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Liberty as an essential condition for the victory of Ukraine
The state regulations and the expansion of State functions are demoralizing Ukrainians meanwhile the bureaucracy increases non-military expenditures, as in peacetime
22 October, 2024
War in Ukraine
Economic Freedom
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The choice Ukrainians faced on February 24, 2022, was existential – it was a defensive war for the right to live and be Ukrainians on their own Ukrainian land. At that moment, the full dedication, courage, and heroism of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield became evident, along with the unity, mutual understanding, compassion, and assistance shared among all Ukrainians. The early successes on the frontlines in the first months of the war inspired the nation.
War is not merely a mechanical comparison of military forces and means. It is a confrontation of intellect, will, sweat, blood, and divine help. However, subsequent military setbacks and other factors had a considerable demoralizing effect – Ukrainians ceased to be the united force they were at the beginning of the war. The current state economic policy is one of the main factors in this demoralization.
We are witnessing the test of the Ukrainian state’s ability to fulfill its primary function, which is to ensure external security. Under these conditions, the state is required to:
- Concentrate the maximum amount of resources necessary to destroy the enemy;
- Ensure the most effective use of these resources to destroy the enemy;
- Minimize all forms of unproductive expenditures to secure victory.
In an existential war, all expenditures that do not directly contribute to the main goal—victory—are considered unproductive. However, it is impossible and impractical to control the expenses of individuals, who independently assess risks and bear full responsibility for any losses incurred.
Any non-military budgetary expenditures not only divert resources from victory but, under current conditions, are the main demotivators, creating a divide between those fighting the enemy and those focused on budget revenues, including corrupt gains, and unwilling to leave their comfort zones despite the war-driven realities.
As shown by data from Ukraine's state budget, expenditures unrelated to defense are increasing, even during the full-scale war.
First and foremost, this concerns the expenditures related to the bureaucratic apparatus, which began to return to its usual activities as soon as the enemy was pushed out of the Kyiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions. Most of the tax relief measures introduced at the start of the war were canceled, the activities of regulatory bodies were reinstated, and laws, which make little sense in the context of war, were re-implemented. Corruption flourished again, and the authorities resumed their usual practice of "siphoning off" budget funds, including those allocated for military purposes.
Moreover, the war did not prevent the bureaucratic apparatus from exploiting all the additional opportunities provided by martial law: not only maintaining their positions and increasing their salaries but also securing exemptions from mobilization, avoiding criticism through control of the information space, and using mobilization or travel restrictions against any opponents, among other tactics. This applies not only to officials but also to all citizens involved in state and local budget expenditures unrelated to the war.
The Ukrainian soldiers are paying the highest possible price in this war - their lives! The ultimate outcome of the war depends on how well the motivation of those currently holding weapons is maintained. How can the motivation of a soldier be strengthened when, upon returning for rotation to a frontline city, they see municipal services planting flowers in flower beds? Or, when coming home on leave to Kyiv or Lviv, they witness new road interchanges being built with budget funds, glass bus stops being installed, bike lanes being constructed, or paving stones being laid?
The war calls for a reevaluation of the values and priorities that determine the direction and structure of budgetary spending. The value of a soldier's life and the cost of his ability to effectively destroy the enemy must become the universal measure for assessing the appropriateness of any budget expenditures today.
An important condition for the survival of the nation in times of upheaval is the ability of its individuals to feel empathy, show solidarity, and be capable of self-sacrifice. However, these feelings are dulled by a policy of privileges financed by the budget. These privileges, in the context of war, include not only unjustified salaries for civil servants and employees of state enterprises, or exorbitant pensions, but even the salaries paid to "budget workers" for work unrelated to the needs of the war.
The first step toward unity under conditions of war is a significant reduction in all state and local budget expenditures, without exception, if they are not related to security and defense tasks.
This applies to financing national functions — under conditions of war, the country cannot support officials whose activities are not directly connected to the preservation of the country.
For the bureaucracy, the principle of presumed guilt should be applied to all problems related to the creation of political, economic, and social conditions that led to the beginning of the war in 2014, as well as the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Putin’s blitzkrieg was thwarted thanks to the freedom-loving, patriotic, and active Ukrainian citizens, not because of the officials.
War does not require the expansion of the state's functions, rights, and powers, but on the contrary, the reduction of all those that are not directly related to fulfilling the state's primary function — guaranteeing external security.Share
It is also clear that under current circumstances, officials cannot demand salaries that are substantially higher than those in the real sector. This also applies to the salaries of managers of state-owned enterprises, institutions, and organizations. The highest salary paid by taxpayers should only belong to the Ukrainian soldier on the frontline.
