Russian Middle Class

p1akuw47h5r3it · 06-12-2010 12:12am

survivor2 wrote: »

I can explain. A lot of people in modern Russia work almost for free(communism),the gap in incomes of "working beggars" and the new nobility now is more than 23 times(feudalism).http://www.rg.ru/2010/01/11/analiz.html
Is it capitalism?

I don't know is it?

If you consider the whole western (or develped world) they are all based around Capitalism to various degrees, some more so than others.

In communist countries everyone tends to be poor, bar the people who run the country i.e Goverment

In a more capitalized country this isn't the case i.e the majority of the population are not poor and have a good standard of living.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that within societies there will always be poor people.

It is also important to note that Russia is an emerging economy, similar to Ireland in the early 1990's

robindch · 06-12-2010 12:42am

survivor2 wrote: »

Is it capitalism?

"Captalism" just means that people and corporations can acquire money and use it to trade for resources and other money. In this sense, every country in the world is "capitalist" (even the DPRK).

Some of the dispatches from the American Embassy in Moscow suggest that Russia is a pseudo-democratic kleptocracy.

robindch · 06-12-2010 12:49am

DanDan6592 wrote: »

It is also important to note that Russia is an emerging economy, similar to Ireland in the early 1990's

Not at all. Unlike Ireland 20 years back, Russia now is doing little or nothing to encourage the development of a well-regulated market economy. Also -- despite a few well-meaning speeches by Medvedev to the contrary -- it is doing nothing to wean itself off its almost total reliance on the exploitation of natural resources as a means to prop up the rest of its creaking economy.

Moomoo1 · 06-12-2010 1:24am

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I'm by know means an expert on this topic (as I'm sure u have guessed ha!) but after reading your posts it seems to me that the previous/current goverments don't invest enough in the poor to improve their standard of living. This in my opinion isn't a fault of capitalism but of the current goverment.

Also I don't think it's fair to base your opinions on socialism/capitalism on Russia alone. I think to get a balanced few you have to look at how other countries have faired since the loss of communism i.e. east germany etc.

Whether your opinion changes is a different matter, I just don't think Russia should be your only comparison between the two ideologies

See with communism I just don't see how people can improve their lives, yes people may just have the basics but it's near impossible to better that. With capitalism (if done right) you always have the opportunity to better yourself.

it's far too complicated a topic to tackle here, but no, my views aren't based just on Russia, but also on other soviet republics and also Western Europe. Russia was just the starting point. Eg now I live in Scotland and watching in horror how free market ideology is ruining UK higher education...

what I really dislike is this 'free market ideology'. The sort that early 90's Russia embraced (read up about the Harvard Group sometime). Which implies very little state control (and in Russia we went from total state control of the economy to zero, and the result is evident) and very little state-organised redistribution (=investing into the poor). I have nothing against scandinavian-style socialist capitalism, when the markets are allowed to do their job within tight boundaries and the rich-poor gap is a few %. In fact, most Socialists would love that sort of setup.

you say people couldn't improve their lives under soviet communism. That's an extremely disputable claim (what's improving your life anyway? material goods? education? community? society values?: also if the overall quality of life in the country improves with time does this count?), but how many can realistically improve their lives under a capitalist system that doesn't have the Socialist limiting measures (that the rich are constantly trying to dismantle at the moment), and for how many does life get worse?

Moomoo1 · 06-12-2010 1:34am

DanDan6592 wrote: »

In communist countries everyone tends to be poor, bar the people who run the country i.e Goverment

In a more capitalized country this isn't the case i.e the majority of the population are not poor and have a good standard of living.

You are comparing a well-developed capitalist country with somewhere like the USSR there?

because if you are comparing the USSR with post soviet Russia then 'everyone' became much poorer after 1991 and 'the Government' became much richer.

if you are comparing the USSR with say the US, is that a fair comparison? The US was economically way ahead of Russia in 1917. And it didn't have the country devastated by wars twice over. Didn't have most of its men killed or cippled. Didn't have a trade embargo imposed by countries desperate to crush it. Didn't have a succession of crazy leaders who didn't understand basic facts about agriculture and science.

yes, massive reserves of oil helped. But then, in many oil-rich countries the poor live far worse than they did in the USSR...

survivor2 · 06-12-2010 11:48am

May I ask you, what will you do if you'll live inside the strange mixed feudalism-communism regime?

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Do you mean what will i do when I live in Petersburg yes??

