[yellowcanoe]

Oh gee, American corporations coming in and developing resources and hiring local people with good paying jobs and producing salable products for domestic use and export while paying taxes to the government.
The horrors!
Much better to have a gang of oligarchs take over and oppress the masses while fitting out their yachts with stolen profits.

Westerners have largely forgotten the huge drop in the standard of living in Russia after the fall of Communism. Political freedom was absent from Russia during Communist rule but people did have the assurance of a job and pension when they retired. The Russian people were put through a shock treatment that would be unimaginable to us - too much change in too short of a time. The support for an autocratic leader such as Putin doesn't surprise me at all.

[mousepad]

Political freedom was absent from Russia during Communist rule but people did have the assurance of a job and pension when they retired.

I'm wondering how north koreans feel about their plight.

You don't have it that bad, you ain't got no freedom, but at least you got a job shovelings cow poop and a promise of a daily bowl of gruel for retirement.

[AdamB]

Political freedom was absent from Russia during Communist rule but people did have the assurance of a job and pension when they retired.

I'm wondering how north koreans feel about their plight.

You don't have it that bad, you ain't got no freedom, but at least you got a job shovelings cow poop and a promise of a daily bowl of gruel for retirement.

Wouldn't this really be a case of, "gee, if it's so great there with that pension and a job, when are you emigrating?". I have a job and a pension in the US, what's wrong with having some (semi) political freedom too and just staying here?

[yellowcanoe]

Political freedom was absent from Russia during Communist rule but people did have the assurance of a job and pension when they retired.

I'm wondering how north koreans feel about their plight.

You don't have it that bad, you ain't got no freedom, but at least you got a job shovelings cow poop and a promise of a daily bowl of gruel for retirement.

I believe that Russians had a higher standard of living under Communism than North Koreans do now.

[AdamB]

I believe that Russians had a higher standard of living under Communism than North Koreans do now.

Think Russia post Putin's war will still be higher?

[yellowcanoe]

I believe that Russians had a higher standard of living under Communism than North Koreans do now.

Think Russia post Putin's war will still be higher?

It's rather sad that Russians will continue to have a low standard of living despite living in a country that is blessed with a lot of natural resources. The war with Ukraine can only push living standards further down.

The democratic and capitalist countries we live in provide most of us with a higher standard of living than any communist country would have been able to provide. The point I was trying to make is that the collapse of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a sharp reduction in the standard of loving for a lot of people in Russia. If Russia had been able to stick with building a democracy, an impartial justice system providing rule of law, a free media and a properly regulated capitalist system the Russian people would have a pretty good standard of living by now and memories of the difficult times immediately after the fall of communism would be fading away. Alas, before enough time had past for all these things to happen, Putin managed to get power, with the result that the country does not have rule of law, opposition politicians are killed or imprisoned, the media is controlled and much of the economy is controlled by wealthy oligarchs.

Turning what had been an authoritarian state into a democracy is an inherently difficult thing to do. We had success in doing it to Germany and Japan after WW2. In other cases since WW2, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the process did not work.

[vtsnowedin]

Comparing standard of living is often an apples to oranges math problem. GDP or GDP per capita doesn't tell the story if a lot of natural resources are being extracted but the profits are in the hands of a few leaving the majority in poverty. North Korea is even worse having few resources to exploit and a dictatorship holding all the money. North Korea's PPGDP is only $1700 a year and if that were distributed evenly (which it isn't) would come to $140 a month per person.
Compare to the USA median monthly wage of $5783 Briton's 3223,Ukraine's $775 and Russia's $480.

[AdamB]

Turning what had been an authoritarian state into a democracy is an inherently difficult thing to do. We had success in doing it to Germany and Japan after WW2. In other cases since WW2, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the process did not work.

Well, in Germany and Japan we crushed them down to their core, and then led by example and nourished otherwise western european thoughts on society and governance, and they grew into reasonable functioning countries. In Iraq and Afghanistan we knocked off the current despots and religious tyrants and then attempted to fight the real battle against millennia of cultural and religious belief and indoctrination. As we had no desire to run the country in the model of the way the Romans did it (spend lives and treasure running the joint forever or until we didn't have the ability to project power any longer), when we handed them back to folks we thought we had westernized, they imploded back into what they may always be. I wonder how long the lessons learned in those two places will be remembered, the next time America thinks it is a good idea to go nation building?