More than a quarter-century since the demise of the Soviet Union, liberals in American media are still providing useful cover for their favorite failed socialist utopia, just as they did during the Cold War.
Latest example comes from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night in one of her tedious, guest-free monologues, this one on the eye-glazing subject of Russian money-laundering and alleged collusion between the Russian government and Trump campaign, six months and counting into this particular conspiracy theory and not a smoking gun yet but I digress.
Maddow switched to the subject of Russia's listless economy and you just knew it would turn amusing when she cited the reasons why while neglecting to point out the most obvious --
MADDOW: It is kind of amazing when you start following Russian money-laundering schemes all around the world. It is some exotic stuff and it happens all over the world and there is a ton of it. I mean, Russia's a big country. Russia's got a 140-something million people, but their economy? Their GDP is like half of France. (Chart shows Russian's GDP at $1.2 trillion compared to $2.4 trillion for France). ... Russia has more than double the population of France -- it's got an economy half the size of France. Why is that? Part of that is because Russia is a kleptocracy. It is governed by thieves. I mean, you keep hearing about Russian oligarchs. You know, sociologically it's fascinating to see this brand-new class of like oil sheik level wealth among this tiny group of shady Russian guys with broken noses, right (chuckles -- broken noses are funny!) But it tells you something about what happened to the economy in that country in economic terms nearly 30 years after the Wall came down.
Remember it was supposed to be two superpowers in the world? Think about the economy of the United States and the economy of Russia, right? (raises both hands to suggest equivalence). In Russia there's this corrupt, elite class of connected thieves at the top who have been siphoning money out of that country like they're sticking a shop vac into an ant farm, right? And I know, we've got a billionaire-class here and we've got corruption here and we've got, you know, levels of wealth inequality in this country that we haven't seen since the gilded age, I get it. In Russia it is on a different magnitude.
Maddow tells us that "part" of the reason Russia has half the GDP of France with twice its population is because of the Russian "kleptocracy" -- "this corrupt, elite class of connected thieves." In other words, pretty much the same system that existed in the Soviet Union.
Her source for those figures on Russia and France is the CIA World Factbook, and the site's entry for Russia makes for fascinating reading --
Russia has undergone significant changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, moving from a centrally planned economy towards a market-based system. Both economic growth and reform have stalled in recent years, however, and Russia remains a predominantly statist economy with a high concentration of wealth in officials' hands. (emphasis added and again). Economic reforms in the 1990s privatized most industry, with notable exceptions in the energy, transportation, banking, and defense-related sectors. The protection of property rights is still weak, and the state continues to interfere in the free operation of the private sector.
Put another way, Soviet lite. And did I mention it's run by a man for whom the demise of the Soviet Union is the greatest tragedy of the 20th century? Vladimir Putin is many things, mostly bad, but one thing he's not is committed free-marketeer.
Maddow implies that the Soviet Union was an economic "superpower" on a par with the United States, and since its collapse it has been the actions of kleptocrats -- translation: capitalism on steroids -- that are to blame for Russia's enduring malaise.
Liberals often claim that the pernicious legacies of slavery and Jim Crow must be considered when the issue is current racial inequalities. By the same token, rigid and disastrous central planning, murderous oppression from the top, and Orwellian double-think that corrupted its culture and persisted across three-quarters of the last century can't be ignored when pointing out why Russia remains impoverished.
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