DO NOT CONGRATULATE

Yeah, I think a lot of Westerners, especially Americans, don't understand that everyday life in Putin's Russia is not particularly oppressive, and doesn't necessarily feel all that different from life in the West. That's true of life in most other modern authoritarian states, too. China is a bit more tightly controlled in that internet news is censored, but even there it isn't too hard to get around the Great Firewall, and obviously the full range of consumer products and services is available too.

Looking at the list of countries by GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power (PPP), it looks like Russia is at $27,890 compared to $59,495 in the US and $43,620 in the UK, according the IMF's estimate for 2017. The World Bank's 2016 estimate is a bit more pessimistic ($23,163), but in the same ballpark. These figures are comparable to elsewhere in Eastern Europe, in the same league as Hungary, Poland, Greece, or Turkey and only a little behind Portugal. It does much worse if you look at nominal GDP, not adjusted for purchasing power, but that's not really a fair comparison because it's dependent on the fact that the US dollar is very strong right now while the ruble has been weak since the 2014 oil price collapse. That doesn't affect everyday life much, other than making imports and vacations abroad more expensive.

I don't think the wealth of a country is a very good measure for freedom in general and would dispute the premise behind stinkubus's point. By that measure, Qatar and the UAE are a couple of the freest countries in the world, as is Singapore.
 
Looking at the list of countries by GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power (PPP), it looks like Russia is at $27,890 compared to $59,495 in the US and $43,620 in the UK, according the IMF's estimate for 2017. The World Bank's 2016 estimate is a bit more pessimistic ($23,163), but in the same ballpark. These figures are comparable to elsewhere in Eastern Europe, in the same league as Hungary, Poland, Greece, or Turkey and only a little behind Portugal. It does much worse if you look at nominal GDP, not adjusted for purchasing power, but that's not really a fair comparison because it's dependent on the fact that the US dollar is very strong right now while the ruble has been weak since the 2014 oil price collapse. That doesn't affect everyday life much, other than making imports and vacations abroad more expensive.
About living standards, HDI index might be a better measure as it takes into account other things such as education.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

Russia is qualified as "Very high human development", albeit only barely. The fact that we still didn't fully recover in terms of life expectancy after disaster of 90-s, most likely drags us back in this list.
 
This is more an indictment of life in the west than a defense of life in Russia imo.
No argument there. The fact that life in authoritarian states really only differs in degree rather than kind from life in the West is worrisome. It's not like we expect the American state to be all that much more responsive to popular pressure than Russia is, for instance. It's a little better, in that some politicians can be voted out, the media are far more independent and able to pressure politicians, private citizens do not have much to fear by speaking out and trying to pressure people themselves, and low-level corruption is uncommon. But it's not as though this translates to a very high degree of responsiveness that allows us to draw a sharp line between democratic states on the one side and authoritarian ones on the other.

I think that's a big factor behind the popularity of authoritarian populists. When you feel you have very little control despite the increased level of personal freedom, and democratic institutions alternate between being gridlocked and passing unpopular austerity measures for the masses while socializing costs for large corporations, it becomes more attractive to vote for someone who promises to get things done in the interest of "the people", no matter how authoritarian they are. It's not as though living conditions in Hungary got worse after Orban got into office, and they improved in Russia under Putin. This was partly due to a resource boom, but conditions have remained tolerable even after the boom ended. What passes for "freedom" in the West doesn't seem to amount to much for most people, so why not vote for illiberal strongman types?
 
Look, I'm not saying Russia is a perfect place to live, that it's well functioning democracy, etc. Far from it. We have lots of different problems, including problems with the government system.
But in terms of personal freedoms in daily life, Russia is not much different from Western countries. And I have personal experience to compare these things.
Well, the thing is that the better test of the basic functions of a society IS when things are NOT of the "daily life" kind.

You are a well educated, youngish (I take it) man, member of the ethnic majority ("normal" in a statistical sense that is) — effectively wherever you happen to live in the world, regardless of country and society, the world is likely going to be your oyster, at least relatively.