Well I will just go about my life. I'm going there because I study Russian in university, not to change anything about the country

DanDan, that was just rhetorical question. Nothing personal

p1akuw47h5r3it · 06-12-2010 4:37pm

Ok the Ireland comparison was silly!:p

Again with Regards the whole capitalist Russia question i think it's more the fault of the goverment as opposed to the ideology itself.

And can i ask you what you think is wrong with the UK education system (I'm just generally interested thats all)

By standard of living I mean the real income per person, poverty rate, standard of health care (which I know is still awful in Russia) etc.
This is a link outlining the poor standard of living: http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/7/753/papers/brainerd.pdf

In other words, the high GNP growth rates achieved in the Soviet
Union in this period failed to translate into improved well-being for the population as a whole,
and in fact by many measures the standard of living worsened significantly in the later decades
of this period. In light of the growing body of evidence that serious adult morbidities such as
stroke and heart disease develop in infancy and early childhood (Barker 1989, 1995, 1997,
1998), it is likely that the deteriorating living conditions of the USSR of the 1970s sowed the
seeds for the extraordinarily high mortality rates experienced in Russia and other countries of
the former Soviet Union in the 1990s

As regards to the current Russian goverment not helping the creation of business again thats the fault of the Goverment, not any particular ideology. However certain things have been done, for example, the lowering of the the corporation tax by 4% and deregulation in certain areas. This is besides the point anyway as I'm not trying to defend the Russian goverment and don't know whether if I was a Russian I would support Medvedev's Goverment or not.

I mean basically to some up I just don't think the free market was ever properly installed in Russia and maybe Russian people where better off under the communist regime however I don't necessarily believe this shows communism or socialism to be better than capitalism or liberalism

p1akuw47h5r3it · 06-12-2010 4:37pm

survivor2 wrote: »

DanDan, that was just rhetorical question. Nothing personal

haha ok sorry I guess humor is just hard to put across on the internet.

p1akuw47h5r3it · 06-12-2010 4:42pm

Moomoo1 wrote: »

You are comparing a well-developed capitalist country with somewhere like the USSR there?

because if you are comparing the USSR with post soviet Russia then 'everyone' became much poorer after 1991 and 'the Government' became much richer.

if you are comparing the USSR with say the US, is that a fair comparison? The US was economically way ahead of Russia in 1917. And it didn't have the country devastated by wars twice over. Didn't have most of its men killed or cippled. Didn't have a trade embargo imposed by countries desperate to crush it. Didn't have a succession of crazy leaders who didn't understand basic facts about agriculture and science.

yes, massive reserves of oil helped. But then, in many oil-rich countries the poor live far worse than they did in the USSR...

Yes fair point.

survivor2 · 06-12-2010 5:12pm

DanDan6592 wrote: »

I don't necessarily believe this shows communism or socialism to be better than capitalism or liberalism

I feel my Russian opponents can confirm that there's no ANY ideology in Russia now and no any national idea in Russia.

As for me, I see many features of a socialist society in Ireland: respect for senior citizens, the promotion of large families, the financial incentives of productive labor. After 1991, it all disappeared in Russia. Hopefully not forever.

Moomoo1 · 06-12-2010 11:45pm

survivor2 wrote: »

I feel my Russian opponents can confirm that there's no ANY ideology in Russia now and no any national idea in Russia.

As for me, I see many features of a socialist society in Ireland: respect for senior citizens, the promotion of large families, the financial incentives of productive labor. After 1991, it all disappeared in Russia. Hopefully not forever.

agreed.

except that there is now this hooray-patriotism of 'rossiya vpered' kind.

p1akuw47h5r3it · 07-12-2010 12:08am

What does vpered mean??:o

p1akuw47h5r3it · 07-12-2010 12:37am

What does vpered mean??:o

robindch · 07-12-2010 12:56am

survivor2 wrote: »

I feel my Russian opponents can confirm that there's no ANY ideology in Russia now and no any national idea in Russia.

The dominant idea within Russia today, or at least the idea that the Russian state spends much time and energy promoting, is the idea of Russia itself and how "different" it is from other places, and the fact that it needs a "strong" leader who's able to "defend" the country from "attack" from abroad. This is obviously a belief that's beneficial to the guys at the top, and some people have suggested that is, in fact, the reason why the Kremlin promotes these ideas through its almost total control of the media, its political wing, United Russia, and at arm's length, more odious outfits like Nashi.

But it's odd you should mention the idea of a "national idea", since it's something that, these days, is almost exclusively Russian -- other than North Korea, I can't think of any State which has a national idea, or in this case, worries publicly that it doesn't. It's a case of Plato's notion of a Noble Lie and, frankly, it's a distraction, though a useful one. In the west, many people believe that the State is there to make the life of its citizens easier -- schools, roads, hospitals and so on. In Russia, the function of the State is seen as the "defender" of, well, something or other. And that something or other is defined by the people who directly benefit from its defense.

