>>> But first, here is my take.
In his important book the third
wave, Samuel Huntington pointed
out the division among the
ruling elite is a key sign of
weakness in authoritarian
regimes.
When members of the
establishment break with the
system, it triggers a larger set
of changes.
Conversely, when you do not see
such defections, it means the
autocrat will probably be able
to survive.
Syrian dictator bashar Al Assad
is one example of this principle
at work.
So how would be apply to that
Russia today.
Prigozhin's failed attempt, but
Vladimir Putin was able to snuff
it out within a day or two.
It appears that prigozhin got no
public support from any key
figure in the Kremlin which
could be why he ended his March
on Moscow.
Putin has spent much of his
tenure crushing dissent from
liberals and now subduing his
challengers on the nationalist
side.
Power struggles takes place in a
black box.
As the lines to Winston
Churchill go it is comparable to
a fight under a rug and when he
sees the bones fly out, now we
see prigozhin's bones.
What is not a matter of
regulation is the state of
Russian society.
I've been stunned by unstatistic
ever since a read it.
A 15-year-old Russian male today
has the same life expectancy as
a 15-year-old male in Haiti.
Russia is one of the world's
richest countries in terms of
normal resources and it is an
urbanized industrialized society
with levels of education and
literacy comparable to and
perhaps even exceeding Europe
yap countries.
This analysis comes from an
August 2022 working paper by the
scholar who has long studied
demography.
He pointed out that for three
decades Russia has been de
populating.
From 2013 to 2015, deaths have
outpaced births.
But this trend is one we see in
many industrialized countries.
What stands out in Russia is its
mortality rate.
Using the world health
organization's data in 2019,
before any effects from covid or
the war, the world health
organization estimated a
15-year-old boy in Russia could
expect to live another 53.7
years which is about the same as
a Haitian and below the life
expectancies for males in Yemen,
Mali, South Sudan and males
about the same age could live
seven years longer than
Russians.
Education usually correlated
with good health but not in
Russia.
Shockingly Russia is a country
with first world educational
levels and fourth world
mortality rates for its working
age population.
He then digs deeper into the
educational attainments and
finds that the mystery deepens.
With huge numbers of well
trained people, especially in
the sciences, Russia performs
miserably in the knowledge
economy.
Much worse than did the soviet
union.
In 2019, Russia ranked behind
Austria in international patent
applications despite having 16
times the population.
Today it ranks alongside Alabama
in U.S. Patents, the gold
standard for companies
everywhere.
Despite having almost 30 times
the population of Alabama.
All of these numbers will likely
get much worse given the
hundreds of thousands of likely
well trained urban educated
Russians who fled the country
after its aggression against
Ukraine.
What explains the stunning
mismatch in Russia?
A new book by the scholar
Alexander edkin, Russia against
modernity, makes the case that
Putin has created a state that
gets revenues by exacting
natural resources and fulfilled
none of the functions of a
modern state in terms of
providing welfare for people.
Corruption is in this regime
noting that post soviet Russia
has seen the fastest rise in
inequality anywhere in the
world.
After the protests against him
in 2011 and 2012, which enraged
Putin blamed on then secretary
Hillary Clinton, the Russian
state became even more
anti-modern.
For Putin's regime, the west
represents forces of social,
economic and political
modernization that could infect
Russia.
In his speech as he launched the
war in Ukraine, Putin accused
the United States of destroying
Russia's traditional values and
impose new ones on it, which,
directly lead to degradation and
degeneration because they are
contrary to human nature.
For Putin, modernizing Russia
would create a more active civil
society with greater demands for
better health care, more
opportunities for ordinary
citizens and a less klepto
crattic state.
And so he advocates a
traditional Russia.
Which celebrates religion,
traditional morality and
xenophobia and strick gender
conformity, of course.
What does this all add up to?
I'm not sure.
But it is fair to say that