Observations on ‘The Return’ of Russia & Additional Economic/Political Topics

Macro-economics is one area where the acute observer may learn much of human social behavior, for all have interest in economic matters of necessity. ‘The Return’ by Daniel Triesman published in 2010 is possible the best academic quality though eminently enjoyable reading history of Russia shortly before and following the end of the Soviet Union until 2010. The Russian stock market ‘rose by more than eighteen times between July 1999 and July 2008’ Dr. Treisman reports. In reading this fine contemporary history we learn why, providing hope that some spark of political whit might begin a new ecospherically beneficial economic recovery in the U.S.A. some day as well.

The economic and political changes of Russia and other member states of the former Soviet Union from 1989 unto 2010 were quite remarkable and changed the history of the world. The way Mikhail Gorbachev allowed his Glasnost and Perestroika policies break up the formerly oppressive communist authority and how Boris Yeltsin signed a decree ending the Soviet Union and establishing the C.I.S. is no more remarkable than the story of Yeltsin and Gaidar’s methods of legalizing private property and private enterprise in addition to privatizing state industry. One can only wish that former President G.W. Bush had been half as bright as Boris Yeltsin in restructuring the oil fields of Iraq following the removal of the Baathist Government from power. Yeltsin created vouchers that let the people own a substantial portion of the Russian oil businesses (though eventually Russian ownership of former Soviet industry concentrated in possession of a few as in many countries of the world today such as Belgium, Greece, Israel, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, South Korea and France where even medium sized businesses may have concentrated ownership).

American may be surprised to read that car ownership has tripled in Russia. Russian GDP per worker increased an average 5.5% between 2000 and 2006 while the incomes of the poorest potion of Russians increased 10% per year and that of the richest 12% while some Americans were experiencing long-term unemployment and decreasing prospects of ever finding meaningful work. The United States’ economy has been in an apparent retrograde motion since 2006-7 while the Russian economy has been in recovery thought the U.S. led 2007-2008 world recession wrenched Russia too for a time. ‘The Return’ is an excellent history of Russia’s return to economic well being from the abyss of totalitarianism through self-determination and solid economic liberalism from Gorbachev to Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev.
Not only are the Chinese and Indian economies improving while America’s is in comparative decline, that of Russia also seems to have a leadership tradition the past 20 years investing with concern in improving prosperity of the people of their own nations.

The United States has several problems that it is unwilling to address that would bring capitalism to work to enrich all citizens including the poor. One problem is philosophical and is based on the popular disdain of a planned economy. Letting capitalism phenomenally evolve without rational government oversight is a kind of actualization of the 18th century ideas of Adam Smith moved to a 21st century context experimentally. Unregulated economic activity in a comparative wilderness obviously requires little or no governance, while in a complex social world more governance and planning is required to prevent environmental disaster amongst other things.

Government planning must exist though not beyond a reasonable and adequate scale to allow the well being of a people. Fundamental planning includes democratic political choices regarding the right of people to own private property instead of allowing all real estate to become owned by one wealthiest capitalist. It should not be a choice between an entirely planned economy and a randomly evolving phenomenal capitalist economy supported by state emergency interventions to keep business and people alive when the private sector allows dead zones to form in the economy.

One might consider the deregulation of home mortgages and their collateralization and packaging for sale in tranches to investors as a phenomena that might inhibit the rational planning of ecologically and economically desirable low cost, zero-loss of biota individual homes or alternately, the construction of large ecologically naturalized two story artificial hills with thousands of condominiums synergized with agriculture; investment planning designed to maximize profit may produce buildings inimical to public ecological concerns, and the tranching financial foundations may negate public and political opportunities to afford ecologically and financially practical housing.

The supply of cheap illegal immigrant labor from Mexico assures a high rate of unemployment of citizens in non-outsourcable physical work jobs, while the supposedly highly skilled jobs that can be outsourced are a diminishing goal to pursue for Unemployed Americans stressed to invest thousands of dollars on education for jobs that won’t really exist later.

There is also the prospect for future globally guided remote computer robot worker developments in business further deleting human workers in the United States. It would be cheaper to train a skilled Chinese or Indian robot operator to control a robot in a factory in the U.S.A. (or several robots) via the Internet to assembly products or do surgery, anesthesia boxes for remote control by distant specialists or special field surgeries in Africa than to pay real Americans to do the work themselves. Even Chinese and India robot operators would do the work for less money per hour.

