство, когда они возьмут власть.

Елена Фанайлова: Я еще хотела спросить у вас, Саша, как вы из автора-культуролога, автора книги о русском эросе, русских сектантах превратились в исследователя экономики с ее морально-политической и экологической стороной? Почему с вами это случилось, что вас заставило думать в эту сторону?

Александр Эткинд: Сложный вопрос... Жизнь долгая у тех, кому посчастливилось жить долго, я пишу книги медленно – одну каждые пять лет, бывало, что и за десять лет я не выпускал ни одной книги, зато потом выпускал две. Моя первая книга – "Эрос невозможного. История психоанализа в России", я сделался с ней историком. И я по-прежнему формулирую свою узкую специальность как культурная история. Теперь это культурная история природных ресурсов. Так называется и семинар, который я веду со студентами. Это не экономика, это даже не история, хотя я всем этим тоже занимаюсь. Но если найти общее обозначение, да, это культурная история природных ресурсов. В книге есть часть, несколько глав, про интеллектуальную историю, про то, что люди в разные времена думали о природных ресурсах и их роли в человеческой жизни, как это все менялось. Но, так или иначе, это все история, история культуры и история природы. Потому что, как мы сегодня понимаем острее, чем раньше, может быть, так понимали только античные мыслители, культура и природа – это одно.

Елена Фанайлова: И мораль.

Александр Эткинд: А что такое мораль? Это место индивидуального человека, который принимает свои человеческие решения, или человечества между культурой и природой.