
Russia Has ‘Oligarchs,’ the US Has ‘Businessmen’ - ericdanielski
https://fair.org/home/russia-has-oligarchs-the-us-has-businessmen/
======
vinceguidry
Anybody actually interested in Russian history, social organization and
politics should follow Dima Vorobiev on Quora. He worked for Soviet propaganda
under Yeltsin and Gorbachev, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Here is an older answer where he talks about Russian 'tributary taxation':
[https://www.quora.com/Will-Russia-abandon-the-tributary-
taxa...](https://www.quora.com/Will-Russia-abandon-the-tributary-taxation-
system-in-the-future-or-is-this-clan-like-system-a-permanent-part-of-Russian-
society/answer/Dima-Vorobiev)

~~~
dpedu
The Revolutions Podcast -
[https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/](https://www.revolutionspodcast.com/) \-
is in the middle of a Russian history unit currently. I find them pretty well
researched.

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lidHanteyk
On one hand, yes, the USA has oligarchic components to its government, and we
must not ignore them. They are mostly the ones guaranteed by the First
Amendment to exist, like lobbying and public advertising. We joke that
legislators are bought and paid for. Corporations can pay into and steer PACs.
And, from a certain point of view, the Electoral College or any other sort of
indirect election is oligarchic. In fact, the pattern of having a political
council chosen by an oligos of democratically-elected representatives is quite
common around the world.

On the other hand, "Russian oligarchy" [0] refers specifically to a grand
looting of wealth during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the effects of
that transfer of wealth and establishment of corporate power structures are
still reverberating throughout Russia. To this day, folks study the unique
combination of oligarchy and corporatism in Russia [1].

On the gripping hand, there are functional oligarchies emerging from direct
corporate selection of legislators, rather than from indirect effects such as
PACs and lobbying, as in the USA. For example, Hong Kong only elects half of
its parliament democratically, and half oligarchically [2]. On one hand, three
of the latter are labor representatives; however, I count six seats going to
the bankers, including the "oligarch"/"businessman" of the article
("insurance", "accounting", "finance", "financial services", and "chamber of
commerce" twice, once for HK and once for China!) For another and quite
different example, Ireland also only elects one house democratically. The
other house consists of the prime minister's hand-picked elders, as well as
several oligarchic councils [3]. Unlike any other system I know of, specific
universities' graduates are constitutionally appointed to choose several
seats.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Russian_corporatis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Russian_corporatism)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Ko...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_Hong_Kong)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanad_%C3%89ireann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanad_%C3%89ireann)

~~~
herenorthere
But directly equating Russian oligarchs to American businessmen makes for a
better headline, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

But in all seriousness, I'm glad that someone was here in the comments section
to break down the nuances of this rather contentious analogy. So TY

~~~
Bendingo
> equating Russian oligarchs to American businessmen

Do you understand that many Russian oligarchs actually were American
Businessmen?

Eg;
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Browder)

~~~
erikpukinskis
Ya, sounds like a real Russian Oligarch all right:

“ Eighteen months after Browder was deported, on June 4, 2007, Hermitage
Capital's offices in Moscow were raided by twenty-five officers of Russia's
Interior Ministry. Twenty-five more officers raided the Moscow office of
Browder's American law firm, Firestone Duncan, seizing the corporate
registration documents for Hermitage's investment holding companies. Browder
assigned Sergei Magnitsky, head of the tax practice at Firestone Duncan, to
investigate the purpose of the raid. He discovered that while those documents
were in the custody of the police, they had been used to fraudulently
reregister Hermitage's holding companies to the name of an ex-convict.[6]”

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nation157
Yep, Russians have spies, US have intelligence!

~~~
jevgeni
There’s the same distinction in Russian: friendly spies are called
“razvedchiki” (reconnaissance agents) whereas adversaries are called “shpiony”
(spies).

