Russian Political Capitalism and its Environment

Abstract

There are two main arguments in this chapter. First, the indicators putting the Russian economy in the liberal market economy category mask an economic role for the state that is much greater than that in established market economies of any kind. We are not putting forward a normative argument, that Russia should become a liberal market economy. What we are saying is that the Varieties of Capitalism approach is not helpful in understanding systemic developments in Russia: it has been developed on the basis of a set of criteria that, when applied to Russia, produce a misleading picture. We believe Russia can be more easily understood as an example of Weberian political capitalism. This might change in time, and Russian economic institutions might eventually be classifiable in ways that fit established capitalist societies.

Elizabeth Teague writes in a personal capacity and the views expressed here should not be seen as representing those of the British Government. We are grateful to the editors, to other contributors to this volume and to Jean Paul Smith and Jonathan Stern for comments.