Is Russia now a developed country?
I would say Russia is still a developing nation… Of course, poverty in Russia and other former Soviet republics is not in most cases probably as extreme and gruesome as in some other parts of the world. Nonetheless, it is a very serious factor contributing to the growth of deprivation and the general decline in the quality of life and human capital in the country. This affects negatively its international competitiveness as is evident from the UN sponsored Human Development Index. The move to the system of flexible production is not guaranteed. In a society in which the economy is weakly subordinated to social arrangements, that is, in a weak civil society, system of mass standardized production may retain its dominance. In a sense, Russia faces a choice. From the era of state socialism it has inherited a very rigid system of production firmly rooted in the principles of Fordism. The first decade of post-communism has done little to change the situation. If social capital and social
