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Published: January 9th, 2018

Recently I learned that Pacific shrimps will be grown in the Kaluga region. On the tables of metropolitan restaurants, shrimp will now be fresh, not unfrozen, and a new; rapidly growing industry will appear in domestic agriculture. The director of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements, the expert of the MEF Boris Kagarlitsky, shared his opinion.

Such kind of joyous news is literally full of press. And experts, often serious and respected, comment on the children's emotions, explaining to the public that the replacement of Vladivostok and Crimean shrimps with Kaluga is a success of "import substitution", and the opening of a new combine in Siberia, which, with the help of foreign equipment, carries out primary processing of raw materials for export to China , Is a step towards overcoming our dependence on raw materials exports. The industry of "good news" - one of the few Soviet industries, which in fact is rapidly reborn.

The older generation involuntarily recalls Leonid Brezhnev and the newspaper Pravda of the times of stagnation. Although, frankly, the good news of that era was more extensive. Still, the country really built and commissioned large factories, which at that time were producing technologically complex products. The order for "good news" clearly came from above and centrally. And he is justified in his own way: in the end it is psychologically unpleasant to always read about the bad. But the press has been specializing in this for many years now.

In a free market, bad news is often sold better than good news, and therefore officials have decided that in this area, a kind of protectionism is needed. Joy and positive must be subsidized. The trouble is that, as always, it turns out bust. Since the flow of good news is not generated spontaneously by the most changing to a better life, it must be created artificially, pulling out minor and minor events to the fore, giving them exaggerated significance. To do this, in fact, we need expert comments, without which we would not understand that the country where shrimp learned to grow in the rural basin, it is already five minutes before the mistress of the seas. It turns out to be exhausted, unnatural and exaggerated. And most importantly, the credibility of such publications and their authors falls proportionally to the growth of their number. It is understandable that the flow of good news is called upon to replace not only the election program for Vladimir Putin (why should one think about this, if everything is going well in the country), but in general the pre-election debate.

For more than a year, government circles have been rushing about in search of an "image of the future", ordering research and reports to costly experts, but they could not come up with anything worthwhile. Now, when there was very little time left before the elections, we finally realized that we do not need any future at all. The image of a beautiful future will be replaced by the image of a magnificent present. Moreover, in fact, our present is so beautiful that there is no need to change anything. At least so people think, living in expensive mansions and sitting in luxurious executive offices. To their misfortune, the rest of the citizens of Russia on this account may have a slightly different opinion.

Source: Versia