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“Russia has to decentralize political and economic control”
Published: 24 December, 2009, 18:04
Edited: 28 December, 2009, 12:36
Medvedev understands that we need the middle class, we need civil society, we need entrepreneurs in order to turn the country around, says Andrey Kortunov, political analyst from the New Eurasia Foundation.
The oligarchs that own much of russian production (mines,,metals etc) are not interested in investing in medium and small enterprises. The state companies are in the resource sector mainly. None of these groups is likely to create mittelstand type enterprises. In addition the basis of innovation new in labs and universities is lagging. Soviet mathematics has been destroyed hence you deprive yourslself of serious development in IT, design and many other things. Ditto for Physics etc. Without support for education no authentic and sustained progress is posssible. A shortcut might be to buy the services of foreign specialists and set up joint ventures. But even this in the long run would require serious investments in education and in R+D. Just talking about innovation is not enough.
These analysts are hopeless creatures. They have only one cure for everything. Decentralization of Russia. From common cold, to the creation of middle class, that is their one size fits all answer. In fact, that would put Russia back into Middle Ages. No, dear analysts; your one and only tool, decentralization, has nothing to do with the economic development and the middle class. Conditions for the diversification of economic developement, entrepreneurship and the resulting middle class have not beee met yet. Should I bother telling what it is? I'd rather not.