Too-heavy-state

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If you’re going to discuss some libertarian ideas on Russian – you need to be ready for major misunderstanding and problematic terminology. Russian language is a product of russian history, and its development was slowed by totalitarian Soviet state. True and honest debates were virtually impossible, so modern political terminology was also useless.

So today russian libertarian discourse uses mostly translated terms, and some of them are ambiguous and even contradictory. E.g. one of the most used terms in modern libertarianism - minarchism (idea of minimal government) and its opposite – Big Government.

Russian translation for Big Government isn’t literally – “Большое государство” rather means Big State, not Big Government. But in Russian “Big State” sounds really cool. It’s not a kind of bad thing, russians love everything big – Tsar Bell, Tsar Cannon and of course Mother Russia itself.

Personally i prefer my own translation – “Heavy State“. It’s much more descriptive and expressive. The Heavy state is not servicing and protecting its citizens, instead they serve it and are oppressed by it. Heaviest, totalitarian states – Soviet Union (especially in Stalin age), Nazi Germany, North Korea. Lighter states tend to be more libertarian: less taxes, less government, more Laissez-faire.