From this point of view, there are at least a few things which have remained unchanged from Tsarist, through Communist and into present times. The tradition of authoritarianism and authoritarian thinking is pretty hard to break, especially when people like Putin have no intention of allowing it to happen.

robindch · 07-12-2010 1:11am

DanDan6592 wrote: »

What does vpered mean??:o

"Forward", as in "Россия, вперёд!":

http://www.kremlin.ru/news/5413

Somehow, I can't help but be reminded of black and white films showing wheat blowing gracefully in the breeze, squadrons of combine harvesters driving in close formation in the background, while in the foreground, smooth-skinned, blonde-haired soviet lasses in flower-print dresses grin and hold up handfuls of the stuff to the sun.

Moomoo1 · 07-12-2010 1:37am

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Ok the Ireland comparison was silly!:p

Again with Regards the whole capitalist Russia question i think it's more the fault of the goverment as opposed to the ideology itself.

And can i ask you what you think is wrong with the UK education system (I'm just generally interested thats all)

By standard of living I mean the real income per person, poverty rate, standard of health care (which I know is still awful in Russia) etc.
This is a link outlining the poor standard of living: http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/7/753/papers/brainerd.pdf

thanks, I'll read that to the end when I have time. I find this a bit strange: everyone always talked about how children were getting taller and taller when I was small (acceleration it was called), so to hear that the children of 1960's were taller than those of 1970's or 1980's is strange. Many of my friends - born around 1980 - are over 6 feet tall. But then of course this was in Moscow. But Russians don't strike one as a short nation compared to eg the Americans.

Soviet healthcare was actually quite highly praised. Often even held as an example to other countries. I think that if the nation was unhealthy it wasn't because of that: it was because of lack of nutrition (in some places you saw an orange once every few years) and industrial/military accidents (like Chernobyl) which polluted large parts of the country. Also alcoholism was always a massive problem.

I am not saying that life in the USSR was comparable to that in the Western countries. But it's wrong to say that quality of life could not be improved if one wished it to be, it very much could. Just not to as high a level as in the West. In general, the western stereotype of 'everyone poor, government rich' was wrong - there was also a sizeable middle class, and the 'poor' varied as well. The way most people lived, in my opinion, couldn't fairly be described as 'poor'. The main complaint people had wasn't poverty: it was the lack of freedom of speech (including the secrecy surrounding many Soviet disasters), the lack of Western goods and the overpowering, all-powerful bureaucracy.

Whether capitalism or bad gov't decisions are responsible for what happened in the 90's - I still maintain it's a bit of both. After all, american free market liberals were advising the Russian gov't of the early 90's, and this could have helped create the climate in which everything just went to pot.

regarding the UK unis, they are trying to make them behave like businesses trying to attract students (=paying customers). As a result, courses are being dumbed down to attract students, everyone is getting good marks irrespective of performance, to attract students, no one ever gets kicked out... the problem is that under this system the places that do the best are not the ones that give the best education but the ones that let you drink for x years and still get a good degree...

DanDan6592 wrote: »

As regards to the current Russian goverment not helping the creation of business again thats the fault of the Goverment, not any particular ideology. However certain things have been done, for example, the lowering of the the corporation tax by 4% and deregulation in certain areas. This is besides the point anyway as I'm not trying to defend the Russian goverment and don't know whether if I was a Russian I would support Medvedev's Goverment or not.

I mean basically to some up I just don't think the free market was ever properly installed in Russia and maybe Russian people where better off under the communist regime however I don't necessarily believe this shows communism or socialism to be better than capitalism or liberalism

the word 'deregulation' sounds funny in this context. It's makes it sound as if anything has been regulated previously...

what they _are_ constantly doing is cutting the support for the poor and vulnerable. Pensioners, and mothers, and the like.

survivor2 · 07-12-2010 2:01pm

Moomoo1
what they _are_ constantly doing is cutting the support for the poor and vulnerable. Pensioners, and mothers, and the like.

Official propaganda insists on increasing the social care of the state of these categories of citizens, but in reality things are quite deplorable.

Population of the country continues to steadily decline.

p1akuw47h5r3it · 08-12-2010 12:27am

Moomoo1 wrote: »

thanks, I'll read that to the end when I have time. I find this a bit strange: everyone always talked about how children were getting taller and taller when I was small (acceleration it was called), so to hear that the children of 1960's were taller than those of 1970's or 1980's is strange. Many of my friends - born around 1980 - are over 6 feet tall. But then of course this was in Moscow. But Russians don't strike one as a short nation compared to eg the Americans.