If you are female, handicapped and ethnic and/or (combination of all traits possible) sexual orientation minority, then possibly your view of daily life might get a different inflection.

The better measure of societies tends to be how they treat their weakest, most marginalized members, not their strongest.

"Daily life" is not a very good metric in itself. At worst it just displays a kind of lack of ambition. In fact, unless you have the misfortune of belonging to a nation actually at war, and probably even then also directly under conditions of a siege, then "daily life" is very likely going to look startlingly similar for most people — whether in Damascus, St Petersburg or Stockholm.
 
Well, the thing is that the better test of the basic functions of a society IS when things are NOT of the "daily life" kind.

You are a well educated, youngish (I take it) man, member of the ethnic majority ("normal" in a statistical sense that is) — effectively wherever you happen to live in the world, regardless of country and society, the world is likely going to be your oyster, at least relatively.
That's why I asked about what is exactly a kind of "freedom" we are lacking in Russia and how it affects an individual person's life.

Bootstoots mentioned corruption and while he is generally right that corruption is a problem in Russia, I believe this is related to democracy only tangentially. My impression is that levels of corruption were highest at the time when the state apparatus was weak and the country was in borderline anarchy in 90-s. And also later, when there was a resource boom before 2008. When the government imposed more restrictive law enforcement measures, it seemed that corruption somewhat reduced.

And to be honest, I don't see much institutionalized mistreatment of ethnic and sexual minorities. Probably, people who look like Arabian/Central Asian have more chances to be stopped by the police and have their documents checked. There is mistreatment of homosexuals on domestic level, but again, it is not institutionalized, rather relates to the culture and conservativeness of Russian society. I'm pretty sure both things exist in Western world too.
 
Bootstoots mentioned corruption and while he is generally right that corruption is a problem in Russia, I believe this is related to democracy only tangentially. My impression is that levels of corruption were highest at the time when the state apparatus was weak and the country was in borderline anarchy in 90-s. And also later, when there was a resource boom before 2008. When the government imposed more restrictive law enforcement measures, it seemed that corruption somewhat reduced.
That makes sense. Worldwide, corruption and authoritarianism are correlated, but only weakly. Most of Latin America democratized at the end of the Cold War and never reverted, but levels of corruption remain very high throughout the region with a couple of exceptions. Italy and Greece are similar stories. India has been democratic since independence but was never able to make a dent in corruption. Overall it seems much harder to get rid of corruption than dictatorship. On the flip side, Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries in the world but has an authoritarian dominant-party system, and Rwanda has far less corruption than the norm for Africa but is an outright dictatorship.
 
That's why I asked about what is exactly a kind of "freedom" we are lacking in Russia and how it affects an individual person's life.

Bootstoots mentioned corruption and while he is generally right that corruption is a problem in Russia, I believe this is related to democracy only tangentially. My impression is that levels of corruption were highest at the time when the state apparatus was weak and the country was in borderline anarchy in 90-s. And also later, when there was a resource boom before 2008. When the government imposed more restrictive law enforcement measures, it seemed that corruption somewhat reduced.

And to be honest, I don't see much institutionalized mistreatment of ethnic and sexual minorities. Probably, people who look like Arabian/Central Asian have more chances to be stopped by the police and have their documents checked. There is mistreatment of homosexuals on domestic level, but again, it is not institutionalized, rather relates to the culture and conservativeness of Russian society. I'm pretty sure both things exist in Western world too.

You get a bullet to the back of the head when you go against Putin (political assassinations) ? Journalist vanish all the time ? A lot of corruption ?
I suppose if you live in the main cities its probably alright, as wealth is concentrated there

If you read the western media, it dose paint a pretty bleak picture,
But then again you can look at Venezuela which is also oil rich country and how that is bordering on collapse, its elections are meaningless and much of the crime is committed by the Police. At least Russia sort of have decent government if its is somewhat corrupt.

I suspect it will probably matter if the Putin government screws up and then tries to hang onto power.
 
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