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Kamil Galeev Profile picture
@kamilkazani
Jun 6, 2022 • 12 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Yes, but that's unimportant. Nobody cares about the suffering of the few. It can and will be ignored. What can't be ignored however is the problems in dentistry. You might not give a damn about kidney dialysis, but very soon you'll need to fix your teeth. That gonna be hard
You can see a good overview here. Russian dentistry is critically dependent upon Western materials, tools and anaesthetics. So the prices are skyrocketing and very soon many services will either be unavailable or will have to swtich to Soviet technologies ngs55.ru/text/health/20…
Unavailability of some high tech services like the kidney dialysis doesn't have political significance. Nobody really cares. What does create political consequences however is the general decrease in life standards for everyone. Dentistry >>> Dialysis, politics-wise
You see, any sort of regime however horrendous it might look from outside can exist only as long as it relies on some sort of social contract. Which is generally accepted by the population. And Putin's regime can exist only as long as it fullfills the social contract conditions
Westerners generally misunderstand Putin's social contract . It's not about "gimme your freedom, and I'll give you money". Not at all. Much of Russian population lived in horrendous conditions and that was ok. Cuz it's not what Putin's social contract is about
Putin's social contract is not about securing some life standards or employment or even economic growth. It's primarily about securing FULL SUPERMARKET SHELVES. That's the basis of his legitimacy
Westerners generally underestimate how much Russian population is traumatised by the Soviet empty shelves. It was not "poverty" that damaged the Soviet legitimacy. It was the empty shelves. You kinda have money, but what are you gonna buy? Image
Putin's social contract is not about everyone having something to eat. It's about food being always available in the supermarket and available in variety and abundance, which never really happened in Russian history before, at least since 1917 Image
It's not poverty that damages the legitimacy of the regime. It's the deficit. If you can't buy food cuz you're poor, then well, fuck you. You're lazy or stupid, because if you were smarter you'd earn cash or take a loan. And buy food which is available in a supermarket, just look Image
If you can't buy food cuz you don't have cash, it's your own fault. Putin's responsibility is to provide you with supply. However, if you can't buy food, because there is no (or little/limited choice of it), that's Putin's fault. He didn't fulfil the implicit promise of abundance
Paradoxically enough, poverty or starvation don't damage the regime nearly as much as the limited choice of yogurts does. Starvation is your own fault. The limited choice of yogurts is Putin's fault. Know the difference
Russian people love to consume. They love to consume way more than Europeans do, because they didn't have much chance to consume at least since Stalin took the power. Limiting the consumption choice or consumption dreams is way more painful than it would be in Europe. End of 🧵

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More from @kamilkazani

Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Aug 9
There's a subtle point here that 99,999% of Western commentariat is missing. Like, totally blind to. And that point is:

Building a huuuuuuuuuuge dam (or steel plant, or whatever) has been EVERYONE's plan of development. Like absolutely every developing country, no exceptions Image
Almost everyone who tried to develop did it in a USSR-ish way, via prestige projects. Build a dam. A steel plant. A huge plant. And then an even bigger one

And then you run out of money, and it all goes bust and all you have is postapocalyptic ruins for the kids to play in
If China did not go bust, in a way like almost every development project from the USSR to South Asia did, that probably means that you guys are wrong about China. Like totally wrong

What you describe is not China but the USSR, and its copies & emulations elsewhere
Read 7 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 7
Victory has a hundred fathers, defeat is an orphan

Everyone is trying to appropriate the rise of China for their own purposes, like it proves their theory, ideology whatever

No one, however, wants to appropriate the post-Soviets, who, by the way, also made capitalist reforms
What I am saying is that "capitalist reforms" are a buzzword devoid of any actual meaning, and a buzzword that obfuscated rather than explains. Specifically, it is fusing radically different policies taken under the radically different circumstances (and timing!) into one - purely for ideological purposes
It can be argued, for example, that starting from the 1980s, China has undertaken massive socialist reforms, specifically in infrastructure, and in basic (mother) industries, such as steel, petrochemical and chemical and, of course, power

That was almost entirely state's job
Read 4 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jul 1
The primary weakness of this argument is that being true, historically speaking, it is just false in the context of American politics where the “communism” label has been so over-used (and misapplied) that it lost all of its former power:

“We want X”
“No, that is communism”
“We want communism”
Basically, when you use a label like “communism” as a deus ex machina winning you every argument, you simultaneously re-define its meaning. And when you use it to beat off every popular socio economic demand (e.g. universal healthcare), you re-define communism as a synthesis of all the popular socio economic demands
Historical communism = forced industrial development in a poor, predominantly agrarian country, funded through expropriation of the peasantry

(With the most disastrous economic and humanitarian consequences)

So, yes, living under the actual communism sucks
Read 5 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 28
Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani’s victory

Many are trying to explain his success with some accidental factors such as his “personal charisma”, Cuomo's weakness etc

Still, I think there may be some fundamental factors here. A longue durée shift, and a very profound one Image
1. Public outrage does not work anymore

If you look at Zohran, he is calm, constructive, and rarely raises his voice. I think one thing that Mamdani - but almost no one else in the American political space is getting - is that the public is getting tired of the outrage
Outrage, anger, righteous indignation have all been the primary drivers of American politics for quite a while

For a while, this tactics worked

Indeed, when everyone around is polite, and soft (and insincere), freaking out was a smart thing to do. It could help you get noticed
Read 8 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 28
People don’t really understand causal links. We pretend we do (“X results in Y”). But we actually don’t. Most explanations (= descriptions of causal structures) are fake.
Theory: X -> Y

Reality:

There may be no connection between X and Y at all. The cause is just misattributed.

Or, perhaps, X does indeed result in Y. but only under a certain (and unknown!) set of conditions that remains totally and utterly opaque to us. So, X->Y is only a part of the equation

And so on
I like to think of a hypothetical Stone Age farmer who started farming, and it worked amazingly, and his entire community adopted his lifestyle, and many generations followed it and prospered and multiplied, until all suddenly wiped out in a new ice age
Read 6 tweets
Kamil Galeev Profile picture
Jun 26
Some thoughts on Zohran Mamdani's victory:

1. Normative Islamophobia that used to define the public discourse being the most acceptable form of racial & ethnic bigotry in the West, is receding. It is not so much dying as rather - failing to replicate. It is not that the old people change their views as that the young do not absorb their prejudice any longer.

In fact, I incline to think it has been failing to replicate for a while, it is just that we have not been paying attention
Again, the change of vibe does not happen at once. The Muslim scare may still find (some) audience among the more rigid elderly, who are not going to change their views. But for the youth, it is starting to sound as archaic as the Catholic scare of know nothings

Out of date
2. What is particularly interesting regarding Mamdani's victory, is his support base. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that its core is comprised of the young (and predominantly white) middle classes, with a nearly equal representation of men and women
Read 12 tweets

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