Is Britain as Poor as Mississippi?
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Case in point: almost all people who aren't frequent in either country (but don't limit their Russia experience to downtown Moscow), say that Belarus is richer than Russia, while in fact it isn't. It's just a lot more civilised owing to a higher share of European (Catholic) population. Thus much better maintained and cleaner streets, almost no trash, no homeless, less crime, people are better dressed, fewer are fat, everyone is polite and well-behaved, etc., making an impression of wealth even if most people barely make ends meet.
I bet comparing England to Mississippi (never been to Mississippi), raises about same feeling.
I'd say it's because of the better wealth distribution. Belarus has always fared better in things like Gini index, because while Russia theoretically has a lot of money, that money is more concentrated.
Attributing it to "European" and specifically "Catholic" population seems wrong to me. There is nothing inherently "civilised" about Europeans or Catholics.
> no homeless
I assure you, there is enough homelessness in Belarus.
E.g. https://www.belhelcom.org/be/news/byazdomnyya-lyudzi-i-prava... https://34mag.net/post/yak-dapamagchy-byazdomnym
>I'd say it's because of the better wealth distribution. Belarus has always fared better in things like Gini index.
It is true to say that Belarus has effectively no middle class. But also very little poverty. Just working class and the rich, including very rich, but they don't spend their money in Belarus.
> right approach
WTF?!
Not having home is not a crime. What Łukašenka regime does is immoral, unconstitutional and contrary to human rights.
For example, one has an address and if they sell the place, they must have another address matching certain minimum standards to move to first, or the sale can't be executed. The place must be insured. If it is not, insurance is deducted from one's salary and again, it is illegal to not have income - people without official income pay "parasite fee" that covers all that, or they go to jail. So if the building catches fire, you get a new place from insurance company - or if not, someone again goes to jail. If you have a kid and your new family composition does not fit into the minimum housing standards, the government fixes that for you (and yes this will certainly create a lot of abuses, nothing to be done without it.
But if you are caught bumming, you go through the system you wish you never found out about.
All of that is the case in Belarus and yes, for all the sick stuff Lukashenka does (and even more odd bullshit he says at times), that one is good and should serve as example to the humankind.
The idea of "parasite fee" was objected heavily but you see how brilliantly it worked. Seriously, are there really any unemployed? There are none - instead there are people who don't pay taxes working in grey area. Belarusian mentality is a peasant one, anyone who does not work hard can't be a member of society, so it just doesn't happen there. Belarusian NEET? LMAO. It's fair to tax them forcibly in a fixed amount because they otherwise parasite off the good citizen's labour.
Negative social outcomes can and should be prevented, but not by pouring money alone - sure money is necessary and Belarus spends a lot on preventing them (for example, majority of the Belarusian industry burns money, but is still there to make sure people in provincial areas have jobs and don't waste their lives drinking). They also require fear. Let's face it: if lower classes could be motivated by greed, they won't be where they are. Fear and coercion are necessary to maintain a healthy society.
I lived in Belarus for a long time and although i'm a liberal, i love the country. There are only 3 bad things about it:
1) Climate is an absolute shit, i can't bear it in the winter for more than a week. Especially in the east of it, Hrodna and Brest are a lot more bearable, but still suck.
2) Visa barriers for locals
3) President who behaves like an agricultural version of Trump
There are a lot of reasons why people might want to end up without having a house, e.g. domestic abuse, scams, poverty, etc. To really solve homelessness, you need to tackle these issues. You need safety nets, you need to ensure better living standards, etc.
What Łukašenka's regime does is it makes the homeless people disappear. It makes them invisible, in any way possible.
But by doing this, it just hides the symptoms and does nothing to address the underlying the problems.
> The idea of "parasite fee" was objected heavily but you see how brilliantly it worked.
It has not. The government had to basically scrap the idea, and ended up with doing that thing with different gas/water prices it's doing now.
Also, the protests against the so-called "parasite" fees were a major factor in the future protests: people saw the protest against the "parasite" fee succeeding, and this certainly motivated a lot of us to go to protest in 2020.
> Fear and coercion are necessary to maintain a healthy society
No.
> Seriously, are there really any unemployed? There are none
This is just blatantly false. There are more than enough unemployed in Belarus.
> Belarusian mentality is a peasant one, anyone who does not work hard can't be a member of society, so it just doesn't happen there.
No, it's not. You're wrong. I'm telling you this as a Belarusian.
This might be Łukašenka's mentality, but definitely not Belarusian. And the 2020 has shown clearly that Łukašenka does not represent us.
Change "civilised" to "domesticated", and you're there.
Европейцы, конечо, слишком много мнят о себе.
And most of that wealth was exploited from outside the country, from the 'Empire'. After the 1940s, that external wealth withered away, leaving nowt but a shrivelled husk.
Secondly “GDP” is a god awful measurement of “wealthyness” or “poorness” of a country.
Literally every time there’s a natural disaster, overfishing, strip mining, man made disaster, or O.J. Simpson level court trial the GDP goes up. [1]
[1] Bill Bryson on GDP (link back to HN) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36469798
On a side note, I really recommend all of his books, they are tremendously eye opening, insightful and above all funny
However, is it true that the OJ Simpson trial caused GDP to go up? It caused a lot of visible consumption, sure. But it's not at all clear that it grew the economy as a whole. In the absence of more money/resources flowing in (and from where?) all that expenditure was simply offsetting less expenditure someplace else. It's basically the Broken Window Fallacy. And some of that money which was burned uselessly in the OJ Simpson trial might indeed otherwise have been spent in ways that actually grow the economy. Conceivably, therefore, the OJ Simpson trial shrank GDP, precisely because it was not a productive activity.
So while I appreciate Bryson's point, GDP is possibly still a better metric than intuition might lead you to believe.