[VanillaBlizzard]

If no /sarc, how has Russia shied away from socialism? (Honest question)

[madinmadtown]

It has imported goods from China for one thing. There are shelves stocked with food and clothing of every sort. The government requires lots of forms and underhand payment to operate, but it is possible to openly sell consumer goods by individuals. There are restaurants and flower shops and every sort of store and there is private ownership of property. The “central planning” model has been eliminated or renamed, I am not sure which, but the shortages that were caused by Central Planning have definitely been eliminated. Whether or not the average person can afford the consumer goods is another question, but the goods are available. As far as I can tell, most of the goods come from China and very little is produced within Russia.

[MrB]

Actually, I believe Putin himself warned us that we were going socialist too fast and that it wouldn’t work.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2187964/posts

[RinaseaofDs]

Russia backed off of a planned economy and instituted a flat tax in the last five/ten years. Even Putin advised Obama that the road he was going down economically was a bad one. Ironically, Kruschev secretly advised Nassar in Egypt with the same caution - planned economies are bad.

Russia is now basically a totalitarian system with capitalism as a rough economic system. Too bad you can’t enforce a contract there, however.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

http://www.therightperspective.org/2009/02/11/putin-warns-us-about-socialsm/