Posted on 12/29/2005 4:29:14 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
MOSCOW — An economist who resigned as President Vladimir Putin's adviser to protest what he called the government's backtracking on freedoms accused the Kremlin on Thursday of turning Russia into a "corporate" state run by self-interested bureaucrats.
Speaking to Ekho Moskvy radio, Andrei Illarionov said that Russia cannot be considered politically free and warned that government-controlled corporations have stifled competition and ignored the interests of the people.
"These quasi-state corporations are in fact driven by private interests while taking advantage of their state status and privileges," Illarionov said. "The state has come to serve the interests of several corporations instead of the majority of citizens."
He said that by following an economic model applied in other oil-rich nations as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, Russia is squandering an opportunity to liberalize its economy at a time of high oil prices.
Illarionov, the lone dissenter in a Kremlin increasingly dominated by Putin's fellow KGB veterans, announced his resignation Tuesday. Putin quickly accepted.
Illarionov increasingly fell out of favor after criticizing moves to restore state control over the strategic energy sector, in particular the effective nationalization of the Yukos oil empire of the jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004.
Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said Thursday that Illarionov's resignation had been expected, but added that it was "more negative than positive," the Interfax news agency reported.
Illarionov's criticism "wasn't constructive sometimes, and his position was frequently extreme," but, despite that, "the absence of a critic is always a negative thing," Interfax quoted Gref, seen as one the most liberal government ministers, as saying.
>>Russia Becoming 'Corporate' State
With this year's SCOTUS rulings on Kelo v. New London and Raich v. Gonzales, so is the US.
Russia or the muslims will controls europes future more than likely. The europeans are so eager to throw away their sovereignty for multi culturalism and anti-americanism with out so much as a fight. Sad really my ancestors came from europe.
This is good I suppose, Russia organizing itself into state-corporation un-holy union, because we all know how well state monopolies perform in the long run. This places a stern empirical limit on Russia and Europe's economic development.
In other news: the second apple has fallen on the head of Sir Isaac Newton. "This confirms the law of gravity", said the prominent scientist.
LOL!!
The restoration of the Soviet Union is under way.
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