Contents
The pandemic has instilled uncertainty in our country, familiar from the “dashing 90s”. At this time, the country underwent radical changes in the economy and social structure, which seriously changed the life of the population and the concept of justice.
During the pandemic, the demand for justice has grown in society – but do we understand what it is? Trends and investment company A1 understand the history of the concept of justice: how did our ancestors see it, and how do we see it? What can make our society more just? Is fairness possible in business, and if so, what might it look like?
Freedom, trade, opportunities for all: the transition to a market economy
At the end of 1991, our country was on the verge of an economic disaster: store shelves were empty, there was not enough money to buy food abroad – famine was approaching. The old system of government was no longer working. Our country’s President Boris Yeltsin and Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar undertook to carry out saving reforms that were supposed to bring the country to a market economy in a short time. Society expected the reforms to get rid of the defects of the socialist system. People hoped for a new justice: universal free access to the country’s wealth, the creation of new jobs, the transition to a society of opportunities. However, reality did not live up to expectations.
“Money is Power, Brother”: Entrepreneurship in the 1990s
As a result of the reforms of the early 1990s, goods appeared on free sale that the Soviet people could not purchase for any money. Following the deficit, socialist inequality, based on access to previously unattainable benefits, has gone into the past. But at the same time, income inequality rose rapidly: prices rose, poverty became commonplace, and the first millionaires appeared. our country, still holding on to Soviet ideas about fair remuneration for work, is faced with a reality where huge fortunes are the result of fraud, not honest hard work. One of the central phenomena of the 1990s was “power entrepreneurship”. It’s time for fairness “according to the concepts.”
“Piece of Motherland”: voucher privatization
In the summer of 1992, a state privatization program was adopted and vouchers were introduced. They were positioned as an opportunity for everyone to participate in the privatization of state property. But the authorities failed to explain to the population the essence of the reform, and many of our country had no idea what to do with vouchers, and these papers began to be sold. In the hands of speculators, several thousand of these financial documents represented a huge sum. Voucher privatization led to a sharp enrichment of a narrow group of people. The redistribution of factories and factories was accompanied by criminal squabbles and the emergence of a class of oligarchs. In society, there was an idea of the illegitimacy of a large income, distrust of the “top of business” and the authorities closely associated with it.
“Black August” 1998: default
August 17, 1998 in our country was called “black” Monday. On this day, the government of the country recognized the inability of the state to make payments on both domestic and foreign debts. A technical default was declared, the national currency devalued, the ruble exchange rate against the US dollar collapsed. The standard of living has fallen sharply, panic has begun among our countries. The “invisible hand” of the market could not bring justice to society, the settlement of the distribution of wealth and the destruction of social inequality. Society was no longer satisfied with the unreliable power of money, and there was a demand for a new power – in truth, personified by a strong state.