As was expected, Den’s interview with the world-famous economist Erik S. Reinert triggered an explosion in the circles of thinking Ukrainians. In the past 10 days, 2,300 people have reposted and over 20,000 read this material on the newspaper’s website alone.
People were thanking, going into raptures, or expressing their indignation, but this interview left none of those who clicked the link indifferent.
As a result, in reply to many requests of Den’s readers, we have initiated a discussion of the ideas and assessments that were expressed in the interview and caused the greatest stir. Among the points is why the IMF’s advice is detrimental to Ukraine, why a sound protectionism of the Ukrainian industry is the only possible way out of the crisis, and why neo-liberalism, a defunct economic theory, is being foisted on Ukraine by those who stand to gain from this country remaining a raw-material-oriented state.
Our editorial office held a roundtable, “In what is Reinert right?” the other day. It was attended by Viktor HALASIUK, MP, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Industrial Policies and Entrepreneurship; Volodymyr PANCHENKO, program manager of the Kyiv International Economic Forum, director of the Alex Pol Institute, chairman of the Dnipro Development Agency; Roman SKLIAROV, director of the Economic Democracy Center; Volodymyr VLASIUK, director of Ukrpromzovnishekspertyza; Rostyslav LUKACH, expert at the NGO Reanimation Package of Reforms; Dmytro MARCHENKO, advisor to the chairman of the Committee for Industrial Policies and Entrepreneurship.
This discussion is not only about the interview with Reinert, nor is it about economic theories or even historical examples of other countries. We tried to speak frankly about faults in the Ukrainian economic policy, the causes and ways of rectifying them. For practically all the post-Soviet republics, except for Belarus, have carried out denationalizing of their economies. Only Ukraine ended up with an oligarchic clan system which was reshaped during the two Maidans and… is now cashing in on war.
