Oligarchs and Democrats:
Russians Confront Emerging Inequality
Ellen Carnaghan
Saint Louis University
Political Science Department
Public opinion research has shown that many of Russia’s democrats are skeptical about
markets. While they may be democrats, they are not liberal democrats. The usual explanation
for this tendency is that egalitarian and paternalistic orientations have produced a political
culture in Russia that is hostile to economic individualism. This paper builds a different case.
Relying on intensive interviews with ordinary Russians, I examine in depth the ideas of Russia’s
market skeptical democrats. I conclude that the issue in Russia is not a problematical set of
cultural preferences, but problematical markets. Capitalism as it exists in Russia does not have
the qualities that help to reconcile tensions between capitalism and democracy. Market
mechanisms and hence outcomes seem tilted to the benefit of the few and seem to reward
impudence instead of industry. Unlike Russia’s liberal democrats, market skeptical democrats
have these particular conditions in mind when they respond to questions about markets. Their
suspicion of markets has more to do with how markets function in Russia than with preferences
for greater egalitarianism or government control of the economy. Market-doubting democrats in
Russia embrace the ideals of liberal economic freedom as readily as do most liberals. They are
simply unconvinced that the markets developing in their country provide most people with those
freedoms. Russia’s market-skeptical democrats, then, do not oppose the construction of liberal
democratic institutions in Russia. They are simply withholding their approval of markets until
markets start to function in a way that appears to serve the majority of the population.
Convention