The ex-Soviet Union

The standard of living of the vast majority of citizens in the ex-USSR are vastly worse now, more than a decade after capitalist restoration. Apparently the free market has yet to work its marvels. Any explanations?

Can we start with some economic data supporting this allegation?

Because the free market has yet to work its marvels?

So how long do you figure it will take for those marvels to start working?

Because people like you are so intent on making sure capitalism fails so the totalitatianism of the past can be restored and they can regain the lost power and prestige they once had?

That’s my guess. Maybe posting some facts instead of saying “OK, it doesn’t work, so neener neener neener” would help to make it less of a guess and more of an educated opinion.

Well, Chumpsky, my best guesstimate would be between twenty and thirty years.

If they go back to Marxism, never.

They have to switch from a labor-extensive to a labor-intensive economy, build up their communications infrastructure, and nurture their enterprenueurial class. Tough row to hoe, no doubt about it.

If you thought free-market capitalism was an easy answer, don’t bet on it. There aren’t any of those. They were stalled for eighty years figuring out that a planned economy just doesn’t react fast enough to work.

Regards,
Shodan

What, you mean a few anti-capitalists like myself have the power to sabotage the wonders of the free market? Amazing. And, even with plenty of you guys out there making the world safe for Wall Street, just our malcontentedness can do that? Now, get back to defending the Fortune 500!

BTW, here is a discussion of the situation 5 years after capitalist restoration in Russia. One of the best summaries is in Michael Parenti’s book Blackshirts and Reds. The situation is a total disaster, in every arena. While a few people have become very rich, the rest of the population is really suffering. In Russia, 10,000 workers stopped working not because they had gone on strike, but because they had lost all strength from hunger. Agricultural production has plummeted, life expectancy has plummeted, and the infant mortality rate has sharply risen.

Really? Well, that doesn’t explain why people are worse off now than under socialism. It also doesn’t explain how the USSR was able to industrialize in a decade if planned economies are so awful.

Yeltsin claimed that 5 years was enough for the free-market to bring greater prosperity to Russia. Now, we see that free-market reforms have a negative impact on the economy and well-being of the people. Of course, this is all just a “temporary” adjustment period, that seems to go on forever. Of course, it will go on forever if there is no socialist reform.

Could we see a cite for “people are worse off now…”?

You may say so, but that hardly makes it so.

Over in this thread, Chumpsky has been asked by a couple of Venezuelan posters to support with some specifics his assertion that the election of Chavez has benefited the poor. So far he has ignored these requests.

Seems to me if he has time to open this thread, he has time to respond there. Me, I suggest holding off further discussion in this thread to provide the OP with sufficient time to clear up some of his loose ends.

Not until I get done posting this. :smiley:

The CIA Speaks, Your Tax Dollars At Work.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/rs.html

Russia scores a poor 3.70, “Mostly Unfree”, on the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Mainly it’s the high inflation rate, the booming black market, the poor level of protection of property rights, and “Overweening bureaucracy, lack of transparency, and red tape” that are all holding Russia back.

http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=122

Scores for previous years–the higher the number, the worse the score. Looks to me like it’s been slowly getting a little bit worse since 1995. But bear in mind, this is only an index of economic freedom–how open Russia is to foreign investors, how much regulation their banking system has, how well they take care of your investment.

Contrast this with Switzerland, which scores 1.95 “Free”, the U.S., which scores 1.80 “Free”, and the UK, which scores 1.85 “Free”. You can look up other countries here.

Big tables of wages, etc. comparing the different former Soviet republics with each other. It’s FWIW, as it’s apparently his own research.

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/08/F.RU.990812135001.html

OTOH, there’s this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2296107.stm

And then there’s…Hosiery.

http://www.bisnis.doc.gov/bisnis/country/010713rustextiles.htm

So, it looks like the Bottom Line is:
[ul][li]that the Russian Capitalist Experiment is still ongoing[/li][li]that Russia is pretty much still where it was 10 years ago–not that much better, but not that much worse[/li][li]that it isn’t Capitalism itself that’s at fault, but the fault of the people who make up the system[/li][li]that Putin wasn’t “evil” or “wrong”–he was just over-optimistic, and stonewalling, because he’s a politician, and that’s what politicians do[/li][*]that the Experiment might be progressing faster if the Russians could stop shooting themselves in the foot. (feet?)[/ul]

Well, for starters, what’s going on in Russia right now may no longer be socialism (if, indeed, it ever was), but it sure ain’t free-market capitalism, either. The old elites are still in control in many respects, and while it’s true that the Soviet-era safety nets have been removed from those who needed them most (pensioners are getting royally screwed, as are public employees such as teachers), even in Soviet times most people scraped by through earning extra money from side, under-the-table jobs and limited private (illegal) commerce. In fact, the worst fate you could ever wish a Soviet was “may you be forced to live on your salary!”

