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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Why I don't think that Ukraine has bright future ahead
Disclaimer: This is not an anti-ukranian or pro Russia post, I wish only the best for Ukrainian people and Russia has most of the same and many unique problems.

Ukraine in 1991 was one of the richest countries in Eastern Europe, being on par with Russia and above such countries as Poland and Belarus. The crisis of the 90s escaped Poland, but was shared by the rest, after which Ukraine lagged behind its neighbors in development. We can say that this is due to such factors as Poland's membership in the EU or the presence of oil in the Russian Federation, but a noticeable lag even behind Belarus shows that this is not the sufficient explanation.

Such estimates of GDP PPP per capita in this context are often criticized for ignoring the problem of the shadow economy or, in plain language, "envelope wages". Only this problem is not unique to Ukraine, but a common feature of the CIS countries, and in it, it is more pronounced than in Belarus or Russia, but not enough to explain such a large gap.

Also, quite often one can hear about the supposed difference in the distribution of economic development in the Russian Federation and Ukraine, allegedly in the second there is greater decentralization and a smaller difference between regions. But in terms of GRP per capita, excluding, for obvious reasons, oil and gas regions like Yamal, in both countries one can see approximately same and strong difference between the capital and the poorest regions. This is also true for Belarus. Similar trend can be seen in HDI ranking - Russia standing at 52nd place, Kazakhstan at 56th Belarus at 60th and Ukraine at 77th.

There are many possible reasons that could explain such an outstanding backwardness of Ukraine even by the standards of the CIS. From crazy theories about the genetic or cultural inferiority of its inhabitants to a more adequate analysis of the particular corruption and arrogance of the elites. I won't pretend to know the right one and I don't even need to find some exact answer to this riddle. It’s enough to ask the question: “Why and what will change or has already changed in 2022, which has not happened in the history of this country?”.

War that will make patriots out of corrupt oligarchs? It started in 2014. A new president who promises to fix everything and fix corruption? It's happened so many times it's not funny anymore. Additional grants/loans/Marshall Plan 2.0? Didn't billions of dollars and euros already have go one way into Ukraine? Where did they go? They will go there the next time if there current corrupt system remains. European integration? It has been talked about since the 90s and European leaders are now talking about "the long road ahead for Ukraine", the status of a candidate is not at all a guarantee of an early entry, ask Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro. Why would EU want the poorest European country after Moldova, with the highest corruption and similar to Georgia problems(that of course could be theoretically solved in the near future but this is beside the point)? EU had enough of one Hungary with Orban stealing economic aid with his cronies, it doesn't need a second one. These internal problems will have to be corrected on their own, before, and not after, entry.

But there might be not enough time to for solving them. Ukrainian demographics are awful, a very old population with average age much closer to western countries and not states with similar economic development, which, at the same time, also has the opportunity to relatively freely leave for better countries. For the same reason that Ukrainian patriots in Canada still not returned and will not return in their entirety to help their homeland, major part of today's refugees have already found or will find work and will remain in Europe, having made a reasonable, rational choice.

P.S. It is more my personal pet peeve and not part of the argument but I think that this and similar economic deals that still going on are very strong evidence of some corrupt dealings going on between oligarchs from both sides.

Ukraines was on a fairly similar to path since 2014 as other former Soviet colonies. First you have the corruption but eventually you clean up you system in a second step and then you end up rich like Poland.

Demographics are an issue but if they start having more sex after the war I would expect them to end up a higher income country.

I think the point of your comments is to imply that Ukraine deserves war because they are bad corrupt people. But these issues were similar in every other CIS and over time were fixed. There is no reason to have expected Ukraine to follow a different path than their neighbors who were all successful after Ukraine became free in 2014. It takes time.

But if you look at economic data there no great change after 2014. Ukraine is still poorer than even Belarus, country not known for being free from corruption or russian influence.

Ukraine's tfr is at western Europe levels. People have sex enough already, they just don't want the kids. And there was already mentioned current situation with many women in Europe. Men could join them there and maybe even have higher than average birth rates but many of them wouldn't want to return to war torn poorer than Belarus homeland.

No, this wasn't the point and this senseless war makes things in both Russia and Ukraine worse. "But these issues were similar in every other CIS and over time were fixed" presicily the opposite, in all those countries corruption reigns supreme and wasn't even remotely fixed, you can check this in any independent corruption index. It doesn't mean that it categorically impossible to solve this kind of issues but it seemingly takes way more time than 8 years. And this is the time that Ukraine doesn't have based on its demographics.

Post 2014 could be argued that it takes time to reorient economy. I would expect a more recent pop but they have been at some degree of war too during that time.

Is your data just picking up oil? I’m seeing 34% of Belarus exports are energy and while I thought Ukraine did some it seems like agriculture is more important. Also a good bit larger country so perhaps Belarus has performed better because of more energy per capita which depends less on trade networks.

Id still call fighting this war as Ukraines only choice. Long term they should look more like Poland.

What oil? There is less oil reserves in Ukraine than in Belarus. And this 34% figure is for export of refined petroleum products, that while can only be possible because of the export from Russia is still option that was not locked for Ukraine.

"Id still call fighting this war as Ukraines only choice" Of course it is but main point of my post was disagreement with this "Long term they should look more like Poland" sentiment.

What oil? There is less oil reserves in Ukraine than in Belarus.

Export of oil and fertilizers is a huge source of Belarus income. Cheap oil and gas from Russia are necessary for those industries to be viable, and are de facto subsidies from RF to Belarus. Lukashenka's regime , despite being much more brutal than Ukrainian even during Yanukovich times, ensured that most enterprises were state owned, and larger share of profits stayed in Belarus (unlike Ukraine, where whole industries got privatized, their owners through lobbying avoided large taxes, and profits were rerouted to tax havens somewhere in Cyprus and later used to buy mansions in Nice).

I was trying to explain your income gap. Oil would be convenient and that is the first thing that popped up on Wikipedia as a difference.

Unless there is specific genetic weakness in the Ukranian people I see no reason to not expect them to reach the income levels of their neighbors when there is a clear desire to adopt the policies of the neighbors. That seems like a reasonable bet.

But there many more possible reasons. For example in difference with Belarus or Russia political structure where there aren't any one ruling oligarch clan and instead several competing. Better theories can be found in economists' works.

Demographics are an issue but if they start having more sex after the war I would expect them to end up a higher income country.

That will be difficult if all the women stay in western Europe. It's likely a lot of them will want to stay instead of returning to a bombed out country, especially considering that they will have built lives while the war is going on.

It could be an unfortunate side effect of a policy designed to save their lives.