Audiobook12 hours
Russia's Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy
Written by Anders Aslund
Narrated by Roger Clark
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
A penetrating look into the extreme plutocracy Vladimir Putin has created and its implications for Russia's future.
This insightful study explores how the economic system Vladimir Putin has developed in Russia works to consolidate control over the country. By appointing his close associates as heads of state enterprises and by giving control of the FSB and the judiciary to his friends from the KGB, he has enriched his business friends from Saint Petersburg with preferential government deals. Thus, Putin has created a super wealthy and loyal plutocracy that owes its existence to authoritarianism.
Much of this wealth has been hidden in offshore havens in the United States and the United Kingdom, where companies with anonymous owners and black money transfers are allowed to thrive. Though beneficial to a select few, this system has left Russia's economy in untenable stagnation, which Putin has tried to mask through military might.
This insightful study explores how the economic system Vladimir Putin has developed in Russia works to consolidate control over the country. By appointing his close associates as heads of state enterprises and by giving control of the FSB and the judiciary to his friends from the KGB, he has enriched his business friends from Saint Petersburg with preferential government deals. Thus, Putin has created a super wealthy and loyal plutocracy that owes its existence to authoritarianism.
Much of this wealth has been hidden in offshore havens in the United States and the United Kingdom, where companies with anonymous owners and black money transfers are allowed to thrive. Though beneficial to a select few, this system has left Russia's economy in untenable stagnation, which Putin has tried to mask through military might.
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Reviews for Russia's Crony Capitalism
Rating: 4.65625 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
16 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The book is wonderful - hugely informative, pleasantly written and well narrated (though I had to speed up to 1.2x).
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Had you read this book late last year, you would not have been caught off guard by the onset of a major war between Russia and Ukraine, in as much as the author was very concerned that Putin would see fit to try and convert Russia's still substantial military might into economic and political power before it dwindled away. However, isn't it funny how a regime based on corruption and graft would turn out to field armed forces that were corroded by that same corruption and graft?That said, is this book still worth your time? Probably yes, as Aslund details the structures that Putin created to bolster his power, and the people he used to help him. There is a particular emphasis on the system of secret off-shore banking that allowed the Russian oligarchs (and Putin is the biggest oligarch of all), to smuggle their wealth overseas.As for the future, that remains to be the seen. At the time I'm writing this, maybe Russia can still bludgeon its way to a pyrrhic victory in the current war. However, it seems unlikely that Putin's ruling system will long survive him; who knows what social stresses are taking place that made Putin decide that it was "make or break" time.