One of my teachers in high school (around 1986 or 1987) said that the Russian people were incapable of freedom. He said they wanted & needed an authoritarian ruler.
At the time I thought he was just buying into propaganda, but I’ve been thinking he may have been right.
But then, it’s starting to look like a huge portion of Americans don’t value their own freedom either. At least, they seem to be willing to trade their freedom for ensuring that the people they don’t like will suffer.
My personal theory is that there’s a biological split in our species. Like how some people taste soap when they eat cilantro and others don’t. I think some of us are wired to need and want a leader and others do not. The evolution of not needing a leader has not fully propagated to the whole species yet.
It looks like every 20’s we have the leader thing win against the freedom thing. Then the leader kind of turns against the followers and the freedom thing resurfacss agqin. But since the freedom thing needs a lot of responsibility thing and people eventually fail to secure themselves the leader thing naturally arises again.
You want freedom? When someone out there is chopping off their oui-oui (pardon my French) all you think about is having freedoms? I thought this was 'Merica!
They were briefly fairly free in the ‘90s, but the experience of their version of the shock doctrine was so painful that the people begged to be ruled again.
Yer, they got experimented on by free market maximalist. All regulations to no regulations. All public to all private, in a big fire sale. Those with money bought everything and became a new super rich ruling class. There was, understandable push back from that mess, but it swang too far back to authoritarian; but now with a new class of super rich calling the shots. Like Putin.
That’s what Putinists say, and what Communists say, and what Western leftists surely are pleased to repeat, but in reality privatization was simply conducted the way that people closer to the “reformers” could rapidly accumulate wealth. More like mafia plundering of Soviet industries and state property.
Obviously mostly illegal even despite the fact that state institutions were controlled by people involved in the process.
“Those with money” were not that, there were no such people in USSR, rather “those with party and bureaucratic connections” and “Yeltsin’s clan”.
“Those with party and bureaucratic connections” = “Those with money”. Power = money. Which order you put it in, doesn’t matter. Those will one, have the other, on or off the books.
It wasn’t the kind of power people with connections in USA have today, rather the kind to make a phone call to a court or to choose who privatizes a factory central to a town. The short-lived kind, because the properties plundered wouldn’t last for long. There would also be literal mafia wars (only I think I’ve read that actual Italian mafia doesn’t have much infighting, they are rational businessmen in some sense).
The point about this having nothing to do with free market stands.
How are backdoor deals not part of the free market?? They’re a natural consequence of information asymmetry.
Former soviet leadership using their connections to consolidate wealth and power the new system is imo not meaningfully different from the revolving door between American government and private industry and lobbying firms.
You don’t get it, I’m not talking about any information asymmetry, I’m talking about a factory boss privatizing that factory with his friends, some of which would have better connections with sporty guys in leather coats and some better connections with special services, so some of those friends and their friends would benefit more.
It wasn’t any “consolidation”, you are talking in terms of actually functioning states with properties and rights protected, it was literal plundering. Similar to the Octopus series in atmosphere, one can say. With plenty of murders, gang wars etc.
The problem was basically unregulated free for all. A free market only works with regulation and law enforcement. Free market anarchists are naïve. But it was a common thinking at the time. The 2008 crash seriously dented their voice.
It wasn’t “unregulated free for all”, that’s a leftist overvalued idea about Russian 90s. Laws were similar to what there is in Russia today, give or take, derived from Soviet laws. There just was a lot of open crime.
It simply doesn’t fit in that leftist narrative no matter how you turn it, if you don’t hide the reality completely behind such abstract phrases.
Free market anarchists are naïve. But it was a common thinking at the time. The 2008 crash seriously dented their voice.
How would it dent anything, being a direct consequence of protectionism?
nah, the collective trauma of perestroika gave origin to putin. only in its chaotic environment would someone that is at the same time political leader, criminal leader and oligarch leader come to be. russian people do vote for putin and his party. criminals either work for him either get exiled(see wagner group), sometimes its even worse to them and their family. oligarchs either nut up or shut up, bought by the relative safety of their families living in western europe.
addressing the reactionary bullshit comment, i can only infer that admitting the mistake of perestroika is a disturbing experience for you. but i recommend adam curtis documentary “hypernormalization” to understand putin and a part of the russian zeitgeist.
yeah the other commenter forgets that one is not only writing an answer but also engaging in a larger conversation. let that one be a constructive one.
Answering the first comment in this idiotic thread …
1989-1993 counts as freedom, I’d say. So does 1905-1914.
Now, absolutism doesn’t offer much in that regard, neither does late feudalism. But that wouldn’t make Russia significantly different from many European countries till somewhere around 1848. Then it became butt buddies with similar monarchies against revolutions and stuff (saving Austria from Hungarian revolutionaries in particular), only, say, Austrian monarchy still made quite a few concessions and reforms, while Russia remained a swamp till the Crimean war, and then tried to reform itself.
One can say it was finally on track to modernizing between 1905 revolution and till 1914, but then WWI happened, and then the October revolution happened.
I hope that someday the people of Russia know freedom, something they’ve never known since the Tsars.
The Russian people have NEVER known freedom. Ever. They’ve been a war like, oppressed people with Stockholm syndrome for their entire history
One of my teachers in high school (around 1986 or 1987) said that the Russian people were incapable of freedom. He said they wanted & needed an authoritarian ruler.
At the time I thought he was just buying into propaganda, but I’ve been thinking he may have been right.
