The same wealth disparity does not exist in the west. Travel 100km out of Moscow and compare how people live to the same distance from Paris. Then go to the Russian Far East. Itβs overtly that not been seen in the west since the 1950s and WWII reconstruction.
We are talking about two different things. You are talking about the nature of poverty. No doubt the most impoverished in Russia are much worse off than the impoverished in western countries.
I, however, am talking about the gap between the wealth of the top 1 percent and the rest of society. When you have billionaires, the gap between a billionaire and every non