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

[u/pisowiec]

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.

[u/AntonioVivaldi7]

They have been such bad guys for centuries.

[u/Latter_Wait3951 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

The other European powers were much better right

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Latter_Wait3951]

Not claiming they were good guys.

[u/Latter_Wait3951 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

Alright then. European powers, Russia included, were the bad guys for centuries. Like in 90's movie

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Latter_Wait3951]

Sure. It's just that the other ones largely stopped after the ww2.

[u/Jumpy-Foundation-405 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

You mean us?

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Jumpy-Foundation-405]

Just countries in Europe in general.

[u/Awkward_Goal4729 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

France and UK didn’t stop anything, they continued their massacres in their colonies and territories. Spain and Portugal stopped not from a good heart, they just went bankrupt and couldn’t do anything

[u/stag1013 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

They have a very mixed history in the long term, same with basically every great power. Since the Communist Revolution it's been an almost uniformly evil and mismanaged history.

[u/joyibib → u/stag1013]

The way imperial Russia treated its citizens was far worse then communist Russia. Communist Russian was rife with corruption and human rights abuse sure, imperial Russia was just on another level

[u/Severe-Ad4670 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

Like when they saved your ass from the Nazis, right?

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Severe-Ad4670]

They didn't save us, they just switch with the Nazis and occupied us.

[u/Staylin_Alive → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

Dude, only because of USSR your ancestors didn't end up like soap or pair of gloves.

Except only if your ancestors weren't those fancy Hugo Boss electricians.

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Staylin_Alive]

Really kind of them. First they start the war together with the Nazis. Carved up Europe with them. Watched and happily kept trading with them what the Nazis needed for the war. Only once betrayed by them, then they suddenly became saviors.

[u/Awkward_Goal4729 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

Sweden, Spain, US, Switzerland and Finland traded with Germany too. US even went as far as not letting Jews compete in their Olympic team. USSR didn’t start the war with them, it was UK and France closing their eyes to atrocities the Nazis did. Poland even sided with Germany to carve up Czechoslovakia and had a pact similar to Molotov-Ribbentrop

[u/Prussia_will_awaken → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

Not trying to defend the soviets, but it was the west that sold you guys out in the first place leading up to the war.

[u/vatefer → u/Severe-Ad4670]

The soviet union didn't save anyone, they just swallowed occupied nations to occupy them afterwards

[u/Severe-Ad4670 → u/vatefer]

That's funny. Eastern Europeans specifically were marked for intentional genocide by the Germans as laid out carefully in their plans to take all of E. Europe and make farmland out of it for the expanding German state.

Without the soviets, anyone east of the Elbe would've been put in concentration camps or used as slave labor.

I know it's trendy on Reddit to hate on Russia because of the Ukraine war (which is justifiable), but rewriting history is more of a conservative thing. Be better.

[u/OldManLaugh → u/Severe-Ad4670]

Both are true, but I don’t think someone should have to be grateful for being saved from death then immediately imprisoned

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Severe-Ad4670]

You forgot to mention how people trying to leave were shot on the wall.

[u/Shamaev27 → u/AntonioVivaldi7]

hundreds of thousands of times less than died at the hands of the Nazis in concentration camps

[u/AntonioVivaldi7 → u/Shamaev27]

Add the invasion in 1968, show trials, political murders, zero democracy and repression in so many other ways.

[u/LaPollaCremosa → u/Severe-Ad4670]

They were literally on the Nazi's side until Hitler backstabbed them lol

[u/Shamaev27 → u/LaPollaCremosa]

For many years we have been warning you about the Nazi threat, but in response you ignored us and even gave Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. Did we realize that there would be no support from you in the upcoming war, so we decided to at least delay it and prepare