- " Take Ukraine, as example. Even though its highly skilled workforce (lotsa doctors, engineers, philosophers and scientists--99% literacy) initially ended up as street vendors ..." my dear echoes ji- this is exactly my point. you see this as a trade off between short-term suffering and long-term gain (provided i agree with your claim that the ukrainian are doing great after "freedom"). but i don't see it that way. they way i see it, even though they had a "highly skilled workforce" they were not achieving. why? 'cause freedom was absent. you see freedom as mere ends. but i see freedom as both ends AND means. freedom is a primary end and it is the principle means. in freedom's "constitutive" (with apologies to Sen) role it becomes a goal, but it is in it's "instrumental" (again, apologies to Sen) role that freedom makes the attainment of the goal possible. i view the latter as perhaps the more important one in our context.