Sanya comments on POV: You wake up as a lucky person studying in the beautiful DPRK. What would you do after class?

[–] Sanya@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

I'll have to respectfully disagree. I don't see things improving for the average Russian, not even a little bit. I live in the EU as well and I know thing got particularly worse lately, but using this to excuse Russia is just doing a race to the bottom. Just beacuse the GDP is doing good and will probably increase makes Russia more powerful and healthy but not necessarily the people living in it.

40% of Russians live on the brink of poverty, struggling to afford basic necessities beyond food and clothing.
Poverty is 2.2 times higher than official statistics, 14.5% of Russians cannot afford basic consumption, and the real number living in extreme poverty is over 21 million.
82% of Russians are anxious about the economy, believing their incomes will not keep up with rising prices.
Despite record-low 2.1% unemployment, high competition makes job hunting extremely tough, with 11.4 resumes per vacancy on average. This doubled since last year.
We are also having an epic South Korea/Japan moment: "The total fertility rate in rural areas in 2025 was the lowest in 35 years."

As of now, I'd rather live in the DPRK. Despite being in worst conditions, they are doing everything they can to help the common people advance. Until Russia goes communist (which might actually happen relatively pretty soon ngl ngl 👀) I don't see them tackling these issues.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm not disputing that and those are very good things to point out, but i'm saying put it into historical perspective. Russians are objectively better off today than they were 25 years ago, and looking at the trajectory of the developing alternative global economic structures and their economic ties to a rising China, it is likely they will be better off in 5-10 years than they are today. Are Germans today better off than they were 25 years ago? I'm not so sure about that. Will they be better off in 5-10 years than they are today? Very probably not.

Of course that does not mean that all these various social and economic problems that are caused by capitalism in Russia will disappear. In the long term those can only be fixed by a return to socialism.

As a communist, obviously, i also gravitate more towards the DPRK's socialist economic organization than Russia's capitalism. I don't know that i would necessarily be materially better off there, and i do think living in Russia has some advantages over the DPRK in terms of access to goods and amenities that we as westerners are used to, but socially it would be nice to know that you have a comprehensive social safety net and are not being exploited by capitalist oligarchs every time you go to work. It would be nice to know that you are working for a common prosperity that everyone can enjoy.

What i am trying to say is that Russia, while deeply flawed, is clearly part of the now more dynamic and developing part of the world which is centered around Asia, while most of the EU is already in a period of decline and stagnation that i do not see stopping.

permalink

fedilink

source

parent