Soviet healthcare was actually quite highly praised. Often even held as an example to other countries. I think that if the nation was unhealthy it wasn't because of that: it was because of lack of nutrition (in some places you saw an orange once every few years) and industrial/military accidents (like Chernobyl) which polluted large parts of the country. Also alcoholism was always a massive problem.

I am not saying that life in the USSR was comparable to that in the Western countries. But it's wrong to say that quality of life could not be improved if one wished it to be, it very much could. Just not to as high a level as in the West. In general, the western stereotype of 'everyone poor, government rich' was wrong - there was also a sizeable middle class, and the 'poor' varied as well. The way most people lived, in my opinion, couldn't fairly be described as 'poor'. The main complaint people had wasn't poverty: it was the lack of freedom of speech (including the secrecy surrounding many Soviet disasters), the lack of Western goods and the overpowering, all-powerful bureaucracy.

Whether capitalism or bad gov't decisions are responsible for what happened in the 90's - I still maintain it's a bit of both. After all, american free market liberals were advising the Russian gov't of the early 90's, and this could have helped create the climate in which everything just went to pot.

regarding the UK unis, they are trying to make them behave like businesses trying to attract students (=paying customers). As a result, courses are being dumbed down to attract students, everyone is getting good marks irrespective of performance, to attract students, no one ever gets kicked out... the problem is that under this system the places that do the best are not the ones that give the best education but the ones that let you drink for x years and still get a good degree...

the word 'deregulation' sounds funny in this context. It's makes it sound as if anything has been regulated previously...

what they _are_ constantly doing is cutting the support for the poor and vulnerable. Pensioners, and mothers, and the like.

With regards the Uni's again i would argue that this isn't as a result of Uni's being treated as businesses, they are in America and america has the best Uni's in the world. However I don't thin k this is a point worth debating on in the Russian forum

As regards the wild capitalism of the 90's it's something i will have to look into more, i thought I knew more than I actually did!

As a liberal I believe that it's the nations duty to protect it's citizens and with regards the poor i think the Russian goverment isn't doin enough in this regard

I didn't know the healthcare system was held so high, I knew the education system was supposedly excellent though. the alcoholism point is made in the article as far as I can remeber.

this is why i find studying Russia so interesting because there is so much bias in the West towards Russia thats it's nice to see what is through and what isn't, I didn't know there was a middle-class in Communist Russia

survivor2 · 08-12-2010 8:40am

There's an interesting article regarding to your question

"Middle Class as a symbol of the deteriorating Russia"
http://www.apn.ru/publications/article21823.htm

"Middle Class" - a concept well-established in Western sociologists, but for Russia is new and undeveloped.In the USSR was no such thing. Marxist sociology was not tolerated, had not studied it.During tsar times that sociology was preferring simple, everyone understands the word "inhabitants".

In the Literaturnaya Gazeta № 8 (6212) for the year 2009 in the article by Dmitry Karalisa titled" Who's time to change the profession " it sounds very important, timely, and clearly expressed the thought:" The crisis of 90's , called "market reforms" have caused us irreparable harm. Engineers, designers, scientists, military officers, teachers trained in the best universities of the country against their will dramatically changed the professions ... whether the country will survive without the experts and specialists of the business? After the end the crisis we will look around and see - some security guards, porters, janitors, and grown old television comedians. The author asks why the "first violin in our society play big bankers, not engineers, scientists, workers, teachers, peasants - those who actually makes the ground of the Russian society ?". However, Karalis looked at the autopsy of the problem from the viewpoint of an economist and moralist. That must be why he has not risen above the question. Obviously the answer lies in a completely different field: the political...

p1akuw47h5r3it · 08-12-2010 6:11pm

survivor2 wrote: »

There's an interesting article regarding to your question

"Middle Class as a symbol of the deteriorating Russia"
http://www.apn.ru/publications/article21823.htm

cool i'll giv it a read when i have a bit more time

Moomoo1 · 08-12-2010 10:36pm

survivor2 wrote: »

Population of the country continues to steadily decline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_Russia.PNG

notice that the turning point is in the early 90's.

Moomoo1 · 08-12-2010 11:11pm

DanDan6592 wrote: »

With regards the Uni's again i would argue that this isn't as a result of Uni's being treated as businesses, they are in America and america has the best Uni's in the world. However I don't thin k this is a point worth debating on in the Russian forum

As regards the wild capitalism of the 90's it's something i will have to look into more, i thought I knew more than I actually did!

