this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
188 points (97.5% liked)

World News

32321 readers
1427 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] o_d@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lots of liberals on here parroting the "should have gotten out when they had the chance" line. In reality, the threat of capital flight is largely a myth. Sure, you can maybe escape with much of your finance capital, but you can't take the factories and the worker who fill them with you.

[–] HungoverRabbit@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And? What does it matter whether they keep their Russian factories if they pull out of Russia?

[–] red@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

They probably paid money to get them/build them. Probably near impossible to just "sell and cash out".

But that's on them and any corporation that invested in that cesspool. Stupid risks, worse consequences.

[–] o_d@lemmy.ml -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It matters because the factories and more specifically, the workers who fill them are the ones creating value. Had they pulled out sooner, the result likely would have been the same, the state taking over management.

While I don't particularly care about private property being "repossessed" by the state, especially in an oligarchal capitalist state like Russia where it's not likely to have any large material benefit for the working class, its just funny that liberals throw stuff like this around without any analysis of the situation.

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What this pretty much guarantees is that once the sanctions are lifted, no company is going to want to reinvest in any new factories there. You only get to seize the factories once.

[–] o_d@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

You underestimate the allure imperialism has on capital owners.

[–] skillissuer@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

lol are you absolutely sure about it? it was a pretty common occurence in 90s in eastern europe.

step 1. foreign (generally western) company or investment fund or something buys a factory for peanuts. corruption might be involved.

step 2. that entity rolls up entire shop, sells equipment for whoever would buy it, and people get suddenly unemployed. this even happened to steelworks and shipyards

[–] o_d@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

That was called "shock therapy". That's not what's happening here.