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2009-11-14 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Russia 'humiliated' by primitive economy

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Posted by Fred 2009-11-14 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Medvedev has an interesting predicament. During the era of the Tsars, before Peter the Great, in Russia there was Moscow, and the parts of the country that were noblemen owned landholdings, worked by peasant slaves.

Peter created St. Petersburg so that the country would have two centers, instead of just Moscow, but things were still terribly centralized. Stalin tried to force the building of new cities in the hinterland, but nobody wanted to live there.

And, with the fall of communism, everybody wanted to move back to Moscow, which is where all the action is.

The irony of this is that if you take the Trans Siberian railroad in summer, you will pass through hundreds upon hundreds of miles of what looks like Indiana, but all empty.

Central government of this kind leads to just exploiting raw materials, instead of anything more complex, which requires lots more people "out there".

And Russians don't "lure" very well, by prospects of a better life in the frontier, as do Americans, they tend to need to be forced to leave the cities.

In short, Russia needs suburbs. As things stand right now, the country is like a cramped 10 story tall apartment building in the middle of a plowed field.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-11-14 07:59|| 2009-11-14 07:59|| Front Page Top

#2 'moose,
As well as Central government of this kind leads to just exploiting raw materials the whole Marxist accounting system almost forces this. The concept is that nothing that does not have a human labor component has no value (i.e. a free-good) which sounds fine except it means that to cut costs you cut labor and exploit the "free" material. Therefore, you maximise profit by minimizing manufacturing and maximising raw material removal & sale.

Posted by AlanC">AlanC 2009-11-14 08:53|| 2009-11-14 08:53|| Front Page Top

#3 If they still can't make a decent t-shirt then the typical Third World country is a leg up on them.

Posted by Glenmore 2009-11-14 09:34|| 2009-11-14 09:34|| Front Page Top

#4 No intellectual property rights, no intellectual property created. And the Chinese can undercut the Russians on pirated merchandise every time.

Posted by ed 2009-11-14 12:54|| 2009-11-14 12:54|| Front Page Top

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