| Investigating the roots of Russia's economic decline since 1990 |
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| by |
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| John G. Milios, National Technical University of Athens |
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| JEL classification : Β140, P200, P310, P320 |
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| Abstract |
| Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Russian economy has been declining rapidly. Western analyses interpret this economic decline as the more or less inevitable initial phase of a process of radical economic restructuring. The aim of the present paper is to show that the causes of economic decline in Russia should not be regarded as of a legal or technical nature, but that they should be located in the very structure of the economy, as it was shaped in the era of “actually existing socialism”. The system's collapse, from an economic viewpoint, can be regarded as the victory of (Soviet) enterprises over the so-called “socialist” state power. The economic decline ever since, might then be interpreted as the collapsed system's “revenge” on the social forces which decisively contributed to its downfall. |
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