Remember Illarionov?

[K. A. Pital]

The guy who criticised Putin after leaving his economic team? Apparently a self-styled libertarian - now a member of the ridiculous Cato "Institute"? "Bloody KGB" and all that?

Well, here's his opinion on how well Russia is doing now versus history in an interview to BBC:

BBC: You're talking about Russia "lagging behind", but, however, if we analyze the economic indicators and market development dynamics, the Russian economy looks positive for the last 10 years...

A. Illarionov: Well, that's depending on what we are comparing. You see, during the communist times, say, in the mid-1970s the per capita GDP in Russia was for several years around 40% of the US one. Not the best indicators, however. On the eve of an economic crisis in 1989 it lowered and was a little lower than 30%. Now it's just 22% of the US one. In other words, yes, today we're better when compared to 1998 (18%), and that's true. But it's still lower than the same indicator which Russia had in 1991, on the eve of market reforms, lower, than in 1989 on the eve of the economic crisis, lower than in the mid-1970s, during the communist rule, lower than in 1913, lower, than in 1885 - the first year when more or less clear comparable GDP estimates for US and Russia exist - and finally, lower than in 1820, the first date for which, even imprecise, GDP comparisons at all are available.

In other words, Russia is in it's worst relation to developed nations for entire two centuries, like during the Civil War times and the 1942-1943 years of the Great Patriotic War. This is why we don't have much to boast at. In 2007 we barely restored the level we had in 1989. But during this time the world wasn't standing still - not the USA, neither Britain, Europe, China. All of them made far greater progress, and this is why despite all the success of the last several years, Russia's relative place is farther down from developed nations than it was 20-25 years ago, even 100 years ago and 200 years ago

That's... illuminating. I wonder how he managed to say that without biting off his tongue: through 1990s to the 2000s, he was a very active participant in the economic policies that led Russia into this mess. More than that, he only went off in 2005, which means all those years he was working with full knowledge of how deep in shit the governments of Yeltsin and Putin put the Russian economy.

Apparently the moron doesn't even understand that the fact that Russia is so deep in shit is more a result of Yeltsin than Putin; if anything, he should be criticizing his former colleagues and praising Pu. But he doesn't.

He also dismisses Global Warming, says Chechnya should be independent, and thinks gas prices don't exist because there's no gas market, and thus raising gas prices is "political discrimination". He was against Russia (or any other countries) ratifying the Kyoto Protocol since it's all a hoax. (Also doesn't help that Russia's sideways gas flaring - a very harmful practice - shot up colossal amounts in post-Soviet times and is now at an all-time high (compare: Norway lowered it's flaring 10-fold). Way to go, effective market technologies in the oil extraction complex! )

More than that, he had a key status as a chief economic adviser in the Putin administration but apparently was booted (well, he's a nutjob... so I guess he was just bitter). Sucks to be him.

[Dartzap]

Not to derail the thread, but I was wondering what you thought of the Q&A on Russia here? The Beeb, is of course, the main source of news to many people over here, and I wanted to know what you thought of the coverage, heh.

[Vympel]

Wow. That's a lot of LOL smileys.

I'm wondering whether in those GDP estimates he's taking into account that today's Russian Federation is not as large as either the USSR (surely GDP estimates didn't exist for the individual SSRs?) or the Russian Empire. I'd figure the fact that Ukraine and Belarus are separate countries alone should affect the estimates somewhat.

[K. A. Pital]

Hmm... let me see...

However, so far very little has been done to bring road infrastructure into the 21st Century. Even the highway between Russia's two biggest cities, Moscow and St Petersburg, is mainly still only two lanes wide.

That's because roads and private cars suck Essentially I'm of the same opinion as the guy (railroads have always been a priority and our passenger rail system rocks, one of the most intensively used in the world, with huge rail freight too), but I don't see that as a negative thing.

Essentially all this brouhaha about Russia taking the railroad route instead of the inter-city highway route is 100% correct, except my take on this that it's positive not negative, since railroads are more economic than any other freight type save ship.

How can private cars be a national priority? They're owned only by a minority of citizens (20%) as opposed to 80% who either don't travel at all or use the last accessible means of travel - the "soviet legacy" of train. No way those 20% should have any priority over the 80%, so let them bitch, but rail and ship freight has total priority here.

