“Democracy vs. Autocracy” - and Putin’s Greatest Crime
Here is the real reason that the West hates Putin so much, and why he poses such a huge threat.
Joe Biden is fond of talking about the conflict between Russia and the West as a “civilisational” one. For Biden, we are engaged in a manichaean struggle between Good and Evil — the “Good” of democracy and the “Evil” of autocracy.
But in order to understand what is really going on, we need to delve deeper into what Biden actually means when he says “democracy”, and what he means by that much-abused term “autocracy”.
In this article I will explain how the difference between Biden’s visions of “democracy” and “autocracy” really just comes down to how each system handles its oligarchs.
Democracy in the West
When Joe Biden talks about democracy, he means American democracy, so-called “Western Democracy”. In other words, he is touting the neoliberal economic and political order that has seized the collective West by the throat since the 1970’s and the advent of the “boys” from the Chicago School of economics, led by Milton Friedman.
When I wrote my series of articles entitled “This is Neoliberalism”, I explained that because Neoliberals believe that the Market is an impartial and efficient distributor of resources, wealth and income inequality is actually a moral imperative and the people who accrue more resources deserve their wealth. The “losers” who have not been able to thrive in the Market environment must simply accept their fate because there is no sustainable alternative to the Market-based system.
This is Neoliberalism, Part I: The 10 Tenets of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is the idea that the Market is the Mother of all Things.
“Oligarchs” v. “Job Creators”
The very first difference we should mention is that, in an Autocracy, you have very wealthy people who are called “oligarchs”.
Oligarchs are so wealthy that they can literally change the course of a nation (or a bloc of nations) by using their power and influence to shape the economic and political landscape of the society itself.
These people also exist in Western Democracies, but they are not called “oligarchs”. Rather, they are called “job creators”.
For my purposes here, however, I will call an oligarch an oligarch.
Oligarchic Influence in “democratic” Politics
As I mention in my previous article in this series, The US is not an actual democracy in that the will of the people are not reflected in either the political or economic governance of the society.
“Democracy v. Autocracy” — Biden’s Big Lie
Biden and the U.S. elites are twisting words to support corporate totalitarianism.
In fact, studies have shown that the US is a plutocracy whose government responds only to the will of the top elites.
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This is because of the highly democratic nature of the Western Democracies, where money has been determined to equal speech, and a person can spend as much money as they want on electing and influencing politicians because … well, because they can. And it is all legal and fair and above all democratic.
In Western Democracies, everyone can get as much democracy as they can afford.
Oligarchic influence on the “democratic” Economy
When Biden and other Neoliberal Westerners talk about “democracy” and “freedom” they really mean the freedom of global capital to flow unimpeded wherever it wants. And more importantly, to flow UPWARDS without the threat of redistribution.
Indeed, in Western Democracies, corporate oligarchs pay little or no taxes. This is a well-accepted fact.
The concept of “democracy” is quite expansive in this area. Western oligarchs believe that they are righteous, that they are moral, and they got all their wealth “fair and square” in a “democracy”. Thus, they can keep what they have without having to “give back to society”.
And, thanks to all the democracy they were able to buy from their politicians, the tax code and other laws simply don’t apply to them in any meaningful way. The law confirms the Neoliberal axiom of the moral rectitude of those who have achieved wealth because they deserve it .
In Western Democracies, oligarchs don’t pay taxes because morally they don’t need to, legally they don’t have to, and civically they don’t want to.
Oligarchic immunity in a “democracy”
Corporate oligarchs are virtually IMMUNE from prosecution in the West. It is extremely rare when any wealthy person goes to jail in the US, and when they do, it is almost always because they committed some financial scam that stole from other wealthy people (like Michael Milken and Bernie Madoff).
There is even a term of art, “affluenza”, which has come into use in the legal profession as a means to exculpate wealthy people because of the “social isolation” as well as “stress and impaired relationships” experienced by the rich.
In reality, of course, the oligarchic influence on both the political and economic aspects of Western society, means almost axiomatically that the “law and order” framework is also constructed so as to exempt oligarchs from any legal obligations, constraints, or consequences of their actions.
In Western Democracies, everyone can get as much justice as they can afford.
Capturing democracy
In Western Democracies, the governments are “captured” by oligarchic interests, as was shown in the Princeton study. The corporate oligarchy controls both “elected” representatives as well as the regulating agencies responsible for ensuring the health and safety of the citizenry.
And of course, they control the purse strings and decide where the money goes.
Consequently, there is never enough money for the interests of the greater public, but always plenty of money available for war.
There are over 600,000 people in the US who are homeless. Tent encampments are under every highway over pass and bridge in the country.
