Why is Russia still so poor? Because the country did not have freedom.

Russian conscripts must buy and bring their own protective vests, helmets and boots. After that, they hardly receive any training before being sent to the front. They have already started sending them home coffins.

Far from all human suffering, this tragedy makes me think of one of the world’s greatest economists, the Englishman Robert Malthus. What he’s best known for is that he was completely wrong.

Malthus’ leading theory was that periods of growth are always followed by population increases that literally devour growth so that eventually everyone becomes equally poor again. This was true until he put forward the theory in 1798. After that, it was never true anymore.

did not come In between was the Industrial Revolution, with the massive increase in wealth far outpacing any increase in childbearing. A little later, Malthus’ theories were also challenged by increasing women’s freedom to decide whether to have children.

Freedom is also relevant in the first stage. Because there are countless theories about what was behind the Industrial Revolution: the availability of raw materials, labour, capital, new technology like the steam engine and the increased availability of food. This is how it is still described in reference books.

Freedom increased all the time from the eighteenth century onwards—and eventually with great help from the women’s movement and the labor movement.

However, nothing would have been enough without freedom. Step by step from the eighteenth century onward, individuals in Holland, Great Britain, and later the rest of the West were freed from the hindrance of guild privileges, from the compulsion to remain in the place where they were born and the most merciless compulsion to bow to authority. Instead, over time, more and more people gained equality before the law, even toward the upper class, the right to run business without burden or connections, the right to get an education and the right to make their own decisions.

This allowed the broad classes to start new businesses and develop new technologies, and the new legal equality made people dare to take the initiative.

It has been around for a long time, of course Big holes in the project of freedom, for women, for slaves, for the working class that is still expected to bow to new masters. However, freedom has increased all the time – with great help from the women’s and labor movements – and with it the tremendous power that is the free human mind has been unleashed. Malthus had no chance.

But then the human must be released first. And here we go back to Russia there Still 23 percent of the population in 2019 According to the statistics agency Rosstat, there was no running water. In rural areas it was 67 per cent.

Russia has almost everything that has increased prosperity in the West since 1800, making the poorest 3,000 percent even richer. Everything except freedom and equality before the law.

Russia is one of the world’s most resource-rich countries, with a large, well-educated population. Before the attack on Ukraine, the country was ranked fifth in terms of the number of billionaires in the world and access to all modern technologies. And so they have almost everything that has led to an increase in wealth that has made the poorest 3,000 percent richer in the West since 1800.

Everything but freedom and equality before the law. This shortage is an important reason why today’s Russian industries can hardly assemble imported components into working cars or computers, let alone build semiconductors, optoelectronics and all the other high-tech building units imported hitherto. Therefore, Russia’s per capita GDP was slightly higher than Estonia’s per capita at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, while today’s Estonia is almost three times larger than that of Russia.

The whole of Russian society still depends on knowing the right people, saying the right things to superiors and never thinking about yourself.

Post-Soviet Russia’s policy was based on nothing but individual liberation. The whole of Russian society still depends on knowing the right people, saying the right things to superiors and never thinking about yourself. You can cheat and play tricks, but do not stand up for yourself or trust the application of the exposed rules.

It is mentally tyrannical and subservient in a way worse than many other dictatorships and transcends the psychological suffering that economic misery brings.

Putin built Its strength was that the urban middle class was still able to lead a fairly prosperous modern life. At the same time, in subsidiary republics such as Kalmykia or Ingushetia, people were only able to dream of water toilets. Now even the so-called standard of living of Muscovites is collapsing. Unfortunately, one cannot hope that they will therefore demand the much-needed freedom of the country.