[lbo-talk] Russia's economy

[ravi]

On 11 May, 2007, at 12:45 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Yes, but as Jeffrey Sachs put it in his ghoulish old way - before he
> was born again as a disciple of Bono - the Russian industrial
> infrastructure had to be destroyed, while China was starting from
> scratch. That is, the inheritance of USSR was not up to modern
> standards if the economy was going to open up to the outside world.
> Outside natural resources and maybe basic metals, what companies has
> Russia created that counts for anything on a global scale?

Continuing my India analogy, what companies has India created that  
count? Please, please, please, do not say Infosys and Wipro. I will  
have to go out to the parking lot and shoot myself if you do. If the  
analogy holds, can one be optimistic (as the whole world seems to be)  
about India?

I can understand that ageing infrastructure can be a liability rather  
than an asset, but surely that is not the case with regard to  
technical and scientific knowledge, educational systems, etc? And  
does not Russia have a significant advantage in that sense? Even in  
the IT space, where India is enjoying its boom, my own quasi-expert  
prediction is that the probability of ground-breaking, fundamental or  
even significant contributions is higher for Russia (from what I see  
of its hacker(*) and related communities) than India, or China.

Note that I am, in fact, pessimistic about India. Not based on any  
expertise in economic matters (which I have none of) but from a very  
naive common sense viewpoint. Without throwing the baby out, I think  
there are legitimate worries on how far we can take the non-zero sum  
idea.

	--ravi

(*) please ask if you do not know what the word "hacker" means.