[lbo-talk] GDP per capita/Dougs comments

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Jun 24 09:11:39 PDT 2004


Chriss: Ah, that makes sense. Most Russians (except in Moscow) are relatively poor, but they're not at _that_ level. It's the old people who really have it rough. You have them skewing the stats downward. Actually I think a lot of Russians like to complain about being poor more than they actually _are_ poor, because they are using as a criterion of "normal income" an imaginary Western norm that they get from Hollywood movies. They think people in the West, which is their standard for comparison, are richer than they actually are, so they exaggerate their own lack of income.

WS: That is correct. Russians, and Eastern Europeans in general, use "the West" as their reference. The problem is, however, that their image of the West is completely unrealistic. One of the reasons is that for many of them the images of 'the West" come mainly from foreign movies (a phenomenon documented by media researchers in this country as well). Another reason is the contrarian attitudes toward government propaganda under the Soviet system (the "do not trust anything unless it is officially denounced" thing), and still other reason - different consumption patterns and exchange rates (especially under the Soviet system). And finally, the Eastern European Kultur loves misery and self-depreciation - this is how they distinguish themselves from the Westerners (Westerners - spoiled and pampered, Easterners - life-experienced and hard working).

The bottom line is that despite different consumption patterns, Eastern European standards of living under the Soviet system were not much lower than those of the Western developed countries and in many respects higher than those found in the United States when taking social class into account (that changed quite substantially after the so-called "market reforms"). The biggest difference was in the availability of luxury goods (fashionable clothes, automobiles, gadgets) which although marginal for actual standards of living, form the backbone of self-perceived social status. As a result, people would take for granted public health care, education, transportation, housing etc. and instead concentrate on color tee-vees, blue jeans and flashy cars - and if they could not get them, they would consider themselves poor.

Wojtek



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