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Back from the Former USSR

Posted by Brink Lindsey

I’ve just returned from a fascinating week in Russia and Ukraine. I was in Moscow last week to deliver some lectures regarding my book on globalization, Against the Dead Hand, which was recently translated into Russian. From there I traveled down to Kiev to improve Cato’s contacts with liberal (in the everywhere-but-America sense of that word) organizations there. 

My overwhelming impression from the visit: what a difference an oil boom makes! Now in the fifteenth year since the collapse of the Soviet Union, neither Russia nor Ukraine has had much success in making the transition from communism to a viable market economy (according to the latest Economic Freedom of the World report, Ukraine ranks 103rd in the world, with Russia trailing just behind at 115th). Despite this and many other similarities, there is one critical difference between the two countries: Russia has oil and gas, and Ukraine doesn’t. Read the rest of this post »