[lbo-talk] How the former Soviet republics have fared on their own

Marv Gandall marvgand2 at gmail.com
Wed Nov 12 06:44:49 PST 2014


Most of the 32 countries which were formerly Soviet republics have lagged the modest growth rates of the developed capitalist countries since the dissolution of the USSR in 1990, according to research by former World Bank economist Branko Milanovic.

Seven are basket cases, including Ukraine and Georgia. None of these “is likely to reach its 1990 income any time soon. Basically, they are countries with at least three to four wasted generations. At current rates of growth, it might take them some 50 or 60 years—longer than they were under Communism!—to go back to the income levels they had at the fall of Communism.”

The largest of the former republics, Russia, despite the oil boom and rapid growth of the recent decade, has also failed to match 1.7% annual average GDP of the OECD countries, undoubtedly owing to its economic collapse under Boris Yeltsin in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet breakup.

“The real capitalist successes are only five: Albania, Poland, Belarus, Armenia and Estonia, having grown by at least 3% per capita per annum, almost at twice the rate of rich countries, and without an obvious help of natural resources”, Milanovic says.

http://glineq.blogspot.ca/2014/11/for-whom-wall-fell-balance-sheet-of.html



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