Prosperity and democracy
If post-materialism has appeared in Western Europe and the US, perhaps materialism has appeared in Russia and China. (Is it too Marxist to suggest that these are stages of history and that materialism in a prerequisite to post-materialism?)This BBC report is about the upwardly mobile in Russia. Tomorrow, a report on the upwardly mobile Chinese.
Russians face up to prosperous reality
"In the first of three special reports, Bridget Kendall, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, reports from Russia on life and attitudes in the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod...
"On the outskirts there is further evidence of the consumer boom that is now transforming not just Moscow, but many bigger Russian cities.
"A new shopping mall includes a gigantic blue and yellow Ikea furniture store, offering all the same goods and even fast food Swedish meat balls as everywhere else in Europe - except that the signs are in Russian...
"At the lower end of the scale, less well-off Russians also admit they live better.
"In a shabby park... I meet an elderly couple, members of Russia's old middle class, the so-called 'intelligentsia' which enjoyed a special status in Soviet times.
"They agree that there is more stability today than in the 1990s, when wages were not paid and savings were wiped out.
"But they are bitter at changes that have left them, they say, impoverished...
"We go into the local supermarket, stocked to the brim with local and foreign goods...
"We both remember the empty shelves of the Soviet era. But Lyudmilla is not impressed by this new bounty.
"'I can't afford most of it, except for a special treat,' she says...
"Peel back the veneer of new prosperity and you very quickly realise the levels of stress today in Russia are astronomical.
"Even [a young prosperous couple] admit they are obsessed with the worry of how to afford a new apartment when property prices have doubled in the past year, mortgage deals are hard to negotiate, and every price tag comes with an extra hefty bribe attached to it...
"Yes, by and large Russians do feel more prosperous. But that doesn't mean their lives are much easier.
"And despite the high opinion poll ratings for President Putin, when it came to politics, what I found everywhere in Nizhny Novogorod was apathy and disillusionment.
"Neither couple were planning to vote in Russia's upcoming elections.
"'I've lost all interest in elections. Any change would only be for the worse,' said [the young woman].
"'There'll be no real choice, so what's the point of voting?' said [her husband], 'Everything is decided for us in this country.'"
See "Post-materialism and democracy"
Labels: economics, political culture, Russia
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:22 AM
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