Quote Originally Posted by Enoch the Red View Post
If you cut out energy, which amounts to roughly 25% to 30% of Russia's GDP, banking, which has deposits that amount to roughly 7% of their GDP, defense, which constitutes 20% of all Russian manufacturing jobs, and transportation, (Russian Railways alone comprises 2% of total Russian GDP), you might have the foundations of an argument that Russia is somehow a role model for a capitalist economy. Is that a meaningful comparison when almost half of the economy is state owned, controlled, or subsidized?
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'

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?
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.