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Voting with their feet: What system people in the West, and in Russia, prefer

Oystein

Penultimate Amazing
Joined
Dec 9, 2009
Messages
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In a post subsequently sent to AAH, CE presented us with this link to a recent "Nice little speech" by Putler, along with a lengthy quote from the English translation. I want to pick only one sentence from this demagoguery filled with lies and nods to vile conspiracy theories, and see whether it holds water:
Putler said:
...However, the truth and reality is that the people in most of these [Western] countries do not want this life or this future [i.e. "totalitarian liberalism, including the notorious cancel culture of widespread bans", etc.], and really do not want the formal semblance of sovereignty, they want substantive, real sovereignty and are simply tired of kneeling, of humiliating themselves before those who consider themselves exceptional, and of serving their interests even to their own detriment. ...

One way to look at whether people in the West really want a different system, particularly one more like Russia's, is to see whether people take a decision to actually leave the system and emigrate to, hopefully, greener pastures.

Here is EXHIBIT A:

the statistics of migration between Germany (evil West) and Russia (land of glory and freedom):
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/P...onid=51892E0D4176BC9F691E620CBBF9F91A.live731

Use Google translate, or any other translator.

The short is that there were 200,000 people living in Germany of Russian (and only) Russian nationality (about the same number , or possibly a little less, has dual citizenship German+Russian and is not counted in this statistic).
Every year, about twice as many Russians move from Russia to Germany than people of any nationality move from Germany to Russia: Since 2006, every year between 13,000 and 33,000 moved RU->DE, while between 8,000 and 16,000 moved the other direction DE->RU. Both numbers have tended to decline.
The same, by the way, is roughly true, only at half the scale, with migration between Ukraine and Germany.

---

EXHIBIT B: Foreign population in Russia

I would like to point out the number of 93,000 Germans living in Russia as per 2019, with a net decline in that number from 2018.

The source for that number is this Russian PDF, page 17, the table at the bottom, second line.
Interesting: While the numbers of Germans in the years 2016 -2019 were 93815; 103321; 96033; 92997 respectively, so up and down, the number given for 2105 was 229,336!

Table 1 in that PDF, on page 16, lists the migration surplus (Google translate: "Migration growth of the population of Russia in 2014-2019, data for January-April, thousand people"): First line is the sum of all countries, second line is the sum for the CIS (ex-Soviet) countries. We see that between 88% and almost 100% of the total number of net immigrants comes from the former Soviet states (i.e. not the West), with the rest of the world (China, India, North Korea - oh yeah, and all the rest of the world) accounting for typically under 4,000.

So which other countries account for that low but positive number? The text on page 16 say: "The largest increase in the number of arrivals [is] from China (by 2.35 times), Serbia (by 2.17 times), Syria (by 1.93 times)." No Western country there! Hm!

The graph and table 2 on page 17 are interesting: Figure 2 shows the total number of foreigners in Russia, month per month, for the lost recent years: There is a clear seasonality there.

Table 2 - compare the total number of foreigners between 2015 and 2019: Some CIS countries have marked increases (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan), some stayed roughly the same (Armenia, Uzbekistan), but some declined markedly: Kazakhstan - and Ukraine and Moldova, the two most "Western" of the CIS countries.

The tl;dr to this is: Russia is only attractive for labor immigration for some Central Asian countries of the former USSR, and then essentially no one else. The number of Western nationals in Russia, although not high to begin with, declined (with the exception of France).

---

I'll stop for the moment with the exhibits.

If anyone has well-sourced stats for migration to and from Russia since the beginning of the war, that would be great!
I have little doubt that is will show people fleeing Russia, not the West.

Putler just told a silly lie.
 
One more:

EXHIBIT C: List of countries that German nationals emigrated to in 2021.

This article says that, according to the German federal office for statistics (Statistischen Bundesamtes, source unfortunately not linked), in 2021 254,643 German citizens emigrated from Germany, while only 183,626 returned.

(CE had claimed in another post now moved to AAH that 400,000 Germans "flee" the country each year; and I had asked, without receiving an answer, why they might do so - to escape their Western, globalist overlords and their totalitarian liberalism, maybe?).

It turns out that the three most popular destinations for German emigres are not Russia or Belarus or Serbia or any of the other shining lights of sovereignty and human development, but the totalitarian abysses of ... drumroll...
Switzerland: 17,000 emigrations
Austria: 11,000
USA: 8,000

Then comes Turkey (quite plausibly there's a number of ethnic Turks among those with German passports), followed by six Western countries in Europe.
And then comes Russia, in 12th place, at 2,284 emigrations. Again, it is plausible that this number includes not few ethnic Russians and holders of double citizenship with a German passport.

Earlier, in Exhibit A, we saw that more than 16,000 Russians immigrated into Germany from Russia - vs. a bit more than 2,000 Germans emigrating to Russia.

