After the break up of USSR, to today’s rapid deterioration, what are Russians saying about economics and the rich?
- “Oligarchy is a merger of the authorities and big business, corruption. Putin and his henchmen ARE such oligarchs, who have illegally seized power and violate justice with impunity — they indulge in bald robbery, extortion, unlawful persecution and so on.”
- “Oligarchy is the usurpation of power (in our case monopolization of resources) in order to please foreign patrons. Oligarchy sprang up thanks to the ‘liberal’ reforms imposed on us by Washington.”
- “The very existence of oligarchs is a slap in the face of all honest people in our country. The quicker they are imprisoned, the better.”
- “As for ‘greater efficiency’ of private owners — if they rob the country — maybe it is better for this robbing to be ‘less efficient’? In fact, for so many years of the ‘free market,’ so much of the old has been stolen and so little new has been created.”
A bit more here, collected from the Moscow Times.