No, a sanctioned Russia is not a large North Korea
eharding.substack.com
There have been lots of dumb memes going around that a sanctioned Russia would be the equivalent of a much more populous North Korea. Needless to say, this is not true. North Korea could easily be richer than Russia even under sanctions (it has, after all, a higher average IQ -possibly the highest in the world outside Singapore). The reason it is poor is not because of sanctions, but because the regime prefers a collection of relatively poor politically connected entrepreneurs to a thriving economy in order to retain its hold on power. Russia under sanctions would neither politically nor economically be anything like North Korea. It is completely nonsensical to suggest, as many seem to, that almost all world GDP comes from the West and is simply redistributed to the rest of the world via trade. Between 1930 and 1970, the U.S. consistently had imports below 5% of GDP, reaching an all-time low of 2.8% in 1942 (this is where the common anti-trade sentiment in America comes from, despite the U.S. remaining one of the least trade-reliant countries in the world). The countries destroyed in WWII largely rebuilt themselves, rather than relying on the U.S. for aid or even markets (this especially applies to Japan). The fact is, a sanctioned Russia would just be a sanctioned Russia -with living standards far closer to Argentina (another unusually isolated country) or China (a country barely more reliant on trade than the U.S. or Argentina) than North Korea. Indeed, given the Russian government’s recent policies, the most pressing danger to Russia is not North Koreanization, but Argentinization. Russia’s imports as a percentage of GDP were already a middling 20% -much lower than Hungary’s, Sweden’s, or Germany’s. This year, they will decline to 10% or so, reaching 5% by the mid-2020s.
No, a sanctioned Russia is not a large North Korea
No, a sanctioned Russia is not a large North…
No, a sanctioned Russia is not a large North Korea
There have been lots of dumb memes going around that a sanctioned Russia would be the equivalent of a much more populous North Korea. Needless to say, this is not true. North Korea could easily be richer than Russia even under sanctions (it has, after all, a higher average IQ -possibly the highest in the world outside Singapore). The reason it is poor is not because of sanctions, but because the regime prefers a collection of relatively poor politically connected entrepreneurs to a thriving economy in order to retain its hold on power. Russia under sanctions would neither politically nor economically be anything like North Korea. It is completely nonsensical to suggest, as many seem to, that almost all world GDP comes from the West and is simply redistributed to the rest of the world via trade. Between 1930 and 1970, the U.S. consistently had imports below 5% of GDP, reaching an all-time low of 2.8% in 1942 (this is where the common anti-trade sentiment in America comes from, despite the U.S. remaining one of the least trade-reliant countries in the world). The countries destroyed in WWII largely rebuilt themselves, rather than relying on the U.S. for aid or even markets (this especially applies to Japan). The fact is, a sanctioned Russia would just be a sanctioned Russia -with living standards far closer to Argentina (another unusually isolated country) or China (a country barely more reliant on trade than the U.S. or Argentina) than North Korea. Indeed, given the Russian government’s recent policies, the most pressing danger to Russia is not North Koreanization, but Argentinization. Russia’s imports as a percentage of GDP were already a middling 20% -much lower than Hungary’s, Sweden’s, or Germany’s. This year, they will decline to 10% or so, reaching 5% by the mid-2020s.