Atlas / Comparisons / Neoliberalism vs Putinism
Neoliberalism and Putinism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposed programmes with little shared ground. They agree within three points on CH. They diverge by eight points or more on CU, AU, ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Mont Pèlerin, Chicago | United Russia, sovereign democracy | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +09 | +03 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +01 | +09 | 8 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −02 | +10 | 12 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +02 | +09 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −02 | +08 | 10 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | −02 | −03 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Mont Pèlerin, Chicago · CU +01
Coded near neutral: the tradition is deliberately agnostic on social questions and its exponents divided sharply.
- ScholarshipHayek and Friedman opposed conscription and drug prohibition; other Mont Pèlerin members were social conservatives.
United Russia, sovereign democracy · CU +09
Coded +9: traditional values written into the constitution and enforced by criminal law.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2020 amendments defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman and invoked faith in God and historical truth.
- Documented act or statuteThe 'international LGBT movement' was designated extremist by the supreme court in 2023.
Mont Pèlerin, Chicago · AU −02
Coded slightly negative: the doctrine constrains majorities through rules and independent bodies, which disperses rather than concentrates authority.
- ScholarshipCentral bank independence, fiscal rules and treaty commitments remove decisions from ordinary majority revision.
- ScholarshipThis is delegation, not concentration; the entry for technocratic centrism is coded positive on the same reasoning and separates the two.
United Russia, sovereign democracy · AU +10
At the ceiling. Term limits reset, opposition candidates barred, imprisoned or dead.
- Documented act or statuteThe 2020 constitutional amendments reset the presidential term count to zero.
- Documented act or statuteIndependent media were designated foreign agents or closed; the last major independent broadcaster closed in 2022.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Neoliberalism
1947– · International
Market competition as the organising principle of policy, insulated from democratic interference by rules and independent institutions.
Putinism
2000– · Russia
A strong personalised state restoring great-power status, with traditional values against a decadent West.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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