It seems that high tech boxes with lasers and fingers, cameras and scalpels operated by computer programs and humans with specialized training at a distance could reduce the cost and scarcity of rural medical procedures. Perhaps the dangers of making too smart of robots can be reduced by letting human operators control the brainless machines from a distance even if they are explorers climbing own craters on the moon or the highest Volcanoes of Mars. If extra-planetary exploration can be done by people on Earth controlling robotic machines maybe a stable demographic could have jobs working through the robots mining and developing farms off world for eventually human habitation as well as for export to Earth when needed. Some government planning to coordinate mission and goal parameters should be used I would think.

That is the reason why the idea of national self-interest of citizens to have productive work is a responsibility of a democratic government that the idea of absolute capitalism for itself should not displace or erase entirely. Even if it might be possible for concentrated wealth do create a social structure without need for any humans to work in America-in which grocery store shelves could be restocked by remote controlled computer by a dude in Shanghai, or floors mopped and waxed, bricks piled up to make a home and etc by brainless robots operated by humans paid 2 dollars an hour in Bangalore making new homes in Houston, government needs to find some way that human beings that are citizens can afford a meaningful and productive life in the United States when global capitalism may have no concern whatsoever about anything besides owning everything themselves with or without Americans in America.

Macro-economics today present many challenging concerns moving through the realms of interest to sociologists and environmental scientists as well. Presidential candidates should be competent on global heating and ecospheric biodiversity loss dangers as well as the phenomenality of military behavior of human beings.

China is challenged by the choice of investing in a large conventional blue water navy that has little value except for war. Yet robotic, stealthy, floating, submersible, surface effects torpedo and anti-ship missile launching platforms make conventional shipping of the future far more vulnerable to destruction than in prior eras. Even conventional jet aircraft will be challenged to survive small stealthy air to air robotic mines recharged by solar power. Pilotless air to air anti-aircraft missile platforms will be able to hunt human piloted craft to extinction soon-obviously investing in creating a stable ecosphere with liberty and justice for all humans would be a better investment than in the limited potential enterprise of war robots and small remote controlled on-station anti-ship missile platforms. The human sociological behavior of war making infrastructure moves toward counterproductive economic and environmental status in a world challenging by a Gaia hypothesis decline in need of brilliance to maximize human potential instead of better ways for humanity to run its heads into concrete walls.

It is surprising that Russia has prevalently built up modest budget surpluses and improved the standard of living for its people while the U.S. Government has built up public debt, outsourced jobs, flooded the nation with cheap migrant labor, made the nation less competitive in educational achievements and supported a policy of future American economic decline through lack of intelligence, ambition or knowledge of how to make the economy more productive for the people and the environment. It might be possible to desalinate saltwater and irrigate West Texas farmland with solar powered pumps and evaporation-collection canals-yet why should government be involved in anything creative when food can be imported from Turkey or wherever?

‘The Return’ of Russia to economic health and a free enterprise based environment of social production is something of a secular miracle to many observers of history. Treisman’s book recounts numerous interesting elements of the transformation necessarily founded in history accelerated through the changes of time. The problem of Chechnyan relations to Russia is given more depth than many have encountered reading newspapers or listening to NPR, as is the phenomenal relationship balances of taxation to independence movements and indigenous natural resources.

Russia developed a flat tax rate of 13% after being unable to collect on its progressive tax. Perhaps one of the reasons why the Obama administration is unable to get a better, higher tax rate on the rich is that they can so readily relocate their wealth and production facilities abroad as they are at any rate. Cutting back tax collections to the central government in Moscow (or Washington D.C.) would require local areas to pick up the tab for necessary local services-that is a policy evolution resource rich regions often prefer in order to avoid paying taxes to a central government authority that then redistributes the revenue to poorer regions and non-local special federal projects. Sometimes as progressive tax cuts are eliminated regressive tax increases occur hidden as higher user fees for government services used by the masses. An example might be the cost of a U.S Copyright registration fee that was ten dollars when G.H.W. Bush took office reaching fifty dollars by the time G.W. Bush left the Presidency.

After the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the period during the 1990s of formation of new independent states with various degrees of affiliation to Russia the Kremlin became challenged to keep a central government and state funded while concurrently liberalizing the economy to as egalitarian of privately held form as was possible in the social environment of the time. There is something of a political laboratory nature in the post-soviet state relations that any student of history or social philosophy will find interesting reading.