The money that the US has given Ukraine so far — well over $100 BILLION, could have solved the homeless crisis in America — five times over; it could have solved the healthcare crisis; it could have been used to fix the country’s infrastructure.
But the Western oligarchs don’t want that. And so — without any vote or input from citizens — the US Congress gives the money to Ukraine. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of the working class, but even they are captured by the oligarchs that fund their campaigns.
Every single Democrat in the House of Representatives has voted for every single aid package to Ukraine. Why?
Because the Western oligarchy has big plans for Ukraine.
Ukraine will be “a beacon of capitalism”
Indeed, plans have been underway for years to make Ukraine a Neoliberal paradise. Starting in 2017, representatives of Western governments and corporations quietly held annual conferences in which they discussed ways to profit from the civil war they were fuelling in Ukraine.
At the 2022 World Economic Forum, where Western oligarchs fly into the Swiss hamlet of Davos to meet and plan their stewardship of the world, Russians were person non grata, according to the Washington Post.
But Ukraine? They were the toast of the town!
Ukrainian oligarch and Western wannabe Viktor Pinchuk hosted a breakfast session at the exclusive event:
At the same breakfast session, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, spoke of his plans to help coordinate billions of dollars worth of reconstruction financing for Ukraine, saying he hoped the initiative would also turn the country into a “beacon of capitalism.” David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, spoke cheerily of Ukraine’s postwar future. “There is no question that as you rebuild, there will be good economic incentives for real return and real investment,” he said.
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And the feeling is mutual. Zelensky is holding Zoom speeches with Chambers of Commerce all over the USA, touting how he is selling off Ukraine one chunk at a time.
It is no wonder then, that Joe Biden chose to make a “surprise” visit to Kiev rather than visit the stricken Americans in East Palestine, Ohio.
He had to check on his “real investment”.
Is there any solution?
For those living in Western Democracies, it seems like there is no way out, no way to break the financial chains that oligarchs have used to control the Western countries.
The levers of power, the media, the economy and the entire political system are all on the hands of the oligarchs, and no one has yet figured out a way to take them on.
At least, not in the Western Democracies.
Why Putin is so despised
Over the course of my lifetime, I have seen many foreign leaders characterised in the Western media as a “ruthless dictator”, “brutal strongman”, and of course the old favourite: “a new Hitler”.
Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gadaffi, Bashar Al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro, Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Slobodan Milosovic, Manuel Noriega, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe … the list goes on and on.
But there is one person for whom a special level of opprobrium is reserved: Vladimir V. Putin.
Never have I seen any leader as reviled, despised, demonised, detested and condemned as Vladimir Putin.
Why is that? Why was Putin — even before the invasion of 2022 —singled out for such uniquely vicious and often hysterical vilification?
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What Putin did
The answer lies in what Putin did after he succeeded Boris Yeltsin as President of the Russian Federation in 1999.
As NPR writer Greg Rosalsky writes:
In the summer of 2000, 21 of the richest men in Russia exited their bulletproof limousines and entered the Kremlin for a historic meeting. In the previous decade, these men had risen seemingly out of nowhere, amassing spectacular fortunes as the country around them descended into chaos. Through shady deals, outright corruption, and even murder, these rapacious “oligarchs” — as Russians had come to derisively call them — had seized control of much of Russia’s economy, and, increasingly, its fledgling democracy.
But now, their nation’s newly elected president, Vladimir Putin, wanted to tell them, face to face, who was really in charge.
“…these rapacious “oligarchs”…had seized control of much of Russia’s economy, and, increasingly, its fledgling democracy”.
Putin’s Greatest Crime
From all accounts, what Putin said in that meeting was that the oligarchs could keep their money and their businesses, but they had to promise not to get involved in politics or the economy.
In other words, Putin was going to put a stop to the oligarchic control of the political landscape, the media and the economy that the oligarchs were starting to exercise in the post-Soviet “new Russia” that he had inherited.
This meeting was very momentous, and the Western media took notice. When the New York Times reported on it, they noted the difference between Putin and Yeltsin:
Since his election in March, Mr. Putin has sought to strengthen the Kremlin’s authority by downgrading the power of regional governors and the influence of business leaders over government policy.
That contrasts with his predecessor, Boris N. Yeltsin, who maintained close relationships with powerful business executives, allowing them to hold government posts.
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In other words, after a decade of Neoliberal “shock therapy” to “democratise” Russia, there was already a growing symbiosis between business and government. The so-called revolving door was starting to revolve, and the scourge of what Chris Hedges calls “corporate totalitarianism” was rearing its ugly head. And now Putin was going to smash it down.