The increase of cargo freight by car note is actually a massive decrease in efficiency which contributed to deterioration of Russian roads. Welcome to the mirror, uneconomic way of transporting things is also destructive for roads and results in a massive drain on the budget to restore them. This is also why they aren't brought to the "XXI century".

The question then is what has Mr Putin done with his eight years in office, and the hundreds of billions in revenue that have flowed into his coffers?

This is where I agree. Putin has presided over oil-influenced stability, but he hasn't adressed the problems of poverty, inequality, malnutrition, obscene housing prices, healtcare and educatin deterioration from soviet times, as he should have. Not effective enough.

Many Russians I have met, particularly the older ones, speak wistfully of the old days of the Soviet Union, and even of Joseph Stalin.

Indeed. The USSR is still remembered very well. I have already detailed that fact in some of my posts - most support October Revolution and USSR nostalgia never falls below 60% levels for the entire 15 years.

The problem for politicians is that there is still high unemployment among unskilled and uneducated Russians

Yeah. But a clever ommit: this is the "90s generation" - a bunch of uneducated mobster youths who resulted from the drastic destruction of the education system, espeically the professional-techical education (PTO). Also, the unemployment problem is going down - but mortality remains high, and the situation has been repeatedly called a democide due to the very high rise of death rates.

Much more worryingly, there is a large and growing neo-Nazi movement in Russia which openly advocates the expulsion of all non-white foreigners.

Of course there are. Nationalism is the official ideology now, so the government is very shy when it comes to Nazis. Hell, it apparently had some in their ranks (remembe the Nazi scandals thread I posted? ). So... that's a clear problem and not one of the parties (except communists) have spoken clearly that neo-Nazis should be dealt with.

Also, "pro-immigration" doesn't mean anti-nazi. It just means let things flow as they do. Stopping Nazi violence requires active measures, which this government is reluctant to take - especially as ethnic crime in Russia becomes a major problem with whole ethnic clans controlling mafia circles. That incites hatred and more nationalism, so it's beneficial for the current government which is right-wing nationalist.

I'm not saying there aren't gangsters in Russia anymore, but the open street battles, assassinations and general banditry that were common in the 1990s have pretty much gone.

The openness of crime has reduced. The amount of crime has increased. And open street battles, assassinations and banditry are not a thing of the past. During the last 2 years, a dozen officials were killed (high-rank), I personally witnessed a shootout (for a very long time since I last saw one in 2001).

Everywhere I went I saw building sites. Most of this new construction is commercial property - offices, shopping malls, entertainment centres and apartment buildings.
...
There was less evidence of new public buildings being built

Exactly. A huge number of malls, offices but less and less public infrastructure.

He told me he had found it impossible to get any Russians to come and farm the land for him.

He thought 70 years of communism was to blame, that Russians had lost the knowledge and the desire to farm the land.

Ha-ha-ha how did the commies farm the land then? With magic? How did we gather 105-110 million tons in 1991 but only 70 million now, in Russia (R.S.F.S.R.), even with record food prices?

Here in Omsk I just see those farms first-hand, there's lots of them. The government refuses to fund agriculture. Large farms deteriorate. More food imports. In the end, we have a stupid situation where we can't feed ourselves but export lots of grain to the West! Whee "breadbasket of Europe".

[K. A. Pital]

I'm wondering whether in those GDP estimates he's taking into account that today's Russian Federation is not as large as either the USSR (surely GDP estimates didn't exist for the individual SSRs?) or the Russian Empire. I'd figure the fact that Ukraine and Belarus are separate countries alone should affect the estimates somewhat.

He's talking about per capita GDP. Also, there's a p/c GDP for individual republics of the USSR available somewhere since 1950s. Russia's (RSFSR) per capita GDP is not that drastically different from the USSR p/c GDP, obviously.

Yeah, it just amazed me. The guy brazenly hallowed his policies in 1990s and 2000s, but now apparently the state we are in 2007 is the result of Putin curtailing something or whatnot.

Bullshit, of course, but that's the way those people have to speak. And that's one of the more prominent "pro-western democrats" (codeword: 1990s thieves and accomplices). The others are loonier. Once upon a time chatting with Zentei (I kind of miss him, actually) I recalled an interview of Koch who easily explained that Russia's crisis is exactly what they've been aiming for all along, and it's "only natural".