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After Russia reverts to centrally planned and state driven economy, all of a sudden economic growth in Russia is beating the west. (www.telegraph.co.uk)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

if France gets a GDP boost by cranking their military budget into their state arms companies i don't think anybody would call that central planning. has Russia really reorganized their economy?

[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (1 children)

During the first world war imperialist countries used a centrally planned economy, while still remaining bourgeois dictatorships.

This is not a dunk on capitalism, only yet another proof that "free market" is objectively utter bullshit because even capitalists know

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (1 children)

is russia a centrally planned, mobilized economy right now? this isn't rhetorical

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

I don't have enough knowledge to answer, I'm just saying that it's not unrealistic when looking back at History

[–] [email protected] 36 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Military spending is still a small part of overall GDP in Russia, so the claim that Russian economy is recovering due to cranking up of their military budget doesn't make sense. A far more sound explanation is that decoupling from the west created economic niches that are now being filled domestically. And I think it is fair to say that Russian economy has been reorganized in the past two years with state owned enterprise such as Rostec taking a much more prominent role.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Rostec is a military manufacturer! further, what you're describing isn't supported by the article and doesn't really sound like central planning. when Pemex has a good year Mexico is not any less neoliberal

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not going by just the article itself. Details of Russian economy are well documented.

Rostec is also a lot more than just a military manufacturer. Meanwhile, there have been plenty of articles over the past two years that explain how Russia is reverting back from liberal policies and putting the state in commanding heights of the economy.

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's high levels of SOEs is not far behind China by many measures.

Central bank plays a big role in Russia as well, and has large influence over the funding of the private enterprise. FT even moaned about state directed economy standing up to sanctions back in 2022.

Finally, here's an article talking deprivatization of Russian economy.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Probably in no means comparable to that of the Soviet Union, but the damage done to the oligarchs' wealth and influence (who no one liked anyways for obvious reasons, who had been a serious hurdle for the Russian state to deal with, and who had ironically been pretty pro-western or west-compromised) is something incredibly positive to consider- as is the exodus of western corporations, leaving their assets to be bought up on the cheap and their roles to be filled by local or Chinese brands, and the newfound push back to self-sufficiency in many fields.

Any one of these three aspects alone would be more than enough to call it a serious reorganizing (though not one remotely as drastic as returning to communism, sadly), economically, and politically.

Russia is probably not returning to communism anytime soon, but it's headed in incredibly decent places if you ask me (other than the issues of conservative politics, but they're not headed into fascism either unlike much of the west, and they remain non-imperialist). And if you ask me- it's not the best case scenario, sure, but it's an exceedingly good thing for Russia and the wider world.