Many Russians feel the United States and their country are much alike. Both are vast, they share a sense of adventure, along with underlying lawlessness and violence, and in both, the infrastructure often is an afterthought. So what is keeping Russia from turning into another America — a democratic nation and an economic powerhouse?
Russia got its chance in the early 1990s, but it was largely wasted. The first post-Soviet decade brought almost unlimited liberties, but also rampant corruption and economic decline. During the second one, the liberties gradually eroded and the economy improved thanks to high commodity prices — a mirage, as became clear by the middle of the third decade. So is it just that Russians are not suited to building the kind of society that has ensured America's prosperity?
In 1990, when the Soviet Union was on its last legs, Yale's Robert J. Shiller and the Russian economist Maxim Boycko, who would later hold important government jobs and become a wealthy investor, polled Muscovites and New Yorkers on their attitudes toward free markets. They avoided asking about abstract notions such as "economic liberty" and "capitalism," focusing instead on concrete situations. The study showed significant differences between the views of Russians and Americans. In late 2015, Shiller and Boycko repeated their survey. The results, which were published recently, show that Russians aren't really any less pro-market than Americans — but their attitudes still diverge seriously on some important points, and this divergence may explain why Russia hasn't become more like the U.S.