Taming the Neoliberal Wild West: Imagining an Economically Democratic Future for Post-War Ukraine

This article discusses the urgent need for a progressive alternative to prevailing neoliberal plans for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction. To illustrate the problem, it highlights two worrisome examples: first, BlackRock Corporation’s recent incursion into Ukrainian affairs signals a shocking surrender of domestic autonomy; BlackRock has, in principle, been contracted to coordinate all post-war national investment efforts. Second, Ukraine’s agriculture resources are suffering increasing erosion, as more than thirty percent of Ukraine’s farmland is now held by massive, export-motivated companies largely under foreign control, and whose commodity-driven profits do not benefit Ukrainians. A more hopeful reconstruction strategy for Ukraine necessarily includes a shift away from the excessive use of external financing and towards a transitory model of democratic state capitalism, under which the state, as a major controller of the economy’s productive wealth, will become a key provider of credit resources for the economy. The constructivist state will also enact policies that promote full employment, restore and progressively restructure large-scale productive property, maintain aggregate investment, and nurture economy-wide participatory processes. The article concludes that only by constructing an economically democratic market can Ukraine initiate its own social control of economic development and successfully accomplish a progressive restoration of its post-war economy.