I take this as an indication that Russia is not a popular place to people. Germans surely prefer the West very much over Russia - and so do Russians.
 
This article says that, according to the German federal office for statistics (Statistischen Bundesamtes, source unfortunately not linked), in 2021 254,643 German citizens emigrated from Germany, while only 183,626 returned.

So a loss of about 71k. They probably made that up (and more) by immigrants from Syria alone. Immigrants fleeing the Russian destruction of their nation.
 
A lot of people move to countries that have higher living standards than the countries where they used to live. To do the reverse they need good reasons to do so, like discrimination. Your stats show this.
 
A lot of people move to countries that have higher living standards than the countries where they used to live. To do the reverse they need good reasons to do so, like discrimination. Your stats show this.

Almost as if that god-awful liberal totalitarian Western globalism provides higher living standards an people actually like that.
 
Almost as if that god-awful liberal totalitarian Western globalism provides higher living standards an people actually like that.

Yes! Do you see the fiendish ingenuity of the liberal democracies? They tempt good proletarian immigrants to cross into their territories, and then provide them with better living, more comforts, even luxuries, so that the poor decieved wretches may live THEIR ENTIRE LIVES! in those hellholes, never realizing how bad they have it!

Oh, it makes me furious!
 
Considering the rise of populist rightwing parties across Europe, I wouldn't give much weight to migration stats among Europeans. They don't want to move to Russia, they want to bring Russia's values home.
 
Every year, about twice as many Russians move from Russia to Germany than people of any nationality move from Germany to Russia: Since 2006, every year between 13,000 and 33,000 moved RU->DE, while between 8,000 and 16,000 moved the other direction DE->RU. Both numbers have tended to decline.
The same, by the way, is roughly true, only at half the scale, with migration between Ukraine and Germany.

It would also be interesting to know what percentage of those moving from Germany to Russia are coming from the former East Germany.

It turns out that the three most popular destinations for German emigres are not Russia or Belarus or Serbia or any of the other shining lights of sovereignty and human development, but the totalitarian abysses of ... drumroll...
Switzerland: 17,000 emigrations
Austria: 11,000
USA: 8,000

And its not surprising that Switzerland and Austria are the top two destinations for German emigrants given the language and cultural similarities. I would wager that most of those going to Switzerland will be going to live in one of the 17 Schweizerdeutsch Cantons such as Appenzell, Lucerne, Schwyz, St. Gallen or Zurich.
 
It would also be interesting to know what percentage of those moving from Germany to Russia are coming from the former East Germany.

Inthimk the more pertinent question is the motivation of those who move. I know Finns who have lived in Russia and Russians who live in Finland. The former are exclusively people who went to Russia temporarily for work (and received generous extra compensation for that from their Western employers), the latter are all folks who left Russia for good to start over abroad.
 
Clearly, people don't want to move to Russia, and Russians generally want to move somewhere else.

But the US might be heading the same way.
 
I suspect that taking the narrow view of the quote. Putin is correct - the majority dislike the idea of kowtowing to vociferous minorities of any stripe. The more disruptive the minority the greater the numbers who dislike it. The disconnect is assuming that that dislike alone would cause a significant desire to abandon the democratic system.
 
Maybe, but you still don't see people want to move to Russia because of those minorities. I mean, kinda for the last 20 years I keep hearing about some American or another saying that he'll move to Canada, or the UK, or whatever if elections go a certain way. Pretty sure most never do, but the point is I've never heard of one going "I'm moving to Russia if X win the election" :p
 
The factual analysis is nice, but Putin is all rhetoric anyway. It doesn't need to be true, it just needs to make "sense" to his base. And you're not convincing them with stats.
 
The factual analysis is nice, but Putin is all rhetoric anyway. It doesn't need to be true, it just needs to make "sense" to his base. And you're not convincing them with stats.

Not even that. The Russian Propaganda Mantra under Putin has always been: "yes, it's ****** here, but elsewhere isn't better, either."
 
So a loss of about 71k. They probably made that up (and more) by immigrants from Syria alone. Immigrants fleeing the Russian destruction of their nation.

The big influx from Syria of course came in 2015, ebbing in subsequent years, but still accounting for the highest net immigration of any country, at +41k. That's not quite the 71k loss of German nationals. Add Afghanistan (+31k), and you are there.
Other net immigrant nations are Romania (+36k), Turkey (+19k) and Bulgaria (+18k).
Total net immigrationt to Germany in 2021 was +329k. That is foreign immigration (+1,323k) minus foreign emigration (-994k) minus net emigration of German nationals (-71k).
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/06/PD22_268_12411.html

What you generally see is that countries from which many people immigrate also have lots of people returning:
Poland: +94k / -89k (emigration is 94% of immigration)
Croatia: +28k / -23k (82.5%)
Romania: +203k / -163k (80%)
Bulgaria: +76k / -55k (73%)

These are (South-) Eastern European countries inside the EU. Looking at Europe outside the EU:
Turkey: +42k / -25k (61%)
Serbia: +23k / -13k (56%)
Russia: +14k / -8k (57%)
Ukraine: +12k / -6k (52%)
https://www-genesis.destatis.de/gen...uswahl=1777&werteabruf=Werteabruf#abreadcrumb

So while Germany is net attractive to all countries to it East and South, it is especially and more attractive to those outside the EU wanting in.

