The Putin regime, of course, bears responsibility for Russia’s hideous invasion of Ukraine: the US isn’t the only powerful state capable of violence and destruction. But is there not more to the story? Does the neoliberal economic model that western states exported to Russia not share some of the blame?
Sigh.
That Putinism exploited Russian despair after the cold war is incontrovertible; but so is the fact that western states promoted “economic shock therapy”. This triggered a more severe crisis than the Great Depression, roaring hyperinflation, a drastic fall in life expectancy, and oligarchs pilfering the nation’s wealth. Could a more stable, post-Soviet Russia have been inured from the revanchism of an authoritarian like Putin?
Take it from someone who was there. Sure, there were mistakes, mistakes of politics (buying the second Yeltsin victory for example). But no, there was no possible alternative other than blowing up the previous economic system.
Just as we could have built an economic model that doesn’t
Nope, TINA.
The grand economic lesson of the psat century is that either you have a market economy or you don’t have an economy. Sure, you can have a bit more social democracy – Sweden, which is more free market and capitalist than we are – or a bit more laissez faire – Singapore, which is richer than we are, more market, more capitalist and more laissez faire than we are – but that’s your available spectrum. Those dreams of some sort of alternative economy that also works are the gaseous emanations from the dead corpse of socialism.
Must admit I’ve always admired the Chinese. They saw that the Russians didn’t introduce the necessary reforms until their state was collapsing, so they decided to adopt the ‘Rich is Glorious’ policy before their state collapsed as well.
So China is still a global superpower. Though of course it’d certainly be much more convenient for us if it’d collapsed as well.
– “Blood, chaos and decline: these are the fruits of unbridled western hubris”
What’s that, it’s all our fault? That sounds jolly familiar around here. But, oh dear, Owen Jones.
Heh, I’m seeing that cartoon meme of the superhero sweating over which button to press.
They could have done it a bit at a time… I dunno reintroduce Kulaks or something…
Swedish companies in my experience are a bunch of ruthless unscrupulous crooks.
The payoff with Singapore is petty authoritarianism so that one is not allowed to pick ones nose in the metro.
So China is still a global superpower. Though of course it’d certainly be much more convenient for us if it’d collapsed as well.
A case of “careful what you wish for”. If China had unwittingly followed the same path as in the 1920s it’d have dissolved into warlordism – but this time with nukes.
To be fair to the aging twink, it could be considered partly our fault that socialism keeps being exposed as the murderous, barren, kleptocrat-enriching, oppressive system that it is.
Without a mostly-free market along with the unbridled western hubris then there would be no sunlit uplands of freedom and plenty for the oppressed masses in eastern europe to gaze up at longingly.
“there was no possible alternative other than blowing up the previous economic system.”
Was there no alternative to Jewish Oligarchs stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down?
“Was there no alternative to Jewish Oligarchs stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down?”
Sure. The emergence of a patriotic hardman who wasn’t so squeamish that they were afraid to make some lethal examples so the surviving oligarchs reined in their behaviour, whilst also not being driven themself solely by self-enrichment.
Are we feeling blessed yet?
As someone mentioned above: careful what you wish for.
China’s collapse – even if only economic collapse – would be pretty bloody ghastly for us, too. Though it’s a fair question as to whether China continuing uninterrupted on its present course will be any less bloody in the long term. Any sinologists willing to quote odds on the likelihood of such a collapse in the next decade or two?
Chris – Any sinologists willing to quote odds on the likelihood of such a collapse in the next decade or two?
I am not a sinologist, but I do have sinuses. I think Britain is a lot more likely to become a failed state than China is.
The Chinese aren’t deliberately trying to make themselves poor and surrounded by retarded Third World migrants, you see. China isn’t a doss house for the world’s very many Muslims with itchy feet and a desire to live off the kuffar.
PJF – “Blood, chaos and decline: these are the fruits of unbridled western hubris”
What’s that, it’s all our fault? That sounds jolly familiar around here. But, oh dear, Owen Jones.
We had a chance to stop the Ukraine war in March/April 2022 and Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to make sure peace didn’t break out.
We told Ukraine we’d help them defeat Russia and ended up defeating both Ukraine and ourselves. Oops!
The only reason they’re still fighting is sunk cost fallacy and also nobody in power wants to be around when the music stops. As soon as Ukraine stops feeding people into the meat grinder, there’s going to be a lot of awkward questions about the hundreds of thousands of deaths, hundreds of thousands of amputees, and what exactly happened to the hundreds of billions in aid we sent to Ukraine.
Owen says:
The radical right is correct that the west is waning. But it’s rampant capitalism and endless wars that are causing its collapse, not ‘wokeness’
Narp. It’s the strange death of capitalism (Net Zero) and our government’s determination to kill our nation and replace the English with Pakistanis, Indians, Somalis and miscellaneous that is going to bring about a collapse of the status quo.
We really can’t keep going on like this. There won’t be a “we” to keep going. That’s what makes the “wokeness” debate so fucking tedious. We are literally losing our country in real time, this isn’t a jolly bunfight over pronouns or social media bollocks or the proper spelling of Kiyiv.
This is about looking out of your window and noticing that you and your countrymen are being replaced.
Boganboy,
I think China is more about geography and technology.
The falling cost of telecoms and the rise in container shipping allowed China to become a manufacturer to the west like they couldn’t before. Too expensive to ship before, too hard to communicate with factories thousands of miles away. And I think this changes the incentives around the politics that you get.
On top of that, China doesn’t have natural resources to the same extent that Russia does. Russians could do OK not industrialising and living off what was pulled out of the ground. Where China had to work harder. Same as why Switzerland industrialised before Tuscany. Because it’s much harder to grow food in Switzerland than Tuscany. You want to eat, you have to figure out something to trade with Tuscans for food.
The war in Gaza is just the latest manifestation. Western newspapers are now littered with articles full of the panicked realisation that more is buried in the rubble of Gaza than just thousands of unidentified bodies. “The damage to Israel’s reputation,” writes Matthew Parris in the Times, “so much less manifest than shattered hospitals in Gaza, is incalculable.”
I support Israel 100% in this conflict, they are the victims of a monstrous attack, the hostages still haven’t been released, and they’ve Gone Roman on Gaza.
If the Arabs had the ability to do so, they’d Go Full Jihad on the Jews. Forget Roman punishment, they would simply genocide them.
However, Owen is right. Israel has lost the war of public opinion, it has lost the automatic support of the the United States government, and its victories on the ground in Gaza appear Pyrrhic. When Donald J Trump, who bows to no conservaBoomer in kissing the Israeli flag, is warning you to wrap it up because the optics are terrible, you’re in trouble.
The Jews who control the Media are doing a shocking job. Joe Public is now convinced the Israelis are bloodthirsty lunatics. Hamas has successfully Jew-jitsued them by creating the conditions where the harder Israel fights, the more internationally isolated it becomes. The attack was bait, to lure Israel into the urban jungle and force everyone else in the Middle East to stop doing peace with Israel and back their fellow Muslims instead.
It worked.
This is absolutely crazy, but it’s what’s happening. Napoleon found that no amount of successful battles could make Republican France secure. Israel is finding that military “victory” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the modern hybrid warfare era.
Unless the Jews and Arabs want to be at each other’s throats until Christ returns, they’re gonna have to come up with a better plan.
How is it then that the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs etc managed to escape the same situation that Russia was in at the fall of Communism? They were given the same “neo-liberal” advice.
Steve, the Jews and Arabs’ve been at each other’s throats since Christ was here last time, it isn’t going to stop until Israel nukes Teheran. And then it’ll only be a pause.
What does it mean to be ‘internationally isolated’ though?
Give it 2 years and no one will be talking about Hamas except the same antisemite that are lying about it today.
and what exactly happened to the hundreds of billions in aid we sent to Ukraine.
It got given to people like King Charles who just sold a mansion to zelensky (the penis piano player) for £20,000,000
Zelensky bought Highgrove in the same way Boris scuppered peace – the Russian fake news outlets said so and gullible idiots believed them. That reality doesn’t bear these out makes absolutely no difference; the fapping seals simply become excited about the next load of wank.
PJF – I am distressed to see you’re a Boris War Truther. It’s not a Russian fake news story, it’s what happened and has been acknowledged by Ukrainian sources, many times.
It seems to me shocking and shameful that we led Ukraine to war, and then told them we’d only have their back in more war, no funny ideas about peace, but that’s what we did.
I have no knowledge of President Zelensky’s property dealings, save that he was mentioned in the Panama Papers. Buying Highgrove Whatever seems a bit Russian oligarchy to be true to me. If President Z has an exit strategy, as an increasingly unpopular president with an expired electoral mandate in an existential war for the existence of the Ukrainian state, presently constituted, Florida or the South of France would seem better botlholes.
Unfortunately, any peace Ukraine signed today would be worse than the peace offered in 2022. Tomorrow will be worse still. Ukraine is (please forgive the inevitable analogies) Nazi Germany 1943. I don’t mean the Ukrainian government are Nazis, or that they are the bad guys. I mean they are on the wrong side of Russian mobilisation mathematics.
Russia is the biggest country in the world. Its ability to generate manpower, train them, equip them, and send them to war is multiple times that of Ukraine. Ukraine now faces Germany’s dilemma in 1943: outnumbered and outgunned, strategically nearing hard limitations if not yet exhaustion, and no better plan than to slow the inevitable Red Army onslaught.
Losing wars can be fought for many years. Nazi Germany faced an unbroken string of losses until the inevitable utter destruction and final humiliation of the Reich in 1945. It would have been more humane to stop the war when it became impossible for one side to win. But, as countless American and Japanese war graves dotted around the Pacific could tell you, it’s actually bloody hard to stop wars.
Boris the Peacemaker. Imagine that alternative universe. Boris of Assisi provides Ukraine with the international backing it needs to have the courage to choose a quick, negotiated end to the Russian conflict. Trebles and cheap Nord Stream 2 gas all round.
The European, and therefore the UK, economies would be booming their way out of Pandemic times.
All those people wouldn’t have died.
Things could be marvelous.
Highgrove has been Charlie’s personal baby (although it’s Wills’s now) – he’ll never sell it, and if he did (even if not to Zelensky) it would be headline news, and not only in the UK. Honestly, the sale of Buck House is far more likely.
Wow, Steve; maybe Jesus would have come back cuddling fluffy white bunnies and playing a nose flute.