Victory of Democracy over Free Market

Presidential Elections in Georgia 2008
03 January 2008
Presidential Elections in Georgia: What Can We Expect?
First of all, happy New Year!
What can we expect? Nothing more than returning back to left-wing policies and stagnation.
It was very easy to predict that after introducing right-wing reforms - fast privatization, reducing taxes and tariffs and tax rates, introducing flat income tax, elimination of social tax (wages tax), elimination of several hundreds of licenses, deregulation of sectors of economy and many others – political opposition would attack the government for this activities.
Nobody can say all the reforms went correctly – there could be better methods, better mechanisms, more publicity and transparency. It was truly very uneasy to follow the all steps of the reforms, to understand free market policies… There could be much more radical solutions and even higher speed of changes.
People haven’t got realistic fruits from the reforms – this is the most challenging issue. The government failed to explain the real reason of the reforms, increasing freedoms and responsibilities of persons and decreasing the power of the government. Now this main idea is lost in riots and debates. The most important for debating sides is to show how much ready they are to introduce back totalitarian central planning, welfare programs, and all kinds of protectionism.
The only result we can have from these excellent ideas is slowing down the reforms and temps of economic growth that will inevitably bring Georgia back to economic stagnation.
But don’t worry and calm down. At least democracy won, and most of the political sides will be satisfied. And the parliament will continue to discuss how to please voters, bargain for the resources, and keep the status quo. Most important is to be always correct and satisfy the requests of the gullible and the envious.
Main political battle of last months of 2007 seemed to be the status of human rights in Georgia. In reality most important fight has been between the two – democracy and free market.
We regret to say that democracy wins.
Victory of Democracy Over Free Market!
http://www.nesg.net/page.php?id=33