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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:
I know everyone here is doing China discourse here but the honestly not insignificant inequality that remained in the USSR is kinda interesting to see.
In the USSR, the highest paid occupations were scientists, artists, engineers, not CEOs and managers like in capitalist countries. Their top 10% was not the same as our top 10%.
That may be, but the fact of the inequality remains (and it remains a bad thing imo)