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?
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.