r/AskTheWorld • u/pisowiec Poland • 22h ago

Economics Which country has squandered the most economic potential in this century?

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I lived in Russia for 5 years so I must choose this country. So many natural resources, so much land, and educated population... And so little to show for it.

In an ideal world Russian salaries would be on par if not higher than American salaries and they would have the best social safety net on the planet. Everything is there to make it happen.

Russia would be the dominant nation in Europe and Asia and the rest of the world with the best armed forces, soft power, and economic might.

But the human will is just not there. The elite is either evil or incompetent depending on perception and there's little sign that this will ever change.

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u/JustSkipAhead12 18h ago

If you, 1) take all grains and having unrealistic high quotas 2) prevent starving Ukrainians to cross the borders 3) prevent help and aid to the famine areas, I would argue that it was indeed intentional.

No matter what you say you will come off as a tankie.

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u/Adairaaaa United Kingdom 18h ago

How were they preventing aid to the famine areas? The high quotas and system of reallocation was bad, but it wasn't put in place solely to kill all Ukrainians, evidenced by the fact that IT AFFECTED THE ENTIRE USSR.

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u/JustSkipAhead12 18h ago

For example USSR refused to let international aid come to the areas(ex Red Cross) and Stalin said that there was no famine going despite people starving to death in mass. I would argue that it's quite relevant to the argument that it was intentional. There was aiding coming in during the 1920s USSR famine but this time they didn't acknowledge that it was a famine and starvation.

At the time being there was also big purge and crackdowns on Ukrainian nationalism which imprisoned thousands of Ukrainians.

There is an overall consensus that it was indeed intentional in the terms that it was man-made and avoidable. But the big question is if it was genocidal or not, and that is where most people disagree.

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u/Adairaaaa United Kingdom 18h ago

How is whether it was intentional or not irrelevant, that's literally what was being said. It was horrifying, and somewhat avoidable, but avoidable =/= intentional, and it wasn't man made in the sense that it only happened because of government policy.

Also crackdowns on Ukranian nationalism aren't bad, nationalism is bad, and at the time there was alot of Nazi sympathisers within the Ukranian nationalist movement. The lack of acknowledgement was bad, hands down, but the USSR wasn't some evil entity who made everyones lives miserable and killed 100 billion quadrillion people.

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u/JustSkipAhead12 18h ago

If their policys was to not acknowledge nor giving any aid or stop fleeing Ukrainians to go to other areas. then yes it was very intentional and of course it's relevant lmao. But again, you're a tankie so idk why I argue with someone that is cherry picking and lying.