The capitalist reformer of Estonia
April 19, 2008 – 4:55 pm by JohnMart Laar, prime minister of the former Soviet republic of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002, won the 2006 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty from the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute’s description of him says,
Laar realized that the only way for Estonia to weather the crisis was to finally leave behind the legacy of its communist past. He announced deep cuts to paternalistic state welfare programs, slashed business taxes, and urged liberalization of international trade. By the end of his term, the government’s Bureau of Privatization was dissolved; more than 90 percent of the economy was in private hands. The economy was growing 7 percent annually, and Laar was widely credited as the force behind the creation of the “Baltic Tiger.”
Mart Laar believes in economic freedom because he believes in the Estonian people. As a young student of history, Laar braved Soviet arrest by researching Estonian resistance to the World War II occupation. In his first term of office, he negotiated the withdrawal of Russian troops from the country, introduced the highly stable Estonian currency, and implemented a flat tax that has decreased steadily since 1994.
It then quotes Dick Armey (of all people…couldn’t they find a more libertarian public figure who had heard of this guy?), who said of Laar and his reforms, “If Estonia is not a vindication of everything we believe in—from free trade to privatization to sound money to balanced budget—I am at a loss as to how else one could validate our ideas.”
Hat tip: Radley Balko.
2 Responses to “The capitalist reformer of Estonia”
Since when do politicians believe in free trade and sound money? And if they do, how come we don’t have ‘em?
By Francois Tremblay on Apr 20, 2008
Oh, we’re more civilized than that in the West, so we’ve moved beyond the primitive inclination to leave people’s lives and fortunes to the chaos of an unmanaged economy and private decision-making.
By John on Apr 20, 2008