According to the Times account, the meeting was successful:
Boris Y. Nemtsov, the former deputy prime minister and self-proclaimed economic reformer who helped organize today’s session, insisted that the meeting marked a new period. Businessmen are prepared to be more responsible, he said, so long as their newly acquired wealth is respected by the state.
Putin had struck a deal: keep your money, but don’t overstep into the realm of public policy. And the oligarchs acquiesced.
‘’The oligarchs are fed up with being oligarchs,’’ Mr. Nemtsov said. ‘’They just want to be businessmen and pay their taxes.’’
Of course, not every oligarch was willing to give up power so easily. Putin decided to set some examples.
The Kremlin launched a series of raids and criminal cases against Vladimir Gusinsky and Media-Most; the financial-industrial group Interros, headed by Vladimir Potanin; Lukoil, headed by Vagit Alekperov; Sibneft, an oil company controlled by Roman Abramovich; as well as a number of businesses connected with Boris Berezovsky.
On Jan. 24, 2001, Vladimir Putin met with 21 leading oligarchs and told them that he hoped that things had changed for the better since their last meeting, basically meaning that he hoped that they had learned a lesson.
They had.
The Empires Strikes Back
The oligarchs in the Western Democracies were outraged. Putin’s Russia was essentially free of oligarchic control. Putin, the President, was actually acting independently as the Head of State, working in the interests of the Russian people and not the oligarch class.
This could not be allowed to stand.
The US started going after Putin. In 2012, the oligarch-controlled US Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions against Russian officials who were believed to have played a role in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who was jailed in Russia. The law was passed based on a fraudulent story by Bill Browder, who had amassed a fortune under Yeltsin but never paid any taxes.
The European Court of Human Rights dismissed the case brought by Bill Browder and ruled that Browder’s case was fraudulent and that the arrest and detention of Magnitsky was legitimate.
Nonetheless, the sanctions remain in place to this day — along with many other rounds of sanctions that have been implemented since then.
In fact, the war in Ukraine is, in many ways, just a radical extension of the anti-Putin sanctions regime imposed by the “Western Democracies” since 2005.
Ukraine is ALL ABOUT “Regime Change” in Russia
It should be clear to all that the current conflict in Ukraine was provoked by the West. Since 2008, Putin has made it very clear what the “red lines” of Russia were, and how Russia would react if we crossed them. By deliberately crossing those lines, the US and NATO provoked a response that gave the Western Democracies an excuse to impose the most draconian sanctions possible, with the aim of fomenting rebellion and regime change in Russia.
Last March, on a trip to Poland, Joe Biden gave away the game when he ended a speech by saying of Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”.
In an interview with The Hill, a Greek foreign diplomat spoke even more plainly:
“The sanctions … are dedicated in order to bring down the Putin regime by internal unrest — and this is the idea that we create,” he said, “a climate into Russia that this act of aggression is going to be costly for the economy of Russia, and to build up the unrest and the opposition to Putin.”
Kenneth Rogoff, who served as the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), spoke at the World Economic Forum and revealed the purpose of the current sanctions on Russia.
If “the war comes to an end with a decisive victory for Ukraine, but no regime change in Russia”, he said, then the sanctions must continue.
“We have to think in long term sanctions, and not just ending them” when the war ends, Rogoff said.
He then admitted that “getting regime change is hard” but that there have been examples of success, such as ending Apartheid in South Africa (after 30 years of sanctions).
Rogoff claimed that Russia is going to see “incredible poverty” due to sanctions. “Will we see regime change?” he asked, “I hope so”.
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Why Putin is the Enemy of the West
It is clear, then, that the Western Democracies do not view Russia itself as a problem. No, it is the man, the person of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin who is the problem.
Why? Because he refused to let the Russian oligarchs run the country, as they do in the West. He defeated the fledgling corporate totalitarian state before it could seize full control of the Russian economy, society and political system, as it has in the Western Democracies.
In Russia, Putin has declared that money does not equate to political speech, and that, to the West, is heresy.
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Indeed, Russian oligarchs are not allowed to wield power over politics and the economy as they do in the West, because Vladimir Putin has decreed it to be so.
Shortly before he was elected, Putin was asked by a radio station how he felt about the oligarchs. If by oligarchs, he said, one meant those who “help fusion of power and capital — there will be no oligarchs of this kind as a class.”
And that is Putin’s greatest crime, his unforgivable sin, his Great Apostasy.
The refusal to submit to — or even allow — a plutocratic oligarchy is what has made Putin an “autocrat” in the eyes of the “democratic” West.