The Economist: 110 individuals control 35% of Russia’s wealth

[HT: OP]  In Russia, forget about the One Percent!  

Instead focus on the 0.0000008 percent. They control 35 percent of Russia's wealth, according to the new book Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? by Karen Dawisha.

We can hold our noses up and feel superior to Russia, but in fact, in the U.S. the top 0.1 percent owns 20 percent of all national wealth. And things are getting worse by the year.

We in the West must come to a renewed appreciation of not just democracy, with its formalities of elections and voting, but more importantly pluralism, because real pluralism is the built-in antidote to oligarchy and the national insurance policy against any form of tyranny, exploitation or extremism. 

Band of brothers

November 22, 2014 | The Economist 

URL: http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21633785-academic-investigation-networks-control-russia-band-brothers?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/bandofbrothers