Russia is part of that sorry group of nations still left out from the honey and milk (and personal freedom) that flows in the West.
 
Considering the rise of populist rightwing parties across Europe, I wouldn't give much weight to migration stats among Europeans. They don't want to move to Russia, they want to bring Russia's values home.

"They" is small minorities in most countries. As witnessed by the widespread support for Ukraine, against Russia. In Germany, for example, this is reflected by the most recent poll results of the two parties (radical left, radical right) that historically feel vibes for totalitarian Russia (whether the communist or ruscist incarnation:

Die Linke: 4.9% of the vote in 2021 federal election (down from 9.2% in 2017); Made it to parliament only due to three candidates winning their district.
Since the invasion, there were 3 state elections:
03/2022 Saarland: dropped from 12.8% to 2.6%
05/2022 Schleswig-Holstein: dropped from 3.8% to 1.7%
05/2022 NRW: dropped from 4.9& to 2.1%
So in each state, starting from bad results, they lost more than half their previous vote and failed to make it into any parliament since the invasion.

AfD "Alternative for Germany" (nationalist/racist party) also lost each time, though not as badly:
09/2021 Federal parliament: 12.6% to 10.3%
03/2022 Saarland: dropped from 6.2 to 5.7%
05/2022 Schleswig-Holstein: dropped from 5.9% to 4.4% and missed sending any member to parliament
05/2022 NRW: dropped from 7.4% to 5.4%
Losses are getting worse from election to election.

So there is some indication here that EVEN the populist / anti-globalist vote in Germany is turning against those who support ruscist Russia.

---

Poland's populists are certainly swinging for Ukraine, against Russia - the support for UA there is absolutely stunning.

Only Hungary seems to be content, for now, with an autocrat and anti-democrat hesitating to cut his friendly ties with Putler.
 
It would also be interesting to know what percentage of those moving from Germany to Russia are coming from the former East Germany.
I don't think such stats exist.
My hunch is that a significant proportion of those emigrating to Russia are Russians, or former Russians, or double citizens, returning. This would be in line with the migration patterns of many other non-EU countries, such as Turkey.

And its not surprising that Switzerland and Austria are the top two destinations for German emigrants given the language and cultural similarities. I would wager that most of those going to Switzerland will be going to live in one of the 17 Schweizerdeutsch Cantons such as Appenzell, Lucerne, Schwyz, St. Gallen or Zurich.
Of course.
 
Clearly, people don't want to move to Russia, and Russians generally want to move somewhere else.

But the US might be heading the same way.

During my research, I came across the numbers (rounded, from memory) of roughly 1 million Germans living outside Germany vs. 10 million Russians living outside Russia. So 10 times more Russian expatriates, contrast that with only 1.7 times more population in Russia.
But keep a grain of salt here, I might misremember, somewhat or be ignorant of context or method.
 
I suspect that taking the narrow view of the quote. Putin is correct - the majority dislike the idea of kowtowing to vociferous minorities of any stripe. The more disruptive the minority the greater the numbers who dislike it. The disconnect is assuming that that dislike alone would cause a significant desire to abandon the democratic system.

It gets more and more difficult in the pluralistic West to collect majorities of populations behind a party, policy, ideology. In Germany, this is reflected by the steady decline of the two formerly large "people's parties", the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, who no longer are able to win absolute majorities of seats in any state or federal parliament - one or the other of them now sometimes finish third or fourth. As a result, we now have, for the first time, a three-party coalition on the federal level - and all three partners of similar strength. And it's refreshing!

However, the art of compromise lives: No minority can dominate politics. The result may be boring, will probably disappoint many of the voters of any of the coalition partners - but that's "checks and balances" at its finest, isn't it? This ensures, in the long term, that power will shift back and forth, and in the long run, just about every interest had its share of co-leadership in shaping policy.

We have always been, with excellent reason, been suspicious, if not outright outraged, by strongmen and strong parties getting re-elected with results of >67%, >80%, >95% even.
Like Putin: 76.6% in 2018.
 
Maybe, but you still don't see people want to move to Russia because of those minorities. I mean, kinda for the last 20 years I keep hearing about some American or another saying that he'll move to Canada, or the UK, or whatever if elections go a certain way. Pretty sure most never do, but the point is I've never heard of one going "I'm moving to Russia if X win the election" :p


"As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

—Abraham Lincoln
 

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