> I'm with Chris (and
> Gorbachev) in thinking that the Putin administration
> has been the best of the
> political choices currently on offer in Russia -
> resembling the Chinese
> leadership in many respects.
China has built an economic manufacturing infrastructure Russia hasn't. That's the bid difference. Why couldn't the Russians have done that? And by, Why would it have destroyed Russia ti have a free press, opposition parties free from harassment and persecution, and a prosecutor's police that was not a political tool, a start on a stable system of property rights? I am not talking about socialist resolution, just normal international standards of civilization. The Chinese squelched these tinge because at their level of exploitation they face dangerous labor unrest. Having abandoned the goal of intensive exploitation and capital development, the least the Russians could do is stake some steps towards democracy. But perhaps Cris consider this to be a Sachs-like innovation that would wipe all the oil-based gains of the last decade, I don't see it, myself.
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