Propaganda is always much more powerful with a united message in countries that are controlled by dictators where they have absolute authority over the media like in Russia these days, where all independent media outlets in Russia are now controlled by Putin's henchmen.
My wifes Ukrainian family has a very tense conversation with the Moscow side of the family recently where they were saying Russia is saving them from fascists as this is how the interim Ukrainian government is portrayed by the state censored media. The fact that the Deputies (MPs) are the same elected people that pulled the levers of power under Yanukovych or were the elected opposition parties is irrelevant when you are trying to whip up a patriotic fervour to justify invading and stealing another country's territory.
This shows that propaganda works with most of the people most of the time.
Russia is however already paying a big economic price for seizing Crimea with having to intervene in the currency markets to prop up the Ruble to the tune of $16bn, raise interest rates by 1.5% and have seen growth projections for 2014 revised down from 2% to 0% or worse. Their stock market has dropped over 9% so far. Capital flight to Cyprus, Netherlands and British Virgin Islands has increased sharply. Their economics minister has said that their economy is entering a critical phase. One thing that investors look for above anything else is return of the money, this is much more important than return on the money, where making up lost capital takes much longer and is much more painful than slight differences in returns.
The fact that Russia has now confiscated some factories that belong to prominent anti-Yanukovych Ukrainians won't be lost on international investors. Weak property laws, non-independent judiciary systems and arbitrary confiscation of property, expulsion from a company and for foreign owners and workers from the country, fines, incorrect tax assessments, imprisonment, corruption by those in charge make certain countries, including Russia, very bad places to invest. This is why most countries do badly when controlled by dictators.
The 20-50 club is an exclusive club of 7 nations where the average earnings are more that $20,000 and the population is more that 50,000,000. The countries are: United States, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea and the United Kingdom. They also ALL have two other things in common, that are all democracies with capitalist industrial systems.
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Topic: The power of propaganda and poverty in dictatorships (Read 639 times)