Press release, 16.12.2016
On December 15, Sergei Mitrokhin, Chair of Moscow YABLOKO and deputy of the State Duma of the 1-3 convocations, delivered a lecture on “The liberal breakthrough and conservative deadlock” within the discussion club of Moscow YABLOKO Youth.

According to Sergei Mitrokhin, one should think of ideologies in the light of development of all the humankind, in the light of study on the world development. Why do some countries progress rapidly, others slowly whereas some countries make no progress at all?

Sergei Mitrokhin showed diagrams illustrating major criteria of a state’s effectiveness such as the corruption perceptions index, transparency of government, innovation of economy, index of economic freedom, and government effectiveness. The western counties, Nordic countries in particular, keep the leading positions in the rates. On the other hand, Asian and African dictatorships as well as Russia fare worst in the crony capitalism and capital concentration indexes.

Mitrokhin claims that there is a direct correlation between the progress of a state and its ideological basis.

“The countries where progress took over the conservative trend in due time are the most successful nowadays. Universalism, equality before the law, equality of opportunity are the major foundations of a modern liberal society,” Mitrokhin noted.

After the lecture the participants discussed the perspectives of Russia’s development, the possibility to avoid grand-scale upheavals and make YABLOKO’s mission a reality – to change the government peacefully and create sustainable economic development.