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My understanding is that many of the oligarchs quite literally stole what they have during the 1990s free-for-all (Soviet collapse). This is opposed to many we

My understanding is that many of the oligarchs quite literally stole what they have during the 1990s free-for-all (Soviet collapse). This is opposed to many western business people who won by making better products and generally advancing our standard of living. Whether they deserve the astonishing wealth they have is up for debate (I believe in a wealth tax), but but at least they did something for it! The Wikipedia page says roughly that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch The Wikipedia for Gazprom has a great timeline of how one such business became an elaborate exercise in theft: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazprom#History

toyg 7y ago
> many of the oligarchs quite literally stole what they have during the 1990s Yeah well, it's not like people like Richard Branson didn't do the same (to this very day)... Throughout the ages, wealth tends to be opportunistically accrued, to put it mildly. Steinbeck wrote something about that. It's just that we are somewhat closer to the age of "primary enrichment" when it comes to Russia, whereas we've kinda forgotten our own robber barons.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  I'm unware of stories where Richard Branson, or any other present-day British or American billionaire, got their wealth by capturing a business as it was spun off from government control. Private corrections companies are the closest example I can think of, and I don't think anyone would accuse the media of being friendly towards them.
  - rscho 7y ago
    State company privatizations are a form of theft. Not with guns, but same results. The value is such that no one could normally buy the infrastructure, yet such infrastructure is often sold for pennies.
    - nradov 7y ago
      Sometimes that infrastructure is only worth pennies due to associated debts, and restrictions that governments impose on laying off unproductive workers.
    - anonuser123456 7y ago
      If it's sold on a market, then it's value is it's sale price. Competing investors want to make money too.
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        Well, according to market proponents anyway. I think we should stop treating them as economic oracles and consider other forms of valuation as well, like the marginal cost to the population if the service and the jobs it provides didn't exist. Obviously people who are potential bidders in a market are heavily incentivized to downplay the value of what they're bidding on, so it's not clear to me why their metric of valuation should be privileged above all others. It's just like the idea that efficiency should be conceived of in terms of minimizing production cost, without regard to the effects of that approach on customer/employee retention or organizational resilience - partly because those second-order effects are a little harder to measure, partly because owners have an economic incentive to promote that particular definition above all others.
  - zipwitch 7y ago
    Scientific American recently had an article on how wealth concentration is inevitable, without active mechanisms to continually counter it: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...
    - acqq 7y ago
      And there was already in ancient Greece, some 2600 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia "a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC) in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th century BC, by debt relief." "The seisachtheia laws immediately cancelled all outstanding debts, retroactively emancipated all previously enslaved debtors, reinstated all confiscated serf property to the hektemoroi, and forbade the use of personal freedom as collateral in all future debts. The laws instituted a ceiling to maximum property size - regardless of the legality of its acquisition (i.e. by marriage), meant to prevent excessive accumulation of land by powerful families."
  - the-dude 7y ago
    Elon Musk comes to mind.
  - toyg 7y ago
    Branson preyes on privatizations in the UK. He captured the most profitable train line in the country and extracted large profits from it. He's currently busy doing the same with the National Health Service.
sorokod 7y ago
According to Wikipedia, which you liberally quote, the definition of oligarch has nothing to do with the way their assets have been obtained.
coldtea 7y ago
>My understanding is that many of the oligarchs quite literally stole what they have during the 1990s free-for-all (Soviet collapse). This is opposed to many western business people who won by making better products and generally advancing our standard of living. But totally compatible with how western business people got their start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
- rayiner 7y ago
  Incorrect for two reasons. One, we’re talking about groups of people tied together by how they got wealthy. You are apparently lumping together Bezos and Zuckerberg in with railroad industrialists who have nothing in common other than they are “western business people.” 2) The oligarchs literally stole money from the State. The robber barons, although accused of using unscrupulous methods, did not.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >One, we’re talking about groups of people tied together by how they got wealthy. You are apparently lumping together Bezos and Zuckerberg in with railroad industrialists who have nothing in common other than they are “western business people.” I'm not talking about Bezos and Zuckerberg. I'm talking about how industrialists on the west got their start in the "good ole times". Point being that post-Communist countries elites used the same methods that early western capitalism used, to bootstrap themselves into capitalism... >2) The oligarchs literally stole money from the State. The robber barons, although accused of using unscrupulous methods, did not. The oligarchs didn't have to have "stole money from the state" (not directly at least). Rather, much like western capitalists of yore and of modern day, they benefited from having "friends" in the state, legislators in their pockets, etc, to secure rents and monopolies, special deals, thwart competition, etc.
  - kennywinker 7y ago
    > the robber barons, although accused of using unscrupulous methods, did not. That’s a bold claim that I don’t believe holds up. Even setting aside specifically illegal business practices (bribery, violence, fraud) - the robber baron industrialists exploited the rules of capitalism to concentrate wealth and enrich themselves on the backs of their workers and society. They got ludicrously rich, and everybody else got... what? Less competition in the oil industry? In that sense they robbed us all. Even if you believe that capitalism is the right system for the world, you have to see extreme concentration of wealth as a problem. Put simply, what is better for society: 1 billionaire, or 1,000 millionaires? I believe that it’s pretty clearly the latter.
empath75 7y ago
Behind every great fortune is a great crime.
- rusk 7y ago
  2. The crime to gain it and the crime to keep it.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  No one becomes a billionaire without stepping on some toes.

