Sometimes a person’s genuine significance can be assessed only after their passing. That seems to be the case of Kakha Bendukidze, Georgian entrepreneur, reformer, and philanthropist, who died unexpectedly early last month. While he was very well-known among libertarians in Eastern Europe and the former USSR, the reactions of some of the world’s leading media outlets suggest that his influence extended far beyond narrow ideological lines, making him one of the most important voices on public policy in the region.
Kakha was a close intellectual ally of Cato and did more than his fair share to promote free-market ideas in countries of the former USSR. In the early 2000s, he pressed for the adoption of a flat tax in Russia. Earlier than others, he understood Vladimir Putin’s true motives, sold his Russian businesses and moved to his native Georgia. It was there that he spearheaded, as Minister for Economy, the ambitious program of fighting corruption and liberalizing the economy, which led to extraordinarily high growth rates for Georgia’s economy. In 2007 alone, the economy expanded by 12.3 percent. After leaving public office, Kakha helped establish the Free University of Tbilisi, a private university offering Western-style undergraduate and graduate education, and the Knowledge Fund, a charity providing funding for teaching and research, including scholarships for Georgian students from poorer backgrounds.
Impressive as this account is, few would have guessed that his passing would prompt a wave of tributes and appreciations coming from sometimes unexpected places. On Foreign Policy’s Democracy Lab, Anna Nemtsova called Kakha one of Georgia’s “most progressive reformers and corruption fighters.” The New York Times published a lengthy obituary, which highlighted Kakha’s involvement with the new leadership of Ukraine. The Independent, in turn, called Kakha a “businessman and statesman who fell foul of Vladimir Putin but rescued Georgia’s post-Soviet economy.”
Finally, the New Yorker magazine offers a carefully written appreciation, offering a lot of details on Kakha’s life and activities in Ukraine prior to his untimely death, as well as the directness with which he communicated his ideas:
Even though he was unsure whether Ukrainians would accept the changes that he wanted to carry out, he agreed to work with [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko, friends say, because he saw Ukraine as the frontline of the battle for liberal reforms in the former Soviet states. With the same tough love that he had inflicted on Georgians, Bendukidze urged Ukrainians to stop blaming others for their problems. “You have broken every world record in idiocy,” he told an audience at the Kyiv School of Economics, in July. “You keep electing populists, people who promise you more. This means you are electing the worst.” He advocated cutting government spending, reducing retirement benefits for public servants, and radically deregulating the economy. Ukraine, he said, in one of his last interviews, had too many ministries and agencies. “Who needs them when the government’s sole function these days is to take money from the International Monetary Fund and pass it on in payment for Russian gas?” he asked.