But then, it’s starting to look like a huge portion of Americans don’t value their own freedom either. At least, they seem to be willing to trade their freedom for ensuring that the people they don’t like will suffer.
My personal theory is that there’s a biological split in our species. Like how some people taste soap when they eat cilantro and others don’t. I think some of us are wired to need and want a leader and others do not. The evolution of not needing a leader has not fully propagated to the whole species yet.
deleted by creator
This is an interesting theory and begs the question… From an evolution standpoint, which one would be more likely to win out?
It looks like every 20’s we have the leader thing win against the freedom thing. Then the leader kind of turns against the followers and the freedom thing resurfacss agqin. But since the freedom thing needs a lot of responsibility thing and people eventually fail to secure themselves the leader thing naturally arises again.
Edit: fixed a thing.
You want freedom? When someone out there is chopping off their oui-oui (pardon my French) all you think about is having freedoms? I thought this was 'Merica!
That would require bravery from a lot of people. Few have been as brave as Navalni. Let’s hope his death shakes people’s apathy.
Since before the Tsars. They kinda got wrecked by The Kahns before the Tsars.
They were briefly fairly free in the ‘90s, but the experience of their version of the shock doctrine was so painful that the people begged to be ruled again.
Yer, they got experimented on by free market maximalist. All regulations to no regulations. All public to all private, in a big fire sale. Those with money bought everything and became a new super rich ruling class. There was, understandable push back from that mess, but it swang too far back to authoritarian; but now with a new class of super rich calling the shots. Like Putin.
That’s not really true.
That’s what Putinists say, and what Communists say, and what Western leftists surely are pleased to repeat, but in reality privatization was simply conducted the way that people closer to the “reformers” could rapidly accumulate wealth. More like mafia plundering of Soviet industries and state property.
Obviously mostly illegal even despite the fact that state institutions were controlled by people involved in the process.
“Those with money” were not that, there were no such people in USSR, rather “those with party and bureaucratic connections” and “Yeltsin’s clan”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Shleifer#Scandal
“Those with party and bureaucratic connections” = “Those with money”. Power = money. Which order you put it in, doesn’t matter. Those will one, have the other, on or off the books.
It wasn’t the kind of power people with connections in USA have today, rather the kind to make a phone call to a court or to choose who privatizes a factory central to a town. The short-lived kind, because the properties plundered wouldn’t last for long. There would also be literal mafia wars (only I think I’ve read that actual Italian mafia doesn’t have much infighting, they are rational businessmen in some sense).
The point about this having nothing to do with free market stands.
How are backdoor deals not part of the free market?? They’re a natural consequence of information asymmetry.
Former soviet leadership using their connections to consolidate wealth and power the new system is imo not meaningfully different from the revolving door between American government and private industry and lobbying firms.
You don’t get it, I’m not talking about any information asymmetry, I’m talking about a factory boss privatizing that factory with his friends, some of which would have better connections with sporty guys in leather coats and some better connections with special services, so some of those friends and their friends would benefit more.
It wasn’t any “consolidation”, you are talking in terms of actually functioning states with properties and rights protected, it was literal plundering. Similar to the Octopus series in atmosphere, one can say. With plenty of murders, gang wars etc.
The problem was basically unregulated free for all. A free market only works with regulation and law enforcement. Free market anarchists are naïve. But it was a common thinking at the time. The 2008 crash seriously dented their voice.
It wasn’t “unregulated free for all”, that’s a leftist overvalued idea about Russian 90s. Laws were similar to what there is in Russia today, give or take, derived from Soviet laws. There just was a lot of open crime.
It simply doesn’t fit in that leftist narrative no matter how you turn it, if you don’t hide the reality completely behind such abstract phrases.
How would it dent anything, being a direct consequence of protectionism?
I think we can agree there was a lot of crime.
The 2008 was a result of financial deregulation, not protectionism.
No one begged to be ruled, let’s not be dramatic here.
Reactionary bullshit
nah, the collective trauma of perestroika gave origin to putin. only in its chaotic environment would someone that is at the same time political leader, criminal leader and oligarch leader come to be. russian people do vote for putin and his party. criminals either work for him either get exiled(see wagner group), sometimes its even worse to them and their family. oligarchs either nut up or shut up, bought by the relative safety of their families living in western europe.
addressing the reactionary bullshit comment, i can only infer that admitting the mistake of perestroika is a disturbing experience for you. but i recommend adam curtis documentary “hypernormalization” to understand putin and a part of the russian zeitgeist.
Do you always talk down to people?
i always try not to and am always sorry if i come out as such.
Ignore him, you’re the only one talking knowledgeably
yeah the other commenter forgets that one is not only writing an answer but also engaging in a larger conversation. let that one be a constructive one.
Most people today on the Internet forget that, which is a damn shame
Answering the first comment in this idiotic thread …
1989-1993 counts as freedom, I’d say. So does 1905-1914.
Now, absolutism doesn’t offer much in that regard, neither does late feudalism. But that wouldn’t make Russia significantly different from many European countries till somewhere around 1848. Then it became butt buddies with similar monarchies against revolutions and stuff (saving Austria from Hungarian revolutionaries in particular), only, say, Austrian monarchy still made quite a few concessions and reforms, while Russia remained a swamp till the Crimean war, and then tried to reform itself.
One can say it was finally on track to modernizing between 1905 revolution and till 1914, but then WWI happened, and then the October revolution happened.