toyg 7y ago

> many of the oligarchs quite literally stole what they have during the 1990s Yeah well, it's not like people like Richard Branson didn't do the same (to this very day)... Throughout the ages, wealth tends to be opportunistically accrued, to put it mildly. Steinbeck wrote something about that. It's just that we are somewhat closer to the age of "primary enrichment" when it comes to Russia, whereas we've kinda forgotten our own robber barons.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
I'm unware of stories where Richard Branson, or any other present-day British or American billionaire, got their wealth by capturing a business as it was spun off from government control. Private corrections companies are the closest example I can think of, and I don't think anyone would accuse the media of being friendly towards them.
- rscho 7y ago
  State company privatizations are a form of theft. Not with guns, but same results. The value is such that no one could normally buy the infrastructure, yet such infrastructure is often sold for pennies.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Sometimes that infrastructure is only worth pennies due to associated debts, and restrictions that governments impose on laying off unproductive workers.
  - anonuser123456 7y ago
    If it's sold on a market, then it's value is it's sale price. Competing investors want to make money too.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      Well, according to market proponents anyway. I think we should stop treating them as economic oracles and consider other forms of valuation as well, like the marginal cost to the population if the service and the jobs it provides didn't exist. Obviously people who are potential bidders in a market are heavily incentivized to downplay the value of what they're bidding on, so it's not clear to me why their metric of valuation should be privileged above all others. It's just like the idea that efficiency should be conceived of in terms of minimizing production cost, without regard to the effects of that approach on customer/employee retention or organizational resilience - partly because those second-order effects are a little harder to measure, partly because owners have an economic incentive to promote that particular definition above all others.
- zipwitch 7y ago
  Scientific American recently had an article on how wealth concentration is inevitable, without active mechanisms to continually counter it: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...
  - acqq 7y ago
    And there was already in ancient Greece, some 2600 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia "a set of laws instituted by the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC) in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant in Athens by the 6th century BC, by debt relief." "The seisachtheia laws immediately cancelled all outstanding debts, retroactively emancipated all previously enslaved debtors, reinstated all confiscated serf property to the hektemoroi, and forbade the use of personal freedom as collateral in all future debts. The laws instituted a ceiling to maximum property size - regardless of the legality of its acquisition (i.e. by marriage), meant to prevent excessive accumulation of land by powerful families."
- the-dude 7y ago
  Elon Musk comes to mind.
- toyg 7y ago
  Branson preyes on privatizations in the UK. He captured the most profitable train line in the country and extracted large profits from it. He's currently busy doing the same with the National Health Service.

sorokod 7y ago

According to Wikipedia, which you liberally quote, the definition of oligarch has nothing to do with the way their assets have been obtained.

coldtea 7y ago

>My understanding is that many of the oligarchs quite literally stole what they have during the 1990s free-for-all (Soviet collapse). This is opposed to many western business people who won by making better products and generally advancing our standard of living. But totally compatible with how western business people got their start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)

rayiner 7y ago
Incorrect for two reasons. One, we’re talking about groups of people tied together by how they got wealthy. You are apparently lumping together Bezos and Zuckerberg in with railroad industrialists who have nothing in common other than they are “western business people.” 2) The oligarchs literally stole money from the State. The robber barons, although accused of using unscrupulous methods, did not.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >One, we’re talking about groups of people tied together by how they got wealthy. You are apparently lumping together Bezos and Zuckerberg in with railroad industrialists who have nothing in common other than they are “western business people.” I'm not talking about Bezos and Zuckerberg. I'm talking about how industrialists on the west got their start in the "good ole times". Point being that post-Communist countries elites used the same methods that early western capitalism used, to bootstrap themselves into capitalism... >2) The oligarchs literally stole money from the State. The robber barons, although accused of using unscrupulous methods, did not. The oligarchs didn't have to have "stole money from the state" (not directly at least). Rather, much like western capitalists of yore and of modern day, they benefited from having "friends" in the state, legislators in their pockets, etc, to secure rents and monopolies, special deals, thwart competition, etc.
- kennywinker 7y ago
  > the robber barons, although accused of using unscrupulous methods, did not. That’s a bold claim that I don’t believe holds up. Even setting aside specifically illegal business practices (bribery, violence, fraud) - the robber baron industrialists exploited the rules of capitalism to concentrate wealth and enrich themselves on the backs of their workers and society. They got ludicrously rich, and everybody else got... what? Less competition in the oil industry? In that sense they robbed us all. Even if you believe that capitalism is the right system for the world, you have to see extreme concentration of wealth as a problem. Put simply, what is better for society: 1 billionaire, or 1,000 millionaires? I believe that it’s pretty clearly the latter.

empath75 7y ago

Behind every great fortune is a great crime.

rusk 7y ago
2. The crime to gain it and the crime to keep it.
blaser-waffle 7y ago
No one becomes a billionaire without stepping on some toes.