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Viliam's avatar

> If the wealth gap between NATO members in Eastern Europe and Russian-aligned Eastern Europe continues to grow (i.e. Poland and the Baltics get rich and Belarus stays poor) [...] I’ll take that as evidence against this theory.

GDP per capita in USD: Ukraine 4800, Belarus 7300, Russia 12000, Poland 18000, Lithuania 21100, Slovakia 21400, Latvia 23700, Czechia 26800, Estonia 27900, Germany 51200.

I think we already have four layers visible here, from poorest to richest: (1) countries under Russian influence, (2) Russia itself, (3) former Soviet countries currently associated with the West, (4) Western countries. It makes a huge difference for the Eastern European countries which side they joined.

It's a question of perspective (glass half full / half empty) whether you say that that the Eastern European countries that joined the West are "not yet as rich as Western Europe" or "already halfway there". (30+ years of capitalism seem like a lot, but consider that they follow the 40+ or 70+ years of Soviet communism.)

Not sure how you want to separate the impact of geo-politics from the impact of institutions. Institutions are often the consequence of geo-politics. If you are in Russia's sphere of influence, it is virtually impossible not to be ruled by oligarchs connected to Moscow. If you join the West, you get lots of non-profit organizations.

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Thomas Hvizdos's avatar

I just wanted to note that "First/Second/Third World" were originally used to denote countries that were Western, Soviet, or un-aligned, respectively. The modern use of first/third to mean rich/poor is a derivation from that. So, it's unsurprising that what you're calling "first world" nations in your post are generally western aligned--that's what the definition of "first world" used to mean.

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