Janek Mäggi: Estonia Wallows in the Mud, and That’s a Good Thing!

“When the situation is dire, everyone is to blame, everyone must suffer, put in the effort, and work. Work has been forgotten by too many people; entertainment has become the purpose of life.”

The state of the Estonian economy seems bleak to a consumption-hungry population. There’s no sense of the feeling expressed by Juice Leskinen: “Estonia, Estonia, Estonia! I miss it desperately! Estonia, Estonia, Estonia! That’s where I want to be!” – that everything here is amazing, that the world envies us, that we’re a remarkable phenomenon.

Even Finns aren’t interested in us anymore. It’s disheartening, but that’s the reality. At the Olympics, we return empty-handed – fourth place is disappointing, to say the least. We’re neither winning gold nor silver, and we can’t even reach bronze. No success, no shine, no flourish – what’s wrong, Estonia?

If the government starts cutting funding to theaters, slashes large portions of parental benefits and other excessive subsidies, reduces healthcare funding, halts pension indexing, freezes salaries of teachers, rescuers, police officers, and other public sector employees, an outcry will rise to the heavens – “We’re starving! Estonia is doomed! We’re running away!”

To our shame, in many strategic indicators, we’ve fallen behind Latvians and Lithuanians—our Baltic neighbors, whom we’ve always thought of as being behind us for decades. “Where Estonia has minuses in the rankings, Lithuania has plusses!” declares Egle Sauks, an opinion editor at Eesti Päevaleht.

Fact – We’re at the Bottom

LHV economic analyst Heido Vitsur shows no mercy to Estonia: “The ongoing talk about reaching or staying on the path to the top five richest countries can only be qualified as an empty and reality-ignoring attempt to gloss over the true situation.”

There’s reason to complain about the sluggish economy, high prices, and constant price increases, alongside a relatively slow wage growth, job cuts in various crucial sectors, and more. No passion, no money, no welfare – everything is bad to the core! Nothing seems to be getting better. Publicly, no one believes it; privately, there are still some who do.

Ironically, it’s great that quality of life hasn’t improved because soon, it’s bound to get worse. Taxes will increase, support will decrease, and people’s motivation to work and earn for themselves and the state will decline.

One should probably give up not only the car but everything that feeds the state. There’s no point working just to pay taxes. Instead, one might as well read “Faust” and wonder: why does the state, wishing to do good, end up causing harm?

In such circumstances, it’s worth asking: what constitutes quality life? Perhaps the truth is the opposite: the less money there is, the healthier society is, the more frugal the lifestyle, and the higher the quality of life? Growth is desired to “live even better,” but maybe we’re already living well enough, and there’s no need to aim for more? Estonia is pleasantly poor but strikingly green.

What You See Is Not Reality

Life in Estonia is bearable for most citizens, enjoyable for many. It’s natural that some years are worse and some better. No country stays at the top forever; no one collects all the gold from every competition. Few people see their income grow every single month throughout their working lives. Estonia has made recurrent mistakes in the eyes of die-hard capitalists, but mature individuals see Estonia as a country that’s doing fine.

I am far from thinking that only some citizens should bear the burden of the economy’s fluctuations: those who believe in the future alongside the present – primarily entrepreneurs, who instead of profits are currently swallowing losses. When company values fall, employees and the public sector must also bear part of this burden. It’s unacceptable that salaried workers and public sector employees party in Canary Islands nightclubs while entrepreneurs lick their wounds or die outright.

When the situation is dire, everyone is to blame, everyone must suffer, put in the effort, and work. Work has been forgotten by too many people; entertainment has become the purpose of life. But those who entertain themselves excessively shouldn’t complain when the bread runs out. There’s no money for fun; instead, everything they have will be taken.