Russia is sort of in a war economy, but the bigger reason they’re doing well is because the sanctions have forced Russia to abandon the dumbest parts of neoliberalism and instead to rely on import substitution. The sanctions also prevents the ruling class in Russia from taking their money and putting them elsewhere, which means that Europe kind of introduced capital controls on Russia, which is really funny considering Europes fierce opposition to them in any other context.
Russia’s economy is the best performing in Europe right now by far - by far. It’s performing better than most advanced economies, even.
Isn’t part of that just due to the fact that it’s a war economy?
Russia is sort of in a war economy, but the bigger reason they’re doing well is because the sanctions have forced Russia to abandon the dumbest parts of neoliberalism and instead to rely on import substitution. The sanctions also prevents the ruling class in Russia from taking their money and putting them elsewhere, which means that Europe kind of introduced capital controls on Russia, which is really funny considering Europes fierce opposition to them in any other context.
War economy is a good thing. War communism is even better.
Russia is currently in between neoliberal austerity (where most of Europe is at) and war economy (where Russia should really plunge itself into).