Georgia on My Mind

As America descends into the bottomless pit of socialism under Reichskanzler Obama’s valiant leadership, and the rest of the world follows suit, there is one place on Earth that has not abandoned reason.

The country that gave the world the most totalitarian and bloodthirsty leader in history, Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (more widely known as Joseph Stalin), has atoned for this by giving birth to the most libertarian leader in modern history. I have already devoted a post to this subject before.

On Tuesday, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili declared unequivocally that Georgia was building a libertarian state, and that Georgia’s economic policy would be based solely on libertarianism. My account of Saakashvili’s speech is based both on news reports and on first-hand accounts provided by an acquaintance of mine who speaks Georgian.

The most striking news is that he used the word itself – not some vague notion like economic liberalism or “free-market” but LIBERTARIANISM, despite the fact that the word is rarely used by high-ranking politicians, especially outside the US.

Saakashvili outlined the Economic Freedom Act, which may bring Georgia closer to the ideals advocated by the U.S. Founding Fathers at the time when America itself is abandoning them. The act envisions providing constitutional safeguards for Georgia’s free-market reforms, setting an upper threshold for government spending at 30% of GDP and for the budget deficit at 3% of GDP, requiring a referendum for any tax increase, banning the creation of new license requirements and new regulators, prohibiting price controls and banning the government from having stakes in banks.

“As a result, freedom of price formation will be secured in Georgia forever,” Saakashvili said. (some of the quotes were edited by me to make them more comprehensible in English)

While the rest of the world is again embracing the fallacies that have brought chaos and destruction so many times, Georgia is choosing the opposite solution:

“Achieving this goal is of special importance and also possible and needed now, when ambiguous, disoriented and populist socialist trends are spreading around the world shaken by the global economic crisis,” Saakashvili said. “Sometimes socialist ideology - like only the government can save, the government should regulate, the government should interfere - is heard in such countries that I am totally taken aback. Our experience is that nothing good is happening where there is government.”

Saakashvili also described his encounter with IMF idiots, who had advised him to stick to socialism, and added that he had rejected their advice.

Speaking about Georgia’s achievements, Saakashvili said Georgia ranked as the world’s fourth most tax-friendly country, according to the Forbes 2009 Tax Misery & Reform Index.

Saakashvili also mentioned that Ilia Chavchavadze, a 19-century Georgian writer and journalist, was a classical liberal (ironically, Chavchavadze was a teacher of Stalin when he studied at a seminary in Tbilisi).

Saakashvili said Georgia’s commitment to libertarianism was closely linked to its desire to be independent from Russia’s hegemony.

“One of the major reasons that explain our aspiration towards independence from Russia is not only national independence… but also freedom from the uncivilized way of living and way of thinking on which the Russian empire is based,” he said.

As far as Russia is concerned, it is quite clear now what happened in August 2008. In the run-up to the war, South Ossetians attacked several Georgian villages. Moreover, it was quite evident that Russia had been preparing for the war for several months – it moved troops closer to the border and conducted military exercises, while civilians were evacuated from Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. Eventually Russian troops moved into South Ossetia, and the Georgians were not foolish enough to misunderstand their plans – Russia intended to attack Georgia itself. Georgia decided to prevent the inevitable invasion by attacking Tskhinvali. Even if the fact that South Ossetia is de jure part of Georgia is disregarded, Russian troop movements were a knife in mid-strike (not a knife that has already stabbed you but a knife nonetheless), and Georgia had a sufficient reason for self-defense. By the way, most of the shelling in Tskhinvali (which was reported by Kremlin-controlled Russian media (i.e. most of them) as carried out by Georgia, turns out to have been done by the Russians when the Georgians were in the city).

It is pretty sad that a recent E.U.-sponsored report on the war aims to have its cake and eat it too – it splits the blame between Russia and Georgia. The report, which was written by typical representatives of European socialism, demonstrates the intellectual collapse of our civilization, with all paraphernalia present – pragmatism, subjectivism etc. The EU commission defaulted on its task to find out the truth – exactly because our civilization has rejected the notion of objective truth.

It seems that European socialists share much more in common with Russian thugs than with Georgia. While the EU is falling into the infernal abyss of socialism, and Russia sticks to its old thuggish ways, Georgia seems to be heading the opposite way.

It is important to understand that, before Saakashvili, Georgia was basically a failed state. The republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Ajara were independent (the first two still are), while the Kodori Gorge was controlled by local warlord Emzar Kvitsiani, while Chechen insurgents were based in the Pankisi Gorge. Coups were the only way of changing government. The rump of a central government remained in Tbilisi, with corrupt plutocrats and gangsters ruling in the old Soviet way under Eduard Shevarnadze, a former member of the USSR’s Politburo and ex-Soviet foreign minister.

Saakashvili brought radical change (though not in the Obama sense). Instead of a failed state, rule of law was introduced, and a government committed to protecting individual rights and cracking down on criminals was established.

P.S. The pictures indicate the possibility that Georgia (the country) may accept something akin to the libertarian elements of confederate Georgia (the U.S. state).