~~~
ratsmack
When was the last time you heard the US media refer to anyone in the three
letter agencies as "spies".

~~~
mc32
I have heard it and Eugene is just pointing out that in Russia they make the
same distinction. So it’s nog a novel thing that the US makes that
distinction.

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goatinaboat
Russian oligarchs tend to be former senior officers in the KGB who obtained
state assets at substantial discounts by mysterious means when the USSR broke
up.

Sure lots of Western billionaires are corrupt but there is nothing directly
comparable. There’s no conspiracy of renaming going on.

------
bediger4000
I personally have begun referring to astronomically wealthy US 'Businessmen'
as oligarchs, too. It seems more fitting.

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btrask
I recently learned about the term "Russell cognate", meaning two words that
have the same meaning but vastly different connotations, via some podcast with
Eric Weinstein.

This thread is probably going down in flames, but I appreciate this article
because I never realized that "oligarch" was one of those words.

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8bitsrule
We don't have oligarchs here, we have permanently unembarrassed millionaires.

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jgelsey
U.S. has rule-of-law. Russia has rule-by-force. Comparing Russian and US
elites like this smells like rank Russian propaganda.

------
Viliam1234
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes)

The defining trait of an "oligarch" (in the current usage of the word, not the
ancient Greek) is someone who got the power and money through a combination of
crime and state power, which are usually not even separated.

No, it's not just a difference between "a rich guy from Russia" vs "a rich guy
from USA". The rich guy in Russia most likely had his competitors killed,
literally, and the police turned a blind eye. Denying this is ignoring how the
post-communist countries work.

And yes, sometimes people get killed in USA, too. But compared with that, in
Russia they get killed for trivial stuff. As an example, imagine that Russia
would have its equivalents of Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds. What would happen
is that the Russian-Gates would bribe the police to put a bullet in Russian-
Linus's head, most likely on a busy street in daylight, to send a message to
other wannabe troublemakers. This is how business is done in the post-
communist countries.

You can complain about oligarchy in USA, and you can make a few good points,
but there is still the difference that in USA you can get where Bill Gates is
without paying to have your competitors killed. So it is not the same.
Therefore it makes sense to use different words.

~~~
walterstucco666
> The rich guy in Russia most likely had his competitors killed, literally,
> and the police turned a blind eye. Denying this is ignoring how the post-
> communist countries work.

And the rich guy in the U.S. is a contractor for U.S. government that kills,
torture, rape and is protected by the U.S. military when doing its "business"
abroad, which basically is selling weapons to dictators and bringing gold back
home.

Or laid off thousands of people, because billions aren't enough to live, and
some of them got a gun and killed a bunch of innocent people.

Or it's just an old school colonialist

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/28/amazon-c...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/28/amazon-
crude-oil-us-imports-rainforest-destruction-study)

[https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-complete-history-of-
monsan...](https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-complete-history-of-monsanto-the-
worlds-most-evil-corporation/5387964)

Even killing competitors KGB style looks good, when US pharmaceuticals
companies are literally exploiting US citizens (and probably killing more than
a few of them) for profit!

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/24/opioids-
cris...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/24/opioids-crisis-big-
pharma-drugs-carnage)

Really, what's the difference?

~~~
walterstucco666
Probably I'm being downvoted because I forgot the good old Apple, that builds
its iPhones at Foxconn, where workers commit suicide due to work conditions.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-l...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-
life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-
device-extract)

I'm sorry I forgot Steve Jobs, a brilliant "businessman", a man so "talented"
that even his daughter despise him, for good reasons.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/03/steve-jobs-
daugh...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/03/steve-jobs-daughter-
reveals-father-said-smelled-like-toilet/)

------
ThalesX
I don't really get what I got out of this article...

tl;dr; US news outlets use the term 'oligarch' more when talking about Russia,
Ukraine and other Eastern Block countries.

~~~
vetinari
> I don't really get what I got out of this article...

How the vocabulary is used to frame the article. Use the 'good' term for our
guys, and the 'bad' term for theirs.

The Chelsea soccer club quote is a beautiful example.

