244
Income inequality in Russia over the period of the USSR
(hexbear.net)
Source: Piketty's World Inequality Report 2022
I shared this deep in a dunk thread earlier and figured there's probably many comrades who haven't seen this data. I think it's very good rhetorically because a lot of libs have an incredibly vibes-based impression that the Soviet Union was just an Animal Farm old-boss-same-as-the-new-boss situation.
Instead, this demonstrates that Russia underwent one of the most dramatic inversions of income inequality of any country in recorded history.
For comparison here is the US over the same time period:
China:
And the UK:
It's probably true. Liberalisation fucked up China until Xi came along and started curbing the billionaire menace to a degree Greater than many of his predecessors.
It didn't "fuck up" China, their metrics were still amazing before Xi
I think the biggest mistake before Xi was not being very diligent about corruption
Billionaires had far more leverage over the government before Xi came in. Add corruption to that and you had insane scandals in China every now and then.