General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsselfish reasons to worry about what happens to Russia
It seems that since the end of the Cold War, the financial elite have become more brazen in screwing the middle and working class (and even a lot of the rich) and buying politicians more openly to help them do so.
They may have been more circumspect in the past because for all its flaws, communism would look more attractive to Europeans and Americans if we were still treated the way we were in the robber baron era, and while the Soviet Union was a going concern, it would look like a realistic rather than hypothetical option.
So we got the original "Third Way" between capitalism and socialism, smoothing the corners and rough edges off capitalism enough that people didn't think too much about alternatives.
Once the Soviet Union was gone, the financial elite seem to believe Francis Fukuyama's pronouncement that it was the end of history and they had won. Without an alternative for people to look to, the Third Way became three-quarters of the way to fascism and back to the era of Charles Dickens--smoothing the edges off capitalism was too expensive when the rich could just keep the tax money that costs in their pocket, and then privatize any surviving government services, so the tax dollars that are collected end up back in their hands.
If that is how they treat us now, regardless of whether you think Putin is a nice guy, do you think the financial elite are going to treat us any better once they don't even have Russia as a major REGIONAL obstacle?
If they replace every government that doesn't do business on terms the IMF, World Bank, Wall St, oil companies and the like dictate, is that going to make life any better for the rest of us?
When the sun never set on the British Empire, far from helping the folks back in England, those were the darkest days of the Industrial Revolution, when men, women, and children worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week.
Have our lives gotten any better since we've gone from one of two superpowers to the SOLE superpower in the world?
If not why should we expect to get any better if the continue to isolate Russia and take away their oil and gas business until they become a super-sized Somalia?
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)I do not want them backed into a corner.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,306 posts)Huge numbers of billionaires who control their industries, spending the money like confetti around the world, while the average Russian is still pretty poor. Russia isn't an obstacle to capitalism - it's a major participant.
wealth inequality in Russia is the highest in the world.
Worldwide there is one billionaire for every USD 194 billion in
household wealth; Russia has one billionaire for every USD 15
billion. Worldwide, billionaires collectively account for less than
2% of total household wealth; in Russia today, around 100
billionaires own 30% of all personal assets.
http://economics.uwo.ca/news/Davies_CreditSuisse_Oct12.pdf
From that report: the USA has a median wealth of $38,786, and a mean wealth of $262,351 - 6.8 times the median. That indicates a lot of inequality. Japan's ratio is much lower - 1.9 times. The UK's is 2.2, India 4.5, China 2.7. Russia has median wealth of $1,267 and mean of $12,161 - a ratio of 9.6.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)His economy and polity is largely set up in a way our elites wish we had here.
What they don't like is who is collecting the profits and calling the shots.