“Economic mechanisms are the quintessence of Ukrainians”: an expert explains why the Singapore scenario is impossible here

Economic expert Oleksandr Savchenko explained how a country’s economic model depends on the mentality of its population and why the problem with taxes is the fault of the authorities rather than the people, Politeka reports.

He spoke about this on the program “Vilnyi Mediaprostir” (“Free Media Space”).

“No voyager from Georgia has taken root here. Do you know why? Because economic mechanisms are the quintessence of Ukrainians. You can’t just import some successful mechanism from Georgia or Singapore. People here used to say: ‘Why invent anything? Let’s just make an economy like Singapore’s.’ But in Singapore, English was universal—everyone knew it. Then there was Confucianism. And they banned not only the Communist Party but also communist ideology. When this was being proposed here, the left was popular, Orthodoxy was dominant—everything was completely different. So it’s impossible. And Georgian reforms couldn’t be effective here either, because Ukrainians are different—simply different,” Oleksandr Savchenko explains.

According to him, this truth is very deep. The British were the first to realize it, followed by the French, who initially also believed that it was possible to rebuild the economy and society either through royal decrees or parliamentary acts. But sometime in the 17th–18th centuries, the expert says, they realized that nothing worked. They needed to go into the business environment to hear what people actually wanted, what they would do, and what they would never agree to do. Only after that did they create their economic and political mechanisms.

By the way, he gives a simple example: the word “tax” etymologically comes from the word “to give,” meaning that a person gives. Therefore, the program’s guest explains, in the business–individual–government system, a Ukrainian sees himself as the main actor: he gives, and accordingly, he determines how much to give.

“Even if the authorities want 90%, people will still pay 10%—they go into the shadow economy. And this is a problem of the authorities, not of the people, because the authorities are inadequate, you see? A deputy, a minister, or a president comes along and considers himself Bonaparte and says: ‘This is the amount—we’ll vote the law through now and tighten everything up.’ But it doesn’t work,” Oleksandr Savchenko emphasizes.

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