You think Russia is the only European country with large state controlled industries, or heavy government involvement in the private sector? In France, government spending is 56% of GDP and the government owns shares in various corporations across the following sectors: banking, energy production and distribution, automobiles, transportation, and telecommunications. The Norwegian Government owns a controlling share of statoil (clues in the title), and heavily involvement in various other sectors. Similar stories in many European countries. Are they all 'not capitalist'
All economies are definitely capitalist, except where they aren't - as Randblade has said pure capitalism doesn't exist anywhere. What I am trying to do is establish a common definition for "capitalist" and "not capitalist" so that meaningful things can be said.Quote:
By saying Russia is definitely capitalist, except where it isn't - and where it isn't involves entire industries and enormous swathes of their economy, are you saying anything meaningful? Are you even attempting to compare apples to apples by measuring relatively free segments of the Russian economy against the same industries in other Western countries?