The ideas of Radan and the Gamble

Yesterday, in a successful PR move, the headquarters of the Reformist Bloc managed to include in Radan Kanev's live interview with Kapital newspaper hip hop artist Itso Hazarta - making the conversation significantly more interesting and watchable. The Upsurt rapper himself insisted on camera that he wanted to support "Radan and the people around him" because of their ideas, so it would be interesting to write a review of at least those of them who were mentioned in the live broadcast.

The best impression was made by Kanev's position on Corpbank, which is diametrically opposed to that of his mentor-turned-lobbyist Ivan Kostov. The new chairman of DSB stood for taxpayers not to cover the oligarchy's bills, and the state not to save the bank with new public debt. Of course, Kanev then diluted his comment with personal ideas about how exactly to spend foreign money and confirmed the saying that the difference between red and blue statists is what they plan to use your money for.

Kanev's comment about Bulgarian emigrants, which followed the conversation about Corpbank, did not make much sense. After the journalists from Dnevnik asked him how he would convince the diaspora to return, Radan basically developed the thesis that the most important thing is to give them the right to vote (with preference) and mumbled something about electronic government. Of course, before that he explained for a long time how important Bulgarians abroad are and how much they communicate with him. The holes in the ideology began to appear.

After a long silence, Gazarta joined in, hopefully stating that people will vote “because they’re not stupid and they see things, they know they can make a difference…they’re not stupid, they’re not stupid.” Although the rapper presented an unqualified defense of voting as a method for achieving positive political change, I would direct his attention to the work of Nobel laureate James Buchanan and his colleague Gordon Tullock, who hold a different view. In The Calculus of Consent, they explain why and how systemic political decisions are actually made, and in The Vote Motive, why voter ignorance is completely rational (something that is proven to us in every election).

The icing on the democratic cake was the statement that everyone who votes (regardless of who) deserves respect...because that's how democracy works. That is, even if you vote for dark red class struggle or light brown Nazism, as many of our relatives, neighbors and friends like to do, you still deserve respect, because you bowed your head before the deified democracy, because "we are given this opportunity - to vote". We are deeply grateful for this unique opportunity, thank you for the opportunity, as they say.

Another serious topic that bothers the duo is education. The interviewers started with an inappropriate question about school toilets, but Hazarta and Radan wisely move on to another level by grumbling about what kind of heroes teachers are and how they would disappear. What worries Kanev the most are political appointments in education, here is a quote from the Dnevnik page:

"School principals are already party appointments, teachers and doctors are coming up," he said, adding that the moment party-based appointments begin for these positions, the last worthy people will withdraw from them."

I have a solution for Mr. Kanev, it is very easy to eliminate party appointments in all activities that the state controls by depriving them of their presence. Remove the monopoly of the Ministry of Education, remove the monopoly of the NHIF, separate both sectors from politicians and bureaucrats and let's see exactly what appointments there will be and what you will pay for the toilets.

After the weak question about the toilets, there followed a rather specific and serious one about one of the most rotten systems in the country - the judicial system. There, Kanev's words were rather reasonable, the reforms he proposed - in the direction of reducing the concentration of power in various judicial cabals and in the Stalinist (and according to Kanev himself) Chief Prosecutor's Office. It would be good if this was the only topic on which the former spokesman of the Republic of Bulgaria spoke, but alas.

In the last part of the conversation came the classics and the material for newspaper headlines. Gambling started "strongly" by stating that he had not noticed a problem with homophobia in Bulgaria, which would have been a good joke if it were not a more painful topic for many people. Then, in order to get out of the question, he said that he was not as capable as politicians and it was good that he would not solve these things. Radan, for his part, started to overdo it by saying how close he was to human rights activists, how many LGBT friends he had, but still gay marriages are impossible because violence would break out in society - so dear gay people, you will wait until the homophobes get comfortable.

Finishing with gay marriage, the interview moved on to drugs. Kanev expressed doubts that freedom is a good thing if it also includes drug use. No one should be punished "if a joint is found in their bag," the politician said, but on the other hand, he does not like the idea of Bulgaria as a destination for drug procurement, as we have become for alcohol tourism. That is, regardless of whether we want to dispose of our lives, sick people with their medicine, and entrepreneurs with their businesses, Kanev does not like it!

He also does not like the legalization of prostitution due to "unestablished legality" in the state, he prefers that this business continue to be underground, that those working in it are by definition criminals and that there is no possibility of solving possible health or violence-related problems in it. And they cannot be solved by criminalizing voluntary human relationships. As a conclusion on the topic, the legalization of prostitution would lead to "a nasty monopoly pimping", and why - science and Radan are silent.

The DSB politician also presented another prediction, something new for economic science called "monopoly cartels", which will appear if we legalize drugs. Here I will quote Milton Friedman (who may not be at the level of Ivan Kostov - recognized by Kanev as an authority in the field of finance), but he still knows something about the topic: "If you look at the war on drugs from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel". In a free market without heavy regulations, prohibitions and political interventions, neither a monopoly nor a cartel can exist for long.

In the end, we catch both interviewees in serious inadequacy on most of the topics in the conversation. It turns out that they are not just in the wrong position on drugs, prostitution or education, they have no idea how to at least partially adequately present a coherent defense of their theses. In the end, instead of hearing at least one new reason to exercise our vote in favor of the Republic of Bulgaria, we get at least three that make us do something more useful on Sunday – whether because the leaders and activists of the Bloc showed us that they do not understand how the democratic process works, whether because they have retrograde positions on serious topics or simply because they have no ideas.

P.P. for freedom lovers

A line that is shocking, but above all it betrays a way of thinking on Kanev's part - "as long as there is no state prosecution and state repression..." nothing can happen.

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