Interesting book - Theories of Development.

[Nikitn]

http://books.google.no/books?id=A2uL...age&q=&f=false

I just used it on the subject of USSR. Interestingly, it says USSR had a HDI of 0.91 (even though I doubt that), higher than in Portugal and S. Korea. Now Russia has a HDI of pathetic 0.82 which is lower than some Latin American countries.

Anyway, it would be interesting to see a discussion about the economic development all over the world, and the backgrounds behind them. Especially interesting is S. Korea and Latin America (like: Why did Argentine, for example, end up so more poorer than the US. Both were relatively prosperous in the early 20th. Century).

[Aru]

Russia went through a lot of economic pressure in 1990's, just like all post communist countries. To some extent the entire state system has fallen, and some had to rebuild it from nothing. I think people don't understand what stress on economy is going from planned to free market. Just the fact that companies needed to learn to complete on world market, which put them at huge disadvantage against the rest of the world is enough. Then also the fact that many could easily illegaly gain wealth on expense of workers (buy a factory cheaply, sell all the equipment, shut down the factory) and many other things contributed for quality of life to fall in Eastern Europe. Croatia regained 1989 BDP only in 2000 I think, that's how low the economies, and with them the quality of life, fell.

[Nikitn]

Yeah, I remember when it was finally declared that living standards in Russia were finally back to the 1991 Soviet level.

Things were far tougher in former Soviet countries than in rest of Eastern Europe though, in terms of how much the living standard fell.