- Law enforcement bodies, customs officers, courts, and similar structures have been and remain the main source of corruption and a threat to national security. Their funding under the budget category "Public Order, Security, and Judiciary" should be significantly reduced.
The guarantee of internal security and justice should be the right of every citizen to own firearms. At the same time, an armed nation is the most considerable deterrent to any potential aggressor or internal usurper.Share
- The government's economic activities should be entirely halted unless they are related to preserving, maintaining, or restoring the most critical infrastructure objects, which are essential for the population’s livelihood or defense purposes. This also applies to spending on "Housing and Communal Services."
- It is utterly cynical, or simply laughable, to speak about maintaining expenditures on "Environmental Protection" when Ukraine is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world! This does not apply to financing measures that are necessary to prevent technogenic disasters.
- Education spending should be limited to expenditures on secondary education. Secondary education itself should be restricted to quality instruction in core natural sciences, as well as Ukrainian history, language, and literature. The next generation must be protected from the leftist ideology being imposed in schools, which has become the main function of the Ministry of Education.
- Maintaining one's own health is primarily the responsibility of the individual. Therefore, the budget should only provide minimal support to medical institutions. The rest of their income should be generated through paid medical services. After all, a dental services market has emerged in Ukraine without, or despite, the Ministry of Health, and the price-to-quality ratio is arguably among the best in Europe.
- Funding for "Spiritual and Physical Development" is a personal matter for each Ukrainian; it is the responsibility of local communities, public organizations, philanthropists, and so on, and should not be a matter for the government.
- Expenditures on "Social Protection and Social Security" should be reduced. No one should receive a pension higher than the minimum wage in the real sector, and certainly not higher than what a Ukrainian soldier on the frontline earns. This is especially true for pension payments to former officials, judges, prosecutors, and scholars who shaped the current political, legal, and economic system of Ukraine, the inefficiency of which is one of the reasons for the current bloody war and could lead to a national catastrophe.
The government apparatus, citing defense needs, seeks to increase taxes.
This is acceptable when available revenues are insufficient for defense needs, but it is unacceptable for financing non-military expenditures. It is even more unacceptable when the share of GDP redistribution before the war was already 43-45%!
Under such conditions, the reduction of non-military expenditures should be accompanied not by an increase, but by a decrease in taxes, which in turn:
- will increase the economy's ability to adapt to new challenges and circumstances;
- will limit the opportunities for inefficient use and outright theft by the government apparatus;
- will enable a flexible system of financing military needs.
Financing the war through monetary issuance is undesirable — it disorients the economy and the citizens. Monetary issuance causes irreparable harm when, under conditions of war, it is directed toward financing non-military expenditures.
In addition to its existential nature, the Ukraine-Russia war also has a transcendental dimension. It is a war between Good and Evil, and for what will be defined as Good and Evil in the future.
We have already begun to forget that the start of the war in Ukraine had resolved one global problem—the sudden disappearance of quarantine restrictions and the fear of the coronavirus. Perhaps one day we will learn the full truth about that period and realize the scale of the threat of total control that loomed over humanity.
The recent elections in Europe and the USA show that the world is shifting more to the right. While Ukrainian right-wing forces are sacrificing their lives for freedom, the current government and so-called civil activists funded by foreign grants are actively promoting leftist ideology. Despite this, it is in Ukraine where their misanthropic ideology will face its greatest defeat.
Ukrainians, more than anyone in the world today, understand the significance of the state as a political form of a nation's life. For this reason, it is here, amidst the war, that a long-forgotten understanding of the state's primary purpose will be revived — the ensuring of Liberty for the Nation and the Individual!
In addition to this, the state's tasks in the current conditions should include guaranteeing property rights, establishing and ensuring the strict adherence to a single set of rules of honorable behavior for everyone, ensuring the stability of the national currency, implementing measures aimed at reducing the concentration of economic power, preventing any attempts to abuse monopolistic positions, reducing all state expenditures and functions unrelated to the war, with a corresponding reduction in tax burdens, carrying out real decentralization, and abolishing numerous benefits and privileges, among others.
This would not only lead to the creation of a competitive environment and, on this basis, increase the efficiency of the Ukrainian economy, but it is essentially the only way to fairly distribute the burden of war among all members of society.
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War in Ukraine
Economic Freedom
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Vasyl Magas
Associate Professor of Ivan Franko Lviv National University, PhD in economic sciences, specializes in the theory of market reforms, problems of the competitive order formation in the economic system of Ukraine, spiritual foundations of the market economy.
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