This article is barely about Russia at all. It's mainly about wealth! privilege! inequality!, which is a perennial favorite topic of the NYT.
You aren't expected to read this and thing "omfg, Russia is so bad". No one in the US is thinking this - all they are thinking is "omfg, if inequality keeps growing, the US will be like this". This is of course nonsense for various reasons (we don't have gypsies and therefore the bottom 50% will not adopt gypsy cultural indicators, and our inequality seems to be merely differing rates of positive growth).
Note that many of the Americans on this thread are posting about Detroit, Appalachia and even Oakland (!?!?).
You aren't expected to read this and thing "omfg, Russia is so bad".
I think that's exactly what you're supposed to think, and you'd be quite justified in coming away with that impression when the strapline is 'A journey through a heartland on the slow road to ruin.' It's a beautifully executed and written article with a slanted premise. Reminds me of Newsweek or Time with better graphics/writers to be frank.
Imagine this as an NYT article about the US (which has examples of much of the same poverty, inequality and disillusion) - there's no way it would be published in this paper, without sympathetic asides/articles about other areas of the US which are developing well. The slant here is that the entire Russian nation is decaying and on a road to ruin.
I admire the quality of the writing in the NYT (it beats any other english language paper I'm aware of), but often the editorial slant is far too parochial for a truly global newspaper, and far too close to the official US government line on important topics (like surveillance or budgets for example) where the NYT should be standing up to government, not relaying its pronouncements without question.
Imagine this as an NYT article about the US...there's no way it would be published in this paper, without sympathetic asides/articles about other areas of the US which are developing well
A quick ddg search for "site:nytimes.com detroit" shows this to be incorrect:
Nor was this presented about the entirety of Russia. The NYT has featured the infrastructure and inequality problems in America dozens of times. If you actually read the paper it's a theme that appears almost daily (healthcare is a big part of this). Here's a very recent example that I remember reading titled "Inequality in America: The Data Is Sobering":
Nor was this presented about the entirety of Russia.
I disagree there, the strapline talks of a heartland in decline, and the article talks of the rest of Russia as separate from the two major cities. Not sure I would have called this propaganda myself but it does read to me as a portrait of the entire country and system in decline, not a single journey, partly because of the framing and strap.
If you actually read the paper
I've read it extensively for years thanks as I used to be a subscriber; the snark is not helpful.
Here's a very recent example that I remember reading titled "Inequality in America: The Data Is Sobering"
I agree the NYT features some great writing and some great journalism (including the article you cite). I'm not trying to say they never criticise the US, but that they haven't produced splashy front-page spreads about the decline of the once great nation of America which compare to this article - given the recent hostilities between Russia and the US (Georgia, Syria, Snowden), they should be doubly careful about cheering on the side of a very partial US administration or denigrating Russia as a country. To my mind, they haven't challenged that administration sufficiently on drones, surveillance, budget, wars, Guantanamo bay, etc. They have published critical articles but have also published many apologias for the gov. position, and on Snowden for example their coverage has been more notable by its absence from the front page than by its presence. I remember when the story broke the largest story on their home page for the day was a story about high prices in Disney theme parks.
Still, they compare well to almost every other newspaper, most of them have their blind spots, and there are some real high points in their coverage IMHO, like The drone that killed my grandson, though that was an op-ed rather than one of their writers.
But then again most of the US is not like Detroit. There are many pockets of disenfranchisement throughout the country, but by and large the infrastructure and social institutions are in decent shape considering their scale. In contrast, much of Russia is dilapidated.
> (we don't have gypsies and therefore the bottom 50% will not adopt gypsy cultural indicators,
Am I misreading this or are you throwing the "gypsies are like this because of culture making them lazy" argument?
> and our inequality seems to be merely differing rates of positive growth)
Then why has median purchasing power gone down for the past fifteen years? It doesn't matter if the dollar value goes up when prices go up faster.
Am I misreading this or are you throwing the "gypsies are like this because of culture making them lazy" argument?
I'm more referring to child marriage than anything else.
Then why has median purchasing power gone down for the past fifteen years?
This begs the question - if purchasing power went down over the past 15 years, people should be purchasing fewer goods and services than in 1998. What goods/services do you believe people have less of now than they did in 1998?
Upper education, health care, healthy food? It is easy to ignore if you are not at the bottom, but all of these things are less available to a growing number of people.
Higher education is incorrect. I'd love to cite the census, but the servers are shut down as part of the Washington Monument strategy. So here are news reports instead:
Food is a harder thing to pin down. There is no doubt that americans of most any income level have access to sufficient calories, but trying to purchase healthy fresh fruits and vegetables takes up a significant portion of my monthly income (family of 5, a long distance from the bottom income levels), but I could buy huge quantities of bread and rice for much less :-)
You derive such a different lesson than I do from the same facts.
You're mentioning areas in the economy that have had drastic price increases that far outpace inflation. Coincidentally, these are all areas that have seen heavy state and federal government involvement over the last 40 years.
Even the food disaster is easily attributed to the government's horrible misunderstanding of diet in the 70's and drive to create cheap low-fat (but high fcs) products.
While you see lessons of inequality, I see lessons of the danger of government interference in the economy and our daily lives.
I'm amazed you believe that's what Americans will be reading into this article - it's not what I read. FWIW, I grew up in Appalachia and it ain't nothing like the Russia the article discussed - plenty of food for the most part, water, decent roads.
drive by comment: I don't know what you mean to imply by Oakland (!?!?), but... I took the amtrak south from Oakland, and I was shocked by the level of poverty thats visible from the train.
the problem is that living near the rail line* has been traditionally one of the least desirable places to live. I'm not hand-waving away the poverty or even it's ratios but you will see lots of poverty around a rail line.
*there's a long, long history here going way, way back in the US. Living near a light rail or a commuter station is completely different than living near a freight rail/mixed use rail
You aren't expected to read this and thing "omfg, Russia is so bad". No one in the US is thinking this - all they are thinking is "omfg, if inequality keeps growing, the US will be like this". This is of course nonsense for various reasons (we don't have gypsies and therefore the bottom 50% will not adopt gypsy cultural indicators, and our inequality seems to be merely differing rates of positive growth).
Note that many of the Americans on this thread are posting about Detroit, Appalachia and even Oakland (!?!?).