As a liberal I believe that it's the nations duty to protect it's citizens and with regards the poor i think the Russian goverment isn't doin enough in this regard

I didn't know the healthcare system was held so high, I knew the education system was supposedly excellent though. the alcoholism point is made in the article as far as I can remeber.

this is why i find studying Russia so interesting because there is so much bias in the West towards Russia thats it's nice to see what is through and what isn't, I didn't know there was a middle-class in Communist Russia

of course there was. Middle classes are impossible to kill

. You can impoverish them, you can send them to labour camps, but they (we) will still come crawling at you with their (our) potted plants and petit-bourgeois values :-P.

to compare, a decent wage in the late 80's was 120 roubles per month. This is considering that the price of bread and milk was about 0.2 roubles, an underground ticket 0.05 roubles, an average book maybe 1 rouble. But keep in mind that you didn't have to pay much for your flat, for the utilities, for healthcare, education, and so on, and actually it wasn't all so bad. Modest, but not bad. The problem was that to find any goods you had to spend ages looking which shop had them, and stand a long queue, and that luxuries like elegant clothes and restaurants were almost impossible to attain.

But not everyone got 120 roubles. Some menial jobs got 80, even 60, and some jobs got more. Eg my grandfather, being a sculptor, earned 400 roubles a month - on that you could live like a prince - if you could find the necessary goods in shops. And although he was a well-known sculptor he was by no means 'government'. Actually, even government figures probably didn't get more than 5-figure sums. Which is about the same ratio as in the West today: the richest earn millions a year and your average joe earns maybe 20,000.

So what I want to say is, there was a pay scale. So being aspirational, educating yourself, certainly paid off: there was certainly an incentive to do well in life. This is not to say that people didn't fall by the wayside: some lived horribly poor lives. And yet, not as horribly poor as their counterparts would live after the USSR collapsed.

PS: and american unis have got the same problem: many also don't allow their professors to grade students badly for fear of scaring them away. Difference is, many of their unis have huge endownments and there is also good state aid, which isn't the case in the UK. Bottom line is, if turkeys have to be treated as customers there will never be a Christmas...

survivor2 · 09-12-2010 7:56am

Moomoo1 wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_Russia.PNG

notice that the turning point is in the early 90's.

The draw from Wikipedia shows the overall trend. Real statistics is hidden from us.That's very sad.

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)

survivor2 · 12-12-2010 7:57pm

Chairman of the Federation Council,the upper house of Russian Parliament, the leader of FAIR RUSSIA Sergei Mironov said that Russia today is much more impoverished than the number of official statistics. October 17 marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

"The official statistics significantly underestimate the extent of poverty of the Russian population - said Sergei Mironov, and - really poor people in Russia no less than a third of the population. With at least half of the Russian poor - is not retired, homeless, alcoholics and the unemployed but working beggars.This Phenomenon is unprecedented in the developed countries."

According to him, "the problem is that the incomes of half the population lag behind the growth of prices and tariffs up to to 2-3 times. If we observed the beginning of the year,the rise in food prices, basic necessities, utility rates, transport and communications, real incomes in the coming year will be lower than this. "

"Meanwhile, today 63% of the population have incomes below $500 a month. 30%, that is about 42-45 million people with an income of $ 180-200 a month, are living below the poverty line. And only slightly more than 10% of Russians have incomes above $ 800, - said Sergei Mironov. - According to the "FAIR RUSSIA", for a successful struggle against poverty and beggary, the Government should develop a coherent policy proceeds to legislate the ratio of actual inflation and necessarily income growth for retirees and active citizens. "

http://www.spravedlivo.ru/themes/7386.php?topic=40

Moomoo1 · 12-12-2010 11:37pm

and keep in mind who this is. Mironov is 'fake opposition' - he jumps as high as Putin tells him to. So you could be excused for thinking that the real picture could well be worse.

in 2007, this guy deselected one of the front running candidates from his party for election to the russian Duma because that candidate criticised the president too much

Moomoo1 · 13-12-2010 10:17am

found that poll I was talking about

http://gidepark.ru/post/poll/index/id/41589

survivor2 · 13-12-2010 7:08pm

Moomoo1 wrote: »

Mironov is 'fake opposition' - he jumps as high as Putin tells him to. So you could be excused for thinking that the real picture could well be worse.

Absolutely agreed. This fella knows all REAL figures and he is allowed to play with them.

survivor2 · 17-12-2010 10:38pm

Russian Middle Class

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