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Comment by savramescu | Hacker News Reader

The attitude in communist countries after the Fall resembles so much to the one in "Atlas Shrugged" that it's scary. Goverment really is one big thug who will only steal. Nice countries, but it's a shame that there are people living in them. I should know. I live in one.

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> The attitude in communist countries after the Fall resembles so much to the one in "Atlas Shrugged" that it's scary.

At least as far as Russia is concerned. (but you'll probably get a lot of downvotes from Rand fans, regardless if they are familiar with the situation there or not).

It was interesting how right after the collapse, it was many KGB officials who jumped into the power and land-grab and became the most staunch and cutthroat capitalists practically overnight. (And, mind you, those were supposedly the most loyal communists!).

They operated (and still do) outside the law in a sort of Randian dystopia. Slowly they absorbed the government as that was one way to crush the competitors -- the ones that own the police force, for example, always had a good advantages over the ones that didn't. The ones that owned the mayor and the legislature, had a better advantage over those that just owned the police and so on, all the way to the top.

Also, can anyone say, "contract killings"? That is just a matter of daily business there. From a pure utilitarian perspective, when millions of dollars are at stake (well in Russia it could just be hundreds of thousands), and there are no legal repercussions, why not pay someone $80K to gun down your competitor? Sounds like a sound and profitable business plan. I still am kind of surprised those things are not more common in the West were large sums of money are at stake...

Pure speculation on my part, but some of the reasons that come to mind.

  White collar crime is punished less severely then homicide.
  The parties involved don't want to get into an arms race that isn't already started.
  There is plenty of ways to make a problem go away, including the FEC and IRS.
  No single party has complete control over the government and legal system.

While I generally disagree with lobbyist, I think (at least in the United States) the extreme business interest pressed on the government tends to keep some things in check by each business demanding counter-acting changes.

The ones winning are the politicians, the ones loosing are the under-represented (the individual)

Edit: For certain values of winning

Sounds like a sound and profitable business plan. I still am kind of surprised those things are not more common in the West were large sums of money are at stake...

Anyone who watches the 'Law and Order' shows knows the police frown on rich white guys who do bad things.

I suspect that _most_ people who are in the position to make big bucks got there by having a moral code that says 'thou shalt not'. A framework for living well that allows one to thrive and be happy.

Please don't put all of post-communism-counties into one basket, as there are vast differences between them how they are dealing with democracy/capitalism. Russia is quite a special case here and unfortunately most of the times is an example of "how not to do things". But if you look at countries that were not part of Soviet Union (Czech Republic, Poland, etc.), or Baltic-countries (Latvia, Estonia, etc.) you will get a complete different image of things.

I'm living in one that wasn't part of the Soviet Union but the damage is done anyway. The thug mentality rules our contry (Romania). Maybe I was generalizing when I said post-communism countries. There are exception, but the rule is that most were influenced by the russian way of doing "business".

> russian way of doing "business"

or maybe it is slavic way of doing business? or maybe it is just a consequence of collapse of old institutions and social structure combined with some cultural aspects?

just sayin.

(russian here, living in Estonia and not complaining, btw)

Aren't the Poles also a slavic people? They are doing quite well at the moment.

From the outside looking in, it seems to me like the thug mentality was deeply implanted in Romania by Ceaușescu et al. By comparison, to my mind Dubcek's lasting influence in Czechoslovakia is evident in the treatment of Havel and the dissidents in the following decades: no, they absolutely weren't treated well, but their suppression under a Ceaușescu-like regime would have been far, far worse.

The remnants of this thuggish apparatus in Romania has just turned its energy towards the best target: money.

The attitude in communist and now most ex-communist countries ever since Stalin came to power is "why let a private individual hamstring the government with rules and lawyers when the state has the upper hand in its ability to use violence to get what it wants?".

There's also a tendency toward oligarchy and power cliques. Again, a pattern created by Stalin in which his "dictatorship of the proletariat", or the governing clique rules quasi-divinely in the interest of the people and is not subject to any limits on their power.

You've got to see it in terms of how the ex-communist oligarchy sees it. The airport was not upgraded by the financiers. They merely found the capital and hired the people to do it. It was the workers, the citizens of the Russian federation who made the upgrades to the airport with their hard work. They discount the risk and the ability to persuade capital to focus and instead concentrate on who actually did the physical work to do the upgrade.

>You've got to see it in terms of how the ex-communist oligarchy sees it. [...] It was the workers, the citizens of the Russian federation who made the upgrades to the airport with their hard work. They [... ] concentrate on who actually did the physical work to do the upgrade.

you've got to be kidding if you seriously think that "ex-communist oligarchy sees it" that way. They may _sound_ that way. No problem. The law and community/society/people interests are eagerly applied whenever it is in the real interests of the power top and easily brushed away whenever it isn't.

I'm not saying it's a correct view of reality or even in the best long term interests of their country. I'm just saying that lingering ideology, along with some paranoid nationalism thrown in is where they get their intellectual "cover" among their peers from.

Not exactly the same circumstances, but in the UK BAA has been forced to sell airports for less than they wanted due to a government body ruling to increase competition http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/21/baa-sells-gat...

That's what I was thinking too. What will they do when they true business men run off? Who will they loot then?

They don't need true business men when the oil is flowing.

Have you read Atlas Shrugged?

In a lot of cases the "true business men" having their property confiscated by the government aren't much better, mostly being cronies of either a current or previous government themselves, or connected with organized crime. It's not like Russia's oligarchs suddenly sprouted business empires over the course of a few years through entrepreneurship and hard work. I tend to see it as basically conflicts within the ruling elite; sometimes one faction is in government, and sometimes another faction is, and stuff gets shadily privatized or shadily re-nationalized depending on how those power struggles ebb and flow.

.. and hopefully this is the last time I'll need to clarify this.

My comment was in relation to Atlas Shrugged and unless you've read the book, you won't necessarily understand what I mean by looters and the like.

By that you assume that there are good "true business men" (those who used to run Domodedovo) and bad "thugs".

This doesn't reflect reality much. Those are just roles. One day you're a business man, the next day you participate in state-owned enterprise, the next day you're the "thug". It's wrong to try and separate good "business men" from bad "government men" because they're all drawn from the same pool.

Yeah, and both groups "run off" from time to time.

P.S. The notion that Domodedovo was the best airport compared to other Moscow airports seems to conflict with my experience. It wasn't worse but it wasn't much better. For example, during the ice rain of late December 2010 it failed straight on its face, losing power for several hours and being unable to perform.

Taking into account the brain drain that ex-USSR countries suffered in the 90's and lack of any interest in fresh ideas in architecture, music, movies and business, I think the comparison is pretty apt.

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