I was quite surprised to hear that Andrus Ansip, the prime minister of Estonia, is a fan of Ludwig von Mises. “Liberalism” was published in Estonian a while back, and Ansip attended a publication party, reading excerpts from the book and said that Misesian liberalism was his ideal. He is a member of the Reform Party, a classical liberal party which is currently in government with The Fatherland and Res Publica union, a conservative party. They’ve handled the economic crisis very sanely by radically cutting spending. Estonia has a flat income tax at 21%, the Reform Party promised to bring it down 3% with every term(Unfulfilled unfortunately because of the crisis). They’re currently the most popular party and might very well win the elections again next year. Does Austrian economics have a shot at gaining influence in Estonia?
Yes it does.
Ex-communist nations now loathe statism (save Bulgaria, Hungary, and a few odd others), and they are all willing to get the governments off their back forever.
Even if it wasn’t for the benefits for free society, too many of them have memories of harsh bureaucrats and secret police in the workplaces and simply prefer government to stop being an ache on the back of their neck. And by any means possible.
On top of that, Estonia weathered the recession beautifully and was creating tens of thousands of jobs right as it went through it. No doubt, it’s unlikely that a prime minister would enjoy tieing up his own hands and willingly go all the way with it, but I guess Estonian public officials would simply prefer to liberalise and quickly get jobs in the private sector.
Rothbard, in What Has Government Done With Our Money, said that Switzerland and West Germany in the 1950s were having their monetary policy advised by the Austrian School, and the Austrian School tends to be accepted in places with a bad history of statism, as was the case in West Germany (older people remembered Weimar inflation).
Unfortunately the reform party is low tax and “libertarian” in propaganda only. They have cranked up consumption taxes and energy taxes during the last year, want to introduce a law that limits press freedom by forcing journalists reveal their sources and have attempted to push through legislation similar to the US Patriot Act after we had riots a couple of years ago. Ansip thinks that increasing indirect taxes and cutting direct taxes will help the economy. They have allowed for internet censorship of foreign casino sites(lobbying of one of the domestic gambling firms) and have dramatically increased participation in foreign missions(Estonia has highest participation per capita in Afghanistan). Basically all the neo-con anti civil liberty and big military shit.
Hmmm…sounds like the famous “libertarian” Bill Buckley all over again.