Putin and the left

[ChrisD(RJ)]

That an old canard of good tsar and bad boyars.  Seems that not much has
changed in the realm of Russian collective consciousness since then.
Also seems that Max Weber was right about different forms of authoriy
being associated with different stages in the modernization process.

Wojtek
---
The tsar/boyars thing does have a material basis, and that is the wopping
size and mind-boggling incompetence of the Russian bureaucracy overall,
which is now 60% larger than existed during communism not just in Russia but
in the entire USSR. It is a bribe-taking, efficiency-slowing machine.