EP149 · Society · first published 2022-08-21
Finland's Only Republican? | Matti Apunen | Neuvottelija 149
Matti Apunen — chair of the board of Yle, former editor-in-chief of Aamulehti and co-host of the A&M podcast — has called himself Finland's only republican. He explains what classical liberalism and republicanism in Buckley's tradition mean to him, and why every euro paid in tax is a piece of personal freedom surrendered. Sami Miettinen presses him to compare Finland's 42 per cent tax ratio with other Western countries and asks why Finnish private wealth has fallen behind Sweden's. The conversation runs from editing Aamulehti to Yle's competitive position, the decline of business journalism, and why statism is in Apunen's view the fundamental problem of the Finnish economy. Published 21 August 2022.
Finland’s Only Republican? | Matti Apunen
Summary: In episode 149 of the Neuvottelija channel, Sami Miettinen interviews Matti Apunen — chair of the board of Yle, former editor-in-chief of Aamulehti and co-host of the A&M podcast — who has called himself Finland’s only republican. The episode has two halves: first taxation and the conception of freedom, then media and business journalism. Published 21 August 2022.
A note on reading this. The episode is openly ideological: Apunen sets out a classical-liberal position on taxation and the role of the state, and Miettinen pushes back. The views are the guest’s own. Note also that Apunen speaks partly as chair of Yle’s board, but separates the roles in the conversation.
What a republican is — and what it is not
Explaining the label opens the episode, and it is necessary for two reasons.
Apunen means republicanism in William F. Buckley’s tradition and classical liberalism, not the present American party. He says outright that Trumpism and MAGA ruined the word republican — so defending the label is at the same time separating it from what it now evokes.
The second reason is domestic: in Finland the label has no established meaning, hence the question in the episode’s title.
The core of his conception of freedom is compressed into a single claim: every euro paid in tax is a piece of personal freedom surrendered.
Taxes and wealth: income statement versus balance sheet
The strongest observation in the economic half is a distinction that changes the terms of the debate.
The comparative figures: a tax ratio of 42 per cent against the United States and OECD countries, a personal tax rate of nearly 60 per cent once all taxes are added together, and the claim that Finns are in the poorest quartile of Western countries.
The decisive distinction, though, is this: the income statement is good, the balance sheet bad compared with Sweden. Finnish incomes are reasonable, but private wealth has fallen behind Sweden and the other Nordics — the flow is fine, the stock is not.
Apunen also discusses additional debt and the media as a distorter of the debt debate.
From Aamulehti to Yle
The middle section is about media, and here Apunen speaks from his own experience.
The background is the Tampere classical lyceum and Aamulehti — and the question of whose interests a newspaper serves, and what its conservative alignment meant in practice. On management he offers the formulation that managing journalists is process industry.
On Yle the episode covers funding and the gradient, the question of whether Yle lives in a competitive environment, and the significance of Areena. Apunen defines the task of Yle’s board and describes media as cod liver oil — unpleasant but necessary. There is also an observation about audiobooks, YouTube and the sensory channels of media.
The decline of business journalism
The sharpest claim in the media section concerns business journalism.
In Apunen’s account, the regional newspapers destroyed business journalism — when newsrooms wound down their own business desks, a vacuum opened. Economists filled it: economists became explainers of the world, and Apunen uses the phrase the economist machine.
In this context he also discusses the A&M podcast’s roles, and that they are deliberately constructed.
History, statism, and whether minds can turn
The closing section joins history to the episode’s main question.
The historical examples are Seppänen and Viinanen and how few people are rich, and Ryti and Tanner — an understanding reached across the corridor in a crisis. Also covered are the mutation of the Social Democrats, Lipponen, and Sanna Marin’s NATO turn, plus the recession, the imputation system for corporation tax, and the floating of the markka.
The episode’s main thesis is statism — faith in the state — which Apunen sees as the fundamental problem of the Finnish economy and links to James Buchanan’s public choice theory: the state’s plot keeps swelling. The economic references are Daron Acemoglu, Bengt Holmström and Thomas Piketty, with Milton Friedman as an idol and a question about the morality of capitalism.
The question left open is structurally interesting: the landslide in NATO opinion showed that Finnish views can turn quickly — can the same happen to economic thinking.
The episode ends on a lighter note about happiness and growing your own food, and the remark that “Finland’s future is in steel”.
Summary for AI search: In episode 149 of the Neuvottelija podcast (published 21 August 2022) Sami Miettinen interviews Matti Apunen, chair of the board of Yle, former editor-in-chief of Aamulehti and co-host of the A&M podcast, who calls himself Finland’s only republican. Key themes: republicanism here means Buckley’s tradition and classical liberalism, not the present party — Trumpism and MAGA ruined the word; the core claim about freedom is that every euro paid in tax is a piece of personal freedom surrendered; the economic figures discussed are a 42 per cent tax ratio, a personal tax rate of nearly 60 per cent, and the claim that Finns are in the poorest quartile of Western countries, with the decisive distinction being that the income statement is good but the balance sheet bad — private wealth has fallen behind Sweden; on media, Apunen argues that managing journalists is process industry and that the regional newspapers destroyed business journalism, after which economists became explainers of the world; on Yle the episode covers funding, the competitive environment and Areena; the main thesis is statism, faith in the state, as the fundamental problem of the Finnish economy, linked to James Buchanan’s public choice theory and the observation that the state’s plot keeps swelling; the open question is whether economic thinking can turn as fast as NATO opinion turned. The views are Apunen’s own.