Most liberal-minded Russia-watchers are working under the assumption that the greatest hope for freedom in Russia is the consumer boom.

This is for several reasons. First, the rise of consumerism goes hand-in-hand with a transformation of consciousness among Russian people. It involves a switch from a producer-oriented economy, such as existed during the Soviet Union, to a consumer-oriented economy.

During the Soviet Union, all the power was with the producers. The poor Soviet consumer had to go, cap-in-hand, to the store, queue up for hours, and beg, plead and bribe the store salesmen for a sofa, or a piece of sausage, or whatever it was they needed.  The Soviet store manager was all-powerful, an unanswerable God, and the customer a pathetic creature who dangled at the manager’s mercy, like a worm on a hook.

This relationship was a microcosm of the wider relationship between state and citizen, where the citizen depended almost entirely on the mercy and whim of each bureaucrat, before whom he cringed and pleaded in abject submission.

One still sees this form of relationship, all over Russia, the way that Russians, particularly older Russians, will put up with long delays without a murmur, and not reprimand any official standing nearby, but instead converse with them with pathetic gratitude and even awe. One even finds oneself, after living here for a few years, shrinking one’s shoulders and raising one’s eyebrows meekly, as one approaches a bureaucrat’s desk, because you know everything depends on that bureaucrat’s pleasure, that he could make your life incredibly difficult, or suddenly much easier, depending on how he feels, and on how helpless and meek you look.

Nonetheless, this economic and political relationship is changing. Power is going to the consumer. Now, a Russian can go to IKEA, pick out their sofa, pick it up, take it home and install it, and all without depending on a single grumpy sales-clerk. They can do it all themselves! That, after decades of the Soviet Union, is truly miraculous.

The consumer market is broadening. Russians are learning to shop around. If one bank doesn’t provide them the rates or the consumer products they want, they’ll move to another bank. Russian banks, in turn, are suddenly putting millions of dollars into trying to win consumers, through advertising, competitive rates, customer service, loyalty schemes. These are the same banks that had absolutely no interest in the customer in the 1990s, who were basically vehicles for speculation and money-laundering for their holding groups.

Russians are learning they have consumer rights. Before human rights come consumer rights. Before you have the courage to complain to your government, you have to have the courage to complain to your waiter. Russians are learning to complain. Look at the remarkable hunger strike going on right now in Prospekt Mira, as middle-aged men and women sit in a block for weeks on end, demanding they get what they paid for. That, one hopes, is the seed of a wider political activism.

If Russians borrow more consumer debt, and buy more goods, there is also an idea that they will become more bourgeois, not just in their material but in their political outlook. They will become more cultivated, more educated, with a greater sense of their own personal worth (tied to their material status), which makes them more inclined to raise their voice against their government, and stand up for their beliefs. Civil associations, business associations, lobby groups, clubs, these all sprang up in eighteenth century England, hand-in-hand with a bourgeois consumer boom.

The more personal wealth you have, the more you are inclined to set a limit on the extent to which government can encroach upon you, either through taxes, erratic economic policies, or bureaucratic arbitrariness.

And the greater the consumer boom, the less the economy is dominated by state-controlled natural resources giants, like Gazprom or Rosneft, whose resources are easily manipulated for an authoritarian state, and the more it comes to be dominated by independent consumer stores, who don’t owe their existence to the government, and who are less easily controlled by it.

Russia-watchers thus greet each indication of the country’s consumer boom with a cheer, because they believe the present flood of consumer credit is the amniotic water breaking before the birth of the middle class. ‘Buy!’ they cry, ‘buy!’ like a midwife shouting ‘Push!’ Each new consumer loan taken out, each shiny new fridge purchased, is another push for freedom.

Or is it?

I have come to the opinion that there is no such thing as freedom. There are only various forms of submission and dependence. I interviewed Roustam Tariko, the king of the consumer revolution, this weekend. He set up Russian Standard Bank, which provides more consumer loans than any other bank in Russia. He sets himself up as a prophet of freedom, after the repression and stagnation of the Soviet Union. He even had a party in front of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

But at other times, he seems doubtful of his role. “I don’t think there’s a link between freedom and consumer loans”, he told me. “Why is it free to be in debt to a bank? The freest state would be to have no possessions or debts at all.”

So, perhaps, what Russians have really done is change one form of submission – to Marxist ideology and the Soviet state, for another – to consumer debt, and also to status, to the need to look good to others, to keep up with the Joneses, to buy the latest mobile phone, the latest I-Pod, or plasma screen TV, or Mercedes-Benz. There is no such thing as freedom, just different forms of submission and dependence.

We shall close with hymn number 57, by Bob Dylan, ‘You’ve Got To Serve Somebody’:

You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage,
You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,
You may be a business man or some high degree thief,
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk,
You may be the head of some big TV network,
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame,
You may be living in another country under another name

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a construction worker working on a home,
You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome,
You might own guns and you might even own tanks,
You might be somebody's landlord, you might even own banks

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,
You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,
You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk,
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk,
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread,
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy,
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy,
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray,
You may call me anything but no matter what you say

You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Julian Evans, a British freelance journalist based in Moscow.

October 3, 2006