Is Russia the future of Britain?

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Rudewhy said:
We're not moving towards any form of authoritarianism, be it 'hard' or 'soft', here in the UK. In the US, I don't know, maybe they are, but I would argue that any authoritarian tendencies that have been, or will be, imposed under Trump are reversible under a later presidency. This is completely different to the post-Soviet space where, as Danny has explained, centralised extralegal control is the norm, rather than the exception, to the formation of the power structure.
Click to expand...
But it's becoming normalised there - we can see the president breaking the law and noone can stop it. And same in uk with Cummings and these dodgy contracts. But yeah we've gotta hope that a) Trump losesand b) it's reversible.
If he wins - by cheating or ow - then I'm not sure it will be. He will try to get a third, then fourth term - which is exactly what Im talking about.
 
version

version

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
Whatever differences there are in levels of corruption I don't think they are especially due to the nominal system.
Click to expand...
This suggests otherwise.
Rudewhy said:
Corruption of the post-Soviet variant is a kind of social lubricant which is integral to the functioning of the hybrid communist/capitalist economic systems of the former Soviet states, the existence of which has its roots in the bribe system of the USSR which itself was the logical outcome of the attempted implementation of both a centrally commanded economy and total social equality in the communist sense of the term i.e. it wasn’t the “shock therapy” of Gaidar’s neoliberal reforms of the early 90s which produced this system of endemic, total corruption (although they undoubtably made things worse) - it was the internal contradictions of the communist system itself.
Click to expand...
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
But I mean that when you're in Russia it feels like any other capitalist country - certainly on a day to day level. Perhaps the corruption has historical roots - and of course all the oligarchs got super rich when they changed from running companies to owning them. But is it not a capitalist country now?
Also I was really talking about political corruption - vote suppression, pardoning friends etc - rather than bribery and graft etc Of course they are all entangled but I think they are different things.
 
version

version

Well-known member
My mate was in Moscow recently and said it felt pretty weird, although I guess you have to take the pandemic into account too. He kept sending me photos of Putin merchandise. Shot glasses with pictures of him on, mugs with him looking like James Bond.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RWY
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
WashYourHands said:
@DannyL I fully ‘get‘ where you’re coming from, but the distinction made was that our foundations are rotten, with key points from a historical (rather than a contemporary) perspective. The emphasis was laid out in my original post.

This isn’t some Oedipal complex or lacking a basic understanding of the world (please), rather what our own nation is built on historically. We only got “rights” by suppressing the rights of others (domestic and foreign) and the end of British colonialism is akin to yesterday in the big scheme of things, time-wise. We can just gloss over that, but I’d rather not.

Look at what slave emancipation insurance money contributed toward British infrastructure. Etc. Aboriginal and indigenous slaughter on numerous continents. Wars, endless wars, over anything worth grandstanding over. The “minor” matter of Ireland, sugar plantations in the Caribbean, funding the confederacy during the US Civil War, South Africa‘s legacy, the partition of India. Aka Industrialised mayhem. When was being gay decriminalised here? Not that long ago. Now we can add GCHQ acting as America’s bitch.

You’re spot on about Russia’s own bs. You could add Stalin, famine, genocide basically, but Britain’s own history is littered with atrocities, war crimes, genocide. Are our rights worth defending? Of course they fucking are, but in terms of historical malevolence Britain has taken the piss at astronomical levels.

This isn’t a leftist Oedipal position of ignorance. It’s called history.
Click to expand...
It depends strongly on where you're from, surely? I mean you might well be much more concerned about British, and more generally Western, imperialism than Russian if you're from Iran, Iraq or the Catholic community in Northern Ireland. But the reverse if you're from Finland, Poland, Ukraine or Syria.

In terms of how the world looks in 2020, I can't see Russia as anything other than a profoundly malign influence. And that doesn't come from a position of seeing Britain as a good influence per se, either, but really that question is now kind of a moot point because the dominant faction of our political class has spent the past half-decade going out of its way to make the country as irrelevant as possible.
 
Last edited:
R

RWY

Well-known member
I don't know, I haven't read much on Italy and I don't know the historical context, but the impression I got from Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah is that the intertwining of mafia interests with both business and politics is so pervasive that the rule of law is simply no match for the level of corruption which the country endures.
 
version

version

Well-known member
I read something on the cartels in Mexico which painted a similar picture re: the intertwining of criminal interests and business and politics. Apparently they'd moved into selling food and oil as well as drugs and were so embedded in so many areas there didn't seem to be any solution.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
version said:
I read something on the cartels in Mexico which painted a similar picture re: the intertwining of criminal interests and business and politics. Apparently they'd moved into selling food and oil as well as drugs and were so embedded in so many areas there didn't seem to be any solution.
Click to expand...

kinda like the old school mafia families who would divvy up different supply chains: the wholesale fish market, trash hauling, concrete, napkin/tablecloth cleaning services for restaurants, food supplies for Chinese restaurants, etc.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
in some ways, the old-school Italian mafia families have been dismantled in NYC, but there's still organized crime in other forms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top