Uzbekistan: Failed State or Private Enterprise?
Politics and Society, UzbekistanNo Comment
The Fund for Peace, an independent research and advocacy organization, recently published “The Failed States Index 2009”(ENG) where it ranked Uzbekistan 31st out of 177 countries. To give some perspective here, Uzbekistan is a little more successful and stable than Uganda, Burundi and Lebanon but less successful and stable than Cambodia, Iran and Colombia.
There are 12 factors that influence the ranking (see the whole methodology here) but there are several of those that are especially strong in defining the status and degree of “failure” of the state. In Uzbekistan’s case, those are “uneven economic development,” “criminalization and delegitimization of the state,” “security apparatus operates as a ‘state within a state,’” “rise of factionalized elites” and good old “widespread violation of human rights.”
It is hard to argue against importance of those characteristics and strong and unfortunate influence on all sorts of conditions in Uzbekistan but it also helps to reframe the conventional thinking and start treating Uzbekistan as a private enterprise rather than a legitimate country.
As a state, Uzbekistan has been pretty much a failure since 1995. As a private enterprise with a small group of CEOs controlling 95% of economic activities, the country has been profitable for more than a decade. In the best traditions of private businesses, the enterprise “Uzbekistan” managed to pay for lavish lifestyles of the directors and their cronies and was successful enough to ensure stable and prosperous future for their kids and grandchildren even if the enterprise finally collapses into the abyss of civil disorder and becomes “less profitable.”
Like many private enterprises in the world run by the corporate greed at the expense of social responsibility, Uzbekistan has always treated its citizens as merely commodity meant to increase the amount of money in the private offshore accounts of the CEOs. The ruling elite of Uzbekistan figured out a good old model of sweatshops that always valued small pay and child labor to profit enormously from degrading but cheap working conditions and desperate situations of its workers who pretty much have no other options except working for food and delusional stability.
The private enterprise “Uzbekistan” created a pretty straightforward top-down corporate ladder where the only chance to succeed is to become as close to the board of directors as possible.
As every economist knows, even the biggest enterprises fall and Uzbekistan is very unlikely to be an exception. The growing scale of corruption and dissatisfaction with distribution of power and capital in the higher ranks make it almost impossible for the enterprise - and society – to function properly and keep a comfortable margin of profitability. The Failed State Uzbekistan may soon acquire another humiliating title as The Failed Private Enterprise.
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