My concern is if western Europe can be convinced to detente with Russia (unlikely but who tf knows). In that case, I just hope the rich Russian man’s universal urge to retire to southern France/northern Italy is offset by the fear that the Russian populace will tie them up by their toes like a piñata for selling out the country to western business interests twice in one life time.
A fun fact about Russian economy is that state industry plays a fairly dominant role there. A 2023 World Bank study gives a pretty good overview. In particular, it distinguishes between businesses of the state (BOS), that are at least 10% government owned by some government, and state owned enterprises (SOE), which are majority owned or more, and controlled, by the government.
Russia is also an autarky being self sufficient in all the necessities. If rich people decide to flee west once the relations improve, it likely would be a good thing for Russia overall.
I’ve never been especially swayed by concerns of capital flight, though clearly the Russian economy is especially well insulated. I was just being flippantly facetious about Putin et al, who at one point really went way beyond any reasonable sense to try and have nice relations with the west. But, the broad coalition needed to keep the Communists out of power is far too fragile for Putin to do anything too purely self-interested—despite western insistence on his infinite dictatorial powers.
I very much agree, and I’d argue that one of the biggest outcomes from the war was that European masks fell off. Russians finally got to see what Europeans really think of them, and I don’t think there’s any going back from this now. At least not for a generations. Ever since the fall of USSR, Russians really wanted to be part of Europe, hence Putin’s attempts to bend over backwards for them.
Now, Russians know that Europeans hate them with a passion, and they can never be part of Europe. At the same time, Russians are now seeing that they don’t need Europe nearly as much as Europe needs them. Russian economy is doing fine while Europe is collapsing without Russian energy. I expect there’s going to be a lot more self confidence in Russia going forward.
My concern is if western Europe can be convinced to detente with Russia (unlikely but who tf knows). In that case, I just hope the rich Russian man’s universal urge to retire to southern France/northern Italy is offset by the fear that the Russian populace will tie them up by their toes like a piñata for selling out the country to western business interests twice in one life time.
A fun fact about Russian economy is that state industry plays a fairly dominant role there. A 2023 World Bank study gives a pretty good overview. In particular, it distinguishes between businesses of the state (BOS), that are at least 10% government owned by some government, and state owned enterprises (SOE), which are majority owned or more, and controlled, by the government.
Top line result is shown in the following chart:
And here’s another chart showing SOE in Russia compared with China https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/state-owned-enterprises-global-economy-reason-concern
Russia is also an autarky being self sufficient in all the necessities. If rich people decide to flee west once the relations improve, it likely would be a good thing for Russia overall.
I’ve never been especially swayed by concerns of capital flight, though clearly the Russian economy is especially well insulated. I was just being flippantly facetious about Putin et al, who at one point really went way beyond any reasonable sense to try and have nice relations with the west. But, the broad coalition needed to keep the Communists out of power is far too fragile for Putin to do anything too purely self-interested—despite western insistence on his infinite dictatorial powers.
I very much agree, and I’d argue that one of the biggest outcomes from the war was that European masks fell off. Russians finally got to see what Europeans really think of them, and I don’t think there’s any going back from this now. At least not for a generations. Ever since the fall of USSR, Russians really wanted to be part of Europe, hence Putin’s attempts to bend over backwards for them.
Now, Russians know that Europeans hate them with a passion, and they can never be part of Europe. At the same time, Russians are now seeing that they don’t need Europe nearly as much as Europe needs them. Russian economy is doing fine while Europe is collapsing without Russian energy. I expect there’s going to be a lot more self confidence in Russia going forward.