Category: Economics, Finance, and Political Economy

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Russia-seem-so-apathetic-towards-economic-progress-despite-having-so-much-potential-and-resource/answer/Curt-Doolittle?share=5279e861&srid=u4Qv—“Why does Russia seem so apathetic towards economic progress despite having so much potential and resource?”—

THIS IS A GOOD BUT MISLEADING QUESTION. LETS PUT A PERSPECTIVE TOGETHER:

Why are the chinese so obsessed with preserving their empire rather than dividing into many competing states like europe? I mean, that was the reason for the communist revolution…. to stop it. It was their ‘reformation’ and they failed.

Why are middle eastern muslims so obsessed with blaming others for their condition rather than organizing secular, economic, governments and dividing the government by tribe the way the west divides them by house?

Why is iran so concerned with evolving into an empire from the mediterranean to the indian border?

Why is Pakistan so intent on seizing indian territory when it cannot govern it’s own?

Why do north koreans seek to preserve their despotism when their relatives across the border live in one of the best societies on earth, second only to the Japanese?

Why are french and germans so intent on creating a ‘united states’ of europe, while man of us in america understand that just results in cultural oppression, and bureaucratic oppression, and we want to break into different states like europe?

Why do south americans blame everyone else for their condition when the fact is, that they were catholics and like most catholic countries made a malinvestmnet in socialism which has destroyed the window of opportunity that they had to transform into high trust societies?

The Reason russia (a) centralized industrial income, and (b) focused on improving rule of law, and improving infrastructure, and restoring defense, is because they need a great deal of money to compete with local corruption, and slowly build a diverse economy. (Read Fukuyama Trust, Political Order 1 and 2.)

The russian mythos is a disaster becasue (a) the Tsars were good and nearly made russia a western country. (b) the communists destroyed that opportunity. (c) the communists destroyed millions of lives, and eventually failed. (c) the only good myth russia has to unify is ‘the great war’ against germany. And even then, it is probably hard to argue that germany was not both in the right, and ‘good’ for russians. So, just as the chinese have ‘a chip on their shoulder’ for being humiliated for their long history of bad decisions, the russians have ‘a chip on their shoulder’ for their long history of bad decisions. Lastly, we overstate the russian military interest – the military is the best jobs program a country can enter into becuase just as the USA did, you build a big military infrastructure which builds a large manufacturing and organiational base, and skilled population, and then you incrementally turn it over to the private sector.

There is very little the russians do that doesn’t make sense if youi’re trying to govern russia. It’s 11 time zonse of very paranoid people who in their minds are surrounded by enemeis.

The greatest mistake in the past thirty years was not bringing russia into nato.

Russians are very easy to understand. And very easy to love. You just have to understand how they think about the world. “Poor little Russia”. And they only feel safe when so strong there is no chance of vulnerability.Updated Dec 30, 2017, 2:31 PM