It’s obviously not a direct comparison. That said, while Russian economy is capitalist nowadays, it’s quite different from the financialized western economies. There’s a focus on industry and self sufficiency that simply doesn’t exist in the west. Furthermore, Russia never fully embraced liberal policies and the state remains at the commanding heights of the economy. A 2023 World Bank study gives a pretty good overview of this. In particular, it distinguishes between businesses of the state (BOS), that are at least 10% government owned by some government, and state owned enterprises (SOE), which are majority owned or more, and controlled, by the government.
Russia’s high levels of SOEs is not far behind China by many measures.
Central bank plays a big role in Russia as well, and has large influence over the funding of the private enterprise. FT even moaned about state directed economy standing up to sanctions back in 2022. Also, here’s an article talking deprivatization of Russian economy.
Meanwhile, trade with China and Iran are unlikely to be hugely affected by an economic crash in the west. If anything, it’s going to make Russia a more important trading partner for these countries.
It’s obviously not a direct comparison. That said, while Russian economy is capitalist nowadays, it’s quite different from the financialized western economies. There’s a focus on industry and self sufficiency that simply doesn’t exist in the west. Furthermore, Russia never fully embraced liberal policies and the state remains at the commanding heights of the economy. A 2023 World Bank study gives a pretty good overview of this. In particular, it distinguishes between businesses of the state (BOS), that are at least 10% government owned by some government, and state owned enterprises (SOE), which are majority owned or more, and controlled, by the government.
Top line result is shown in the following chart:
And here’s another chart showing SOE in Russia compared with China https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/state-owned-enterprises-global-economy-reason-concern
Russia’s high levels of SOEs is not far behind China by many measures.
Central bank plays a big role in Russia as well, and has large influence over the funding of the private enterprise. FT even moaned about state directed economy standing up to sanctions back in 2022. Also, here’s an article talking deprivatization of Russian economy.
Meanwhile, trade with China and Iran are unlikely to be hugely affected by an economic crash in the west. If anything, it’s going to make Russia a more important trading partner for these countries.
Finally, energy exports, while much of the focus in the west, constitute a fairly small part of the overall economy in Russia. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1314532/gdp-share-by-industry-russia/