Start off with Jim Leitzel’s * Russian Economic Reform* if you want a more complex depiction; if you find it useful, there’s lots more where that came from. I also really like David Remnick’s Lenin’s Tomb for a general, non-scholarly overview of contemporary Russian society. Upon request, I’ll dig out my syllabus from a grad course called “Post-Socialist Economies in Transition.”

Eva Luna, M.A. in Russian & East European Studies (Leningrad fall '89, Novosibirsk summer '95)

Here’s some selected figures from the CIA Factbook of 1991 (the last year there was an entry for the U.S.S.R.) and the 2002 edition.

I have a few doubts about the CIA’s factbooks (especially on their calculations of GDP and Per Capita Income, which underwent some reorganization in the mid-1990’s). But it’s what I have…

Also I won’t post all 15 republics, just Russia, but I think it is somewhat average (between the wealthier Baltics on one hand and impoverished places like Moldova and Tajikistan on the other hand).
1991 U.S.S.R.

Population: 293,047,571 (July 1991), growth rate 0.7% (1991)

Birth rate: 17 births/1,000 population (1991)

Death rate: 10 deaths/1,000 population (1991)

Net migration rate: 0 migrants/1,000 population (1991)

Infant mortality rate: 23 deaths/1,000 live births (1991)

Life expectancy at birth: 65 years male, 74 years female

Total fertility rate: 2.4 children born/woman (1991)

Literacy: 98% (male 99%, female 97%) age 15 and over can
read and write (1989)

GNP: approximately $2,660 billion, per capita $9,130

_#_Telecommunications: 37 million telephone subscribers; phone
density of 37 per 100 households; urban phone density is 9.2 phones
per 100 residents; rural phone density is 2.9 per 100 residents (June
1990);
automatic telephone dialing with 70 countries and between 25 Soviet
cities (April 1989);
stations–457 AM, 131 FM, over 900 TV; 90 million TVs (December 1990)
** Russia (1996)**

Population: 148,178,487 (July 1996 est.)

Population growth rate: -0.07% (1996 est.)

Birth rate: 10.15 births/1,000 population (1996 est.)

Death rate: 16.34 deaths/1,000 population (1996 est.)

Net migration rate: 5.47 migrant(s)/1,000 population (1996 est.)

Infant mortality rate: 24.7 deaths/1,000 live births (1996 est.)
total population: 63.24 years

male: 56.51 years

female: 70.31 years (1996 est.)

Total fertility rate: 1.42 children born/woman (1996 est.)

Literacy: age 15 and over can read and write (1989 est.)
total population: 98%
male: 100%
female: 97%
GDP: purchasing power parity - $796 billion (1995 estimate as extrapolated from World Bank estimate for 1994)
GDP real growth rate: -4% (1995 est.)
GDP per capita: $5,300 (1995 est.)

Telephones: 25.4 million (1993 est.)
Radios: 50 million (1993 est.)(radio receivers with multiple speaker systems for program diffusion 74,300,000)
Televisions: 54.85 million (1992 est.)

Russia 2002
Population:
144,978,573 (July 2002 est.)

Population growth rate:
-0.33% (2002 est.)

Birth rate:
9.71 births/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Death rate:
13.91 deaths/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Net migration rate:
0.94 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2002 est.)

Infant mortality rate:
19.78 deaths/1,000 live births (2002 est.)

Life expectancy at birth:
total population: 67.5 years
female: 72.97 years (2002 est.)
male: 62.29 years

Total fertility rate:
1.3 children born/woman (2002 est.)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:
0.18% (1999 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:
130,000 (1999 est.)

HIV/AIDS - deaths:
850 (1999 est.)

Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 98%
male: 100%
female: 97% (1989 est.)

GDP:
purchasing power parity - $1.2 trillion (2001 est.)
GDP - real growth rate:
5.2% (2001 est.)
GDP - per capita:
purchasing power parity - $8,300 (2001 est.)

Telephones - main lines in use:
30 million (1998)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
2.5 million (October 2000)
Radios:
61.5 million (1997)
Televisions:
60.5 million (1997)
Providers (ISPs):
35 (2000)
Internet users:
9.2 million (2000)


Now, and I am just practicing armchair demography here, it seems the decline was set in motion by the break up, conditions bottomed out several years ago, and are now recovering somewhat.

I won’t even get into the question of how accurate those late-Soviet statistics were. Gorbachev initiated glasnost largely because Soviet fiddling with numbers had become endemic.

[ol][li]I can’t find the “10,000 workers stopped working because they were faint from hunger” thing anywhere. I find references to hunger strikes by smaller groups (miners, aviation workers, etc.) but nothing that says that 10,000 workers had to down tools because they were too faint to continue. Got a cite?[/li]
[li]Why agricultural production has “plummeted”.[/li]
http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/Russia/issues_econ_reform.htm#agprod

[li]The statistics that say that life expectancy in Russia has “plummeted” are based on data from 1990-1994.[/li]
http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v279n10/abs/jlf71019.html

More recent data shows Russia on a par with Latin America in terms of life expectancy.

http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/pr2000-life.html

[li]The Russian infant mortality rate (2002 estimate) was 19.78 deaths/1,000 live births. (This is about the same as Romania, Panama, Malaysia, and the British Virgin Islands.)[/li]http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2091.html

The infant mortality rate in 2001 was 20.05 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.)
http://www.bartleby.com/151/a28.html

The infant mortality rate in 1995 (estimated) was 26.4 deaths/1,000 live births
http://www.immigration-usa.com/wfb/russia_people.html

So, far from the Russian infant mortality rate “sharply rising”, it has in fact lowered, from 26.4 deaths in 1995 to 19.78 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2002.[/ol]

** Um, no, doesn’t look like it.

:eek:
The average Russian’s heart must be breaking. A very tough thing, to go through such a decline. Yet… not as tough as some others.

Chumpsky, your logic works along the following lines:

  1. Russia used to be Communist.
  2. Russia is now Capitalist.
  3. Russia is doing a lot worse now.
  4. Capitalism must be at fault.

That’s one of the silliest examples of post hoc ergo propter hoc logic that I’ve seen on this board. It consists essentially of a logicl leap (stuff sucks now, this must be the reason, not demonstrating evidence that the shift to Capitalism was the reason). It’s also a lead-in to an example war, even if valid: for every Russia, I’ve got a United States.

There’s a few other things you could argue that would make more sense:

  1. The pace of change was far too quick, since people didn’t recognize the incongruities of attempting to apply capitalism instantly to a nation that had been Communist for 70 years, and before that, feudal, caught up as they were in dewy-eyed idealism and the idea that capitalism would be some sort of magic pill.
  2. It simply makes sense that Russia, like any other country wracked with extreme corruption at every level of government, regardless of economic model, would be in the crapper.

The difficulty is that you get caught up in #1 as well: you think that capitalists, by and large, argue that capitalism is some sort of instant fix. If they do, they are silly capitalists. However, capitalism applied with foresight, reason, creativity, memory, and self-criticism, makes sense to me. The idea that Russia is not a case of this sort of application isn’t a particularly stunning one.

-Ulterior

Have the former Soviet republics really converted to free market capitalism? IIRC, most of the industries are state controlled. In addition, how many of those republics are really democracies now? I seem to recall that a fair number of these countries have fairly authoritarian and corrupt governments which does not bode well for rule of law. This is important because if you have a stable government and strong rule of law, you are more likely to be able to attract foreign investment which would allow them to develop infrastructure and industries.

It truly is a shame since quite a few of those nations have natural resources which if properly exploited could allow their economies to grow.

You do realize that the USSR went from being a third world country to an industrialized world power (superpower, even) despite getting 20-40 million of their people slaughtered by Nazis, ya?

Say what you want about the USSR (and there is plenty to say), you can’t say they didn’t progress. Breadlines may suck, but they mean that they get bread, which is a lot more than they had before and is still more than people in plenty of good capitalist countries have nowdays.

You guys gotta remember, what happened in 1991 was not a situation where the people where calling for the system to fall (although there was plenty of discontent). In 1991, the people in charge figured that they’d have more to gain by dismanteling the USSR and dividing what the state once owned amongst themselves. The only thing they sought to improve was their own pocketbooks.

The Vladivostok Daily had a pretty good article a few days back about how children view Soviet times

Russia has got to be the misunderstood country ever. Even if you don’t have an agenda to push (which Chumpsky and I surely do) it’s still hard to convince people of some pretty basic facts, like that Communist Russia had a thrivng and innovative film industry,. It’s amazeing the amount of disinformation people are willing to hold one to, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

http://www.countrywatch.com/@school/new_countries.htm

Armenia - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 2.65 “Mostly Free”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=5.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/am.html

Azerbaijan - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.35 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=8.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/aj.html

Belarus - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 4.30 “Repressed”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=13.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bo.html

Estonia - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 1.80 “Free”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=46.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/en.html

Georgia - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.40 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=53.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gg.html

Kazakhstan - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.50 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=77.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kz.html

Kyrgyzstan - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.35 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=82.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kg.html

Latvia - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 2.45 “Mostly Free”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=84.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/lg.html

Lithuania - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 2.35 “Mostly Free”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=88.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/lh.html

Moldova - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.20 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=98.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/md.html

Tajikistan - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.95 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=142.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ti.html

Turkmenistan - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 4.15 “Repressed”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=149.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tx.html

Ukraine - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 3.65 “Mostly Unfree”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=151.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/up.html

Uzbekistan - Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom, 4.25 “Repressed”.
http://cf.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?ID=156.0
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uz.html

And of course, Russia.