Dissident Economist
In the 1980s Chubais became a leader of an informal circle of market-oriented economists. In 1982 Chubais together with economists Yury Yarmagayev and Grigory Glazkov published an article "Вопросы расширения хозяйственной самостоятельности предприятий в условиях научно-технического прогресса" (Questions of extending of business autonomy of enterprises in the conditions of the progress in science and technology) there they argued that no amount of planning can predict the paying demand. In 1982 Chubais became acquainted with future Prime Minister of Russia Yegor Gaidar who was invited to Chubais seminars.
In 1987 Chubais became the organizer of Leningrad club Perestroyka with the goal to promote the democratic ideas among intelligentsia. Among the people involved was the founder of Moscow "Perestroyka" and "Perestroyka-88" clubs, Igor Chubais (Anatoly's brother), future Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, future Chubais associates Pyotr Mostovoy, Alexander Kazakov, future President of Saint Petersburg bank Vladimir Kogan, future minister Ilya Yuzhanov, and future assassinated Deputy Governor of Saint Petersburg Mikhail Manevich.
For financing their seminars, dissident economists organized a tulip farm. In the four days before the International Women's Day (March 8) they managed to get income equivalent to the price of several Lada cars. The tulip money was used to finance the elections of Anatoly Sobchak, Yury Boldyrev and many other democratic candidates. As a result, 2/3 of the deputies winning the partially free 1990 elections to Leningrad Soviet were from the opposition. Chubais himself later stated that he personally did not participate in growing or selling of the flowers.
In the end of 1980 economist Vitaly Nayshul proposed to use voucher privatization for the transformation to market economy in Soviet Union. The scheme was strongly criticized by Chubais as inevitably producing gross unfairness and social tensions. Ironically, Chubais later became the leader of implementation of such a scheme.
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Famous quotes containing the words dissident and/or economist:
“The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin—and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.”
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“As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.”
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