[lbo-talk] 20 years after

dredmond at efn.org dredmond at efn.org
Thu Nov 5 10:38:23 PST 2009


On Thu, November 5, 2009 5:36 am, Wojtek S wrote:


> What is the net gain in economic development and standards of living of
> the vast majority (bottom 80%) of the population during those twenty years
> as compared to similar gains during the twenty year period after the 1917
> revolution (Russia) or the end of WW2 (Eastern Europe)?

Hard to say - those societies were going through basic urbanization and industrialization, whereas the post-1990 societies are semiperipheries. What's good for one isn't going to work for the other. Still, I think you could draw a meaningful comparison between the ten years of neoliberal insanity and ten years of developmental states:

1990-2000: on the plus side, a hugely wasteful military-industrial complex was scrapped, and lots of the basic human rights written into the books of the one-party states were finally put into practice. Minus side: a third of the economy vaporized, savings destroyed, sleazeball oligarchs control the economy, a body count of maybe 15 million excess deaths, Russian GDP down to $350 billion with $15 billion in forex reserves.

2000-2009: massive economic recovery, lots of environmental cleanup, vast expansion of rule of law and welfare benefits, Russian GDP up to $1.5 trillion with $432 billion in forex reserves.

-- DRR



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