The Best of Reason: Will Russia Ever Be Free?

Promise and peril in post-Putin Russia.

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The Best of Reason: Will Russia Ever Be Free?

This week's featured article is "Will Russia Ever Be Free?" by Cathy Young.

This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward.

Music credits: "Deep in Thought" by CTRL and "Sunsettling" by Man with Roses

Comments

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

From several weeks ago.

https://reason.com/2023/11/19/will-russia-ever-be-free/

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Reason just unwitttingly proved they don't need KMW on the staff.

[Social Justice is neither]

Haven't they spent the last decade proving they don't need a staff on staff, just a better way for the commentariat to open threads?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Interesting, Cathy Young keeps indicating that the sanctions are largely working (little evidence of that) in the pages of a magazine that has routinely claimed that Sanctions don't work, "at every turn".

Sanctions are bad news for the same reasons trade barriers of all kinds are bad news. After all, they're designed to impede particular commercial relationships. If robust property rights are human rights that hold consistently across borders, and if these rights matter—because they promote prosperity, safeguard autonomy, reduce conflict, and so forth—then sanctions are obviously problematic, because they interfere with people's rights to use their property as they see fit.

An embargo on Americans' trade with Bozarkia would impede Americans' own property rights. It would involve the threat of force against the property and bodies of people who trade with that country. It would also, obviously, prevent Bozarkians from making unconstrained choices about the use of their property. For anyone who sees strong property rights as foundational to people's abilities to pursue their own projects, the obvious property-rights violations effected by sanctions should be sufficient to rule them out.

Property rights and the market exchanges they make possible enhance prosperity on an ongoing basis. Sanctions would intentionally interfere with Bozarkians' prosperity, but they would also interfere with Americans' prosperity, denying them the benefits that would otherwise come from trade.

Sanctions also limit people's associational freedoms. Sanctions on Bozarkia would keep Americans and Bozarkians from interacting with each other commercially. Again, if we value freedom of association, we have every reason to look skeptically at sanctions.

The U.S. government often structures sanctions specifically to interfere with the behavior of non-Americans. This is a kind of international bullying that seems designed to impose the will of a would-be global hegemon on unwilling subjects. It is not only an instance of egregious imperial overreach; it also encourages ill will, reduces the likelihood of international cooperation, and raises the possibility of aggressive pushback.

[Bill Falcon]

You make a good point. Nick did Ms. Young's article come with some funding from some ahmmmmm special interest group? I can't recall any libertarian position (ending the central bank, ending foreign inteventions, stopping the DIE movement..allowing free economic exchange) she has ever taken. Maybe she has a few from attacking Tom Woods to this..why is she published in Reason? Was there a payoff?

[Chumby]

Russia will be free when the US exits NATO.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I am far from an expert on Russian affairs, especially modern ones. But Young gets very close to describing Russia as a dystopian totalitarianism, much like that of the old Soviet Union. Again, I'm no expert, but I don't get the impression that Russia is anything like that. The impression I get is increasingly the same one I have of the West in regards to total freedom: it's complicated.

So-called Western Liberal democracies are routinely banning web content and as of late have gone on a massive censorship tear that would make the East German Stazi blush. Local rules, regulations etc make starting a business in many districts difficult and onerous. The Feds surveil your bank accounts, your financial transactions, the courts overturn popular referenda all the time...

What I see of Modern Russia is that it's a very big country with a great and long history, access to modern conveniences and technology, certain areas of personal freedoms that we've long lost in the West, but still subject to various media controls that we in the west say we wouldn't be comfortable with. They appear to be a modern economy, although still developing, with engineering, art, science, technology and the resources to back it up.

But the Ukraine situation is incredibly complex and nuanced. How comfortable would the US be if Russia were putting military bases in Apodaca Mexico?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It's good to remember, that it's US officials that threatened to have a journalist arrested who reported on the Censorship Industrial Complex of the Obama/Biden machine, and mysteriously sent an IRS agent to his door after his congressional testimony.

And we're currently embroiled in an administration and justice department that's in a multi-pronged attempt to take down the major opposition candidate. The fact that we do it while waving rainbow flags and screeching about "diversity" doesn't make that pile of crap smell any better.

[Chumby]

Leopold the Cat, a character from a Soviet cartoon used to say, “Guys, let’s live together.”

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Young highlight how a large number of "separatist movement exist in 36 of the Russian federations constituent entities".

I'm no expert on how the average person on "Russia Street" feels about the Russian Federation and Putin, but assuming this is true, that's a whole lot of new borders standing up if the Russian Federation collapses.

[Social Justice is neither]

But how serious are any of them? You could crush that number in the US with the various autonomous zones antifa tries to erect, state secession threats and State border rejiggering schemes that would just as well threaten secession if the lesser option weren't ostensibly on the table (they're not).

[Fats of Fury]

Preposterous, the average Russian is a thug and wants to be ruled by a thug.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Russian thugs...

[Lachowsky]

https://reason.com/podcast/2022/07/08/should-the-u-s-be-arming-ukraine-against-russia/

I just stopped by to say fuck you to Kathy Young and the Neocons. Take your warmongering globalist bullshit elsewhere and quit getting your stench on the good name of libertarians.

[Bill Falcon]

Other than misspelling her first name you nailed it.

[a.heroic.dose]

She was born Ekaterina Jung, changing the spelling is an attempt to blend.

[inoyu]

Imagine for a moment that you are Putin or any russian. Now listen to the podcast "Will Russia ever be Free". Definitely, the message is that things will be fine after russians are obliterated. Fight or die.

[Rob razor]

Will we ever be free?

[Bill Falcon]

Cathy Young is not the best of Reason magazine...more likely evidence of either certain interest groups funding Reason like the volokh bunch or pure stupdiity.

Necon with old world grudges can't wait to get American kids (mostly rural and Christian) killed to settle old scores. Yes, the Czar was a bad guy to Ms. Young's ancestors and Trotsky lost out to Stalin but honestly has nothing to do with America. Other than some misguided Irish in Boston can you think of any other immigrant group who can't leave the old world behind? You don't see Italian Americans screaming about overthrowing the ruling class in Italy because of what the Piedmonts did to their forefathers. Nick, Matt, and KMW wtf are you doing?

[a.heroic.dose]

Reason has been incredibly jarring to read this last year, apparently you guys are now prowar? Between the Volokhtards and your main staff, I feel like I'm reading fucking defense contractors. What's the point of groveling for our cash, when you've clearly already been paid up? Appearances?

[MWAocdoc]

If Ukraine wins the war with Russia the U.S. will be blamed for "propping up a pro-U.S. dictatorship." If Ukraine loses the war with Russia, the U.S. will be blamed for failing to help a struggling Democracy against a militaristic tyrannical aggressor. Meanwhile, most libertarians want the U.S. government to mind its own Constitutionally limited business by defending the United States against military attacks by foreign powers and stop trying to make the world safe for democracy, protecting our vital national oil interests in the Middle East, and making war on every real or imagined terrorist in 72 nations around the globe.

[Tibet travel]

I hope Russia will be free.