Sorry for the long period off; I’ve spent most of my time on Digg and Wikipedia (obviously), with the want to update this ol’ journal not occurring to me until just now.
As you may’ve heard, Boris from Russia just died yesterday.
He was a drinker, a rabble-rouser, a fidgety old git…,
he led Russia in the aftermath of the Great Soviet experiment, swinging the door of the country to Western economic liberalism like nobody’s business,
he led it through the oft-violent, oft-needy turbulence of 90’s-era recessions;
and his efforts to establish Russia apart from its predecessor state only paid off after he left office in 2000.
This article from BBC News talked about how Russia’s presently-strong, Putin-era economy only reached that state because of Yeltsin’s economic policies (only tempered after Putin’s government drew back the power that Yeltsin’s had given to the oligarchs and energy barons).
It also talks about how the gap between the rich and poor has only gotten wider since the introduction of free-market reforms in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
I can agree, in particular, on how the reforms caught everyone off guard, and how only a few have been able to make it up to the top of Russia’s economy.
But why were they able to get up so high from, often, literally nothing in their own possession, while others drowned in the depths of poverty?
I think its because of the lack of advance education on free-markets and profits that should’ve been provided to the masses before Russia came out of the Communist closet, so to speak.
All that was being told to the Russian people was that “We’re going for a free market. Everybody will be rich, Russia will be rich and powerful and free, etc.”
They weren’t told about the real ins and outs of “marketing, advertising and exchange rates; or barter, leasing and – not least – profits.”
They weren’t educated.
They were simply dragged into this system without prior, real-world knowledge of what they were getting into.
Same thing happened in Latin America (pre-Chavez). The poor were kept ignorant of the immediate hurt and the long, hard haul to economic stability. The social safety nets were cut from under them by the political, Harvard-educated elite, and fell flat on their backs.
Free markets aren’t bad. Economic freedom should be guaranteed, IMO. But come on…why are they poor when the economy is going well?
Why does the gap between the rich and poor continue to widen in free-market societies?
And why do these countries often elect such stridently-xenophobic politicians as Hugo Chavez to office when they get sick of neoliberal policies which are ideally meant to work great wonders for their societies?
It’s like Venezuela is sick, and bodily rejects the necessary food that should keep them from starving in their own illness.
And why do nationalist Americans get so surprised at this?
I don’t get it…
Anyway, here’s to Boris:
