The Missed Colossus How Russia’s authoritarianism hinders its future
The $20 decillion ($20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!) fine imposed by Russia on Google (The Washington Post, 2024) is largely symbolic but reveals the arbitrary and absurd despotism into which the Russian Federation has gradually transformed—a stark contrast to the 1990s, when Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin appeared to foster a spirit of friendship, and discussions of Moscow joining NATO were not (yet) laughed out of the room.
This symbolic fine exemplifies Moscow’s authoritarian approach: arbitrary, morally ungrounded, draconian, and disconnected from its citizens. Such governance aligns with Russia’s score of 5.81 in the Human Freedom Index (which measures personal, civil, and economic freedoms on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 represents the highest level of freedom). This places Russia closer to countries like Morocco (5.48), Nicaragua (5.48), Guinea (5.21), and Turkey (5.63), rather than freer nations like Canada (8.55), Argentina (6.85), Greece (7.49), or Japan (8.40) (Vásquez et al., 2023).
Additionally, Russia’s declining Democracy Index scores—from 5 in 2006, to 3.6 in 2013, and finally 2.2 in 2023 on a scale where 10 signifies a fully democratic system (Our World in Data, 2023)—indicate a severe decline of democratic practices in the Russian Federation. Ordinarily, these statistics would simply represent a part of the world’s complex socio-economic landscape. However, as climate change becomes more consequential, Russia’s rigid autocracy may play an increasingly significant role in shaping its future, or its inability to do so.
Climate change could make Siberia more habitable as permafrost melts, revealing vast Siberian taigas that could potentially become “home” to millions, especially as equatorial regions become inhospitable, making migration increasingly necessary. Additionally, Siberia’s vast resources—minerals, oil, gas, timber, and possibly arable land—may become more accessible, cheaper to exploit, and economically attractive.
As other regions struggle with climate-related challenges, Siberia could see an influx of climate migrants seeking liveable conditions, fertile land, and water. In the spirit of Emma Lazarus’s famous sonnet “The New Colossus” (1883), which reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—many migrants might seek refuge from worsening climate conditions, as European immigrants once sought freedom and opportunity in America. Yet, despite its resource potential, Russia, unlike the United States, is unlikely to become a sanctuary for liberty under its current political regime.
The United States of America was built upon classical liberal principles, the Lockean natural rights of life, liberty, and property, an abundance of individual freedoms and a greater restraint over the power of the state, as the state’s moral authority derives from consent, rather than force. This is not true for Russia, a militarised authoritarian state, engulfed in an unjust war of aggression where people are leaving from, rather than coming to.
If this autocratic trend continues, the Russian Federation will not “manifest its destiny” in the Siberian “frontiers”, the potential resource boom in Siberia won’t mirror the California Gold Rush, and Belarus will not be later incorporated into the Federation as the Lone (Red) Star State. A healthy philosophical foundation for a socio-economic system, rooted in ethical and moral principles, matters more than an abundance of resources, as resources alone are not sufficient to build a lasting civilizational project.
Photo source: PxHere.com.
References:
Kiseleva, M. and Safronova, V. (2023). Why are people leaving Russia, who are they, and where are they going? BBC News. [online] 3 Jun. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65790759.
Murray Newton Rothbard (1978). For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Our World in Data (2023). Democracy index. [online] Our World in Data. Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu?time=earliest.
The Washington Post (2024). Google fined $20 decillion — more than world’s total wealth — by Russian court. [online] Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/01/russia-google-fine-20-decillion/.
Vásquez, I., McMahon, F., Murphy, R. and Sutter Schneider, G. (2023). The Human Freedom Index. https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2023. Cato Institute and the Fraser Institute.
