Comment by Gagarin1917
7 hours ago
Russia had roughly half the population as compared to the Soviet Union. There’s just no way they could have ever competed on the global stage the same way.
7 hours ago
Russia had roughly half the population as compared to the Soviet Union. There’s just no way they could have ever competed on the global stage the same way.
Sweden's population is tiny, but by working with "the west" they gain from everything everyone else does. Russia has isolated themselves (both directly and in doing things that made others want to isolate them), and thus cannot benefit from what others do near as much.
If one took the view that communism was holding back roughly half of their their potential, then it would have been a reasonable prediction.
No, it wouldn’t have. Only with cetera peribus would that make any sense. And losing half your population is not “all other things being equal.”
It’s a major difference that has a huge impact on output and relative standing globally.
I don't understand your comment. Over the long term, communism (or any sort of economic central planning) will obviously cripple any country's economy. The absolute number of people is meaningless if they're only pretending to work.
Look at the war between Russia and Ukraine today. Every day Russia sends hundreds of men to their deaths in human wave attacks with nothing to show for it. They have a large population but but they're not doing anything useful. If they had double the population it wouldn't change anything.
1 reply →