Is the corruption the biggest problem of Ukraine? It is obviously not because the corruption Ukrainian people is the result of the low level of life.
STEFAN ZAKREVSKY
Is the corruption the biggest problem of Ukraine? It is obviously not because the corruption Ukrainian people is the result of the low level of life. High level of corruption will be present in the society with the dominance of survival values. Corruption is only a consequence of patronage – client relations inherent in Ukraine. Ukrainian society is a class, so the vast majority of Ukrainians have no class interests, in Ukraine there are no ideological parties created from below. Most Ukrainians do not want to be real citizens, because they are recipients of resources who want to get to a higher strata, where they will have access to resources that will allow them to get rich, and this is the main cause of corruption in Ukraine.
Western assistance in the fight against corruption is aimed primarily at creating anti-corruption bodies, through which it is possible to collect compromising information on Ukrainian politicians. In fact, anti-corruption infrastructure is a tool for Western influence on Ukraine’s political elite. So, it is not surprising that Western embassies continue to support completely ineffective anti-corruption bodies, as they were created to exert the political influence necessary to advance the interests of the West and control the Ukrainian authorities.
Unfortunately, Ukrainians, who believe that corruption is the cause of all Ukraine’s troubles, have given the West an argument that Western politicians will always justify their reluctance to join the EU and NATO by the high level of corruption in Ukraine. Corruption, as our Western partners tell us, exists because of the shortcomings of the Western capitalist system, because the Ukrainian authorities buy luxury real estate and place money in bank accounts in the EU and the US, where corrupt people from Ukraine have accomplices to launder our money. From the point of view of the well-known British journalist and publicist Edward Lucas, Western lectures to Ukrainians on the fight against corruption are horrible hypocrisy, because the roots of corruption are not where bribes are taken, but where they are invested.
It is not anti-corruption legislation and the creation of anti-corruption infrastructure that contribute most to the reduction of corruption, but to the easing of bureaucratic pressure and rapid economic development, which contributes to the expansion of the middle class interested in protecting their private property through the rule of law. It is noteworthy that none of the well-known Ukrainian anti-corruption activists with Western support states the need for demonopolization, without which it is impossible to significantly reduce corruption, in fact, the fight against corruption in our country has become a complete imitation for political hype.
The level of corruption in Ukraine will always be high, because most citizens of our country have the needs of the lowest level of the Maslow pyramid. A clear example of the impact of low living standards on corruption is Italy. As you know, Italy has an industrialized North, where there is a high standard of living and southern regions, where low living standards encourage the people of the South to engage in corruption. For example, 80% of businessmen in Sicily, Calabria and Naples pay tribute to the mafia.
Now the most powerful criminal group in Italy, according to Italian journalists, is the Ndrangheta. This mafia group from Calabria controls more than 40% of the world’s cocaine trade. Italian experts estimate that Ndrangheta earns more than $ 50 billion a year, which is then placed in offshore accounts. The main revenue of the Ndrangheta in Calabria is related to the implementation of infrastructure projects, namely the construction of highways, port development and management of resorts.
Even Italy’s largest container port in the municipality of Gioia – Tauro has long been under the full control of the Ndrangheta, which used it for smuggling operations.
Ndrangheta in Calabria has also eliminated all its competitors in the areas of goods, services and recruitment. Subcontractors in Calabria are forced to rent equipment owned by Ndrangheti. Companies that win tenders are forced to pay Ndrangheti 10% of profits. According to Italian security officials, businessmen who refuse to cooperate with Ndrangheta are abducted and brought to the mafia boss for a preventive talk. And all this is happening in a country that is a member of the EU and NATO, so the example of Italy shows that the higher level of corruption in the southern regions than in the economically prosperous northern, is associated primarily with low living standards of the South of this beautiful countries.
Corruption in Ukraine is only a consequence of the backwardness of its economic structure. Therefore, without the modernization of industrial enterprises, for which about $ 200 billion needs to be allocated, Western aid to fight corruption makes no sense.
After World War II, the American political elite understood that large-scale economic aid could ensure economic and social stability in countries that were their allies in the fight against the communist “evil empire.” If the Americans had pursued the same foreign policy that the United States now pursues toward Ukraine, West Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea would have been under the influence of the Soviet Union after World War II.
Neoliberal reforms cannot be carried out in a country suffering from Russia’s military aggression. It is worth remembering that the Russian Federation has caused $ 120 billion in losses to Ukraine in Donbas alone, but so far our country has not received assistance from Western partners that could compensate for the losses caused to all of us by the aggression of our northern neighbor. For example, in post-war West Germany in 1953, 50% of its debt was written off and the second half of the debt was allowed to be repaid on very favorable terms, when no more than 3% of export revenue was spent on servicing this debt. In addition, the United States opened its markets to West German exports, which allowed West Germany to achieve economic success through an export-oriented economy. Even Egypt was written off debt from $ 25 billion to 12.5% billion. The debt write-off was due to the political interests of the United States, which was interested in concluding a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
Of course, a natural question arises, why should the West help “natives” from Ukraine who cannot solve their own problems? The answer is that Ukraine is a frontier located in the heart of Europe and bordering four EU and NATO member states. Russia will not stop only at Ukraine, because from the point of view of the Kremlin’s ideologues, the whole of Central Europe must fall within the sphere of influence of the Russian Federation. Therefore, Europeans need to remember the prophetic statement of former Polish President Lech Kaczynski: “First Georgia, later Ukraine, then the Baltic countries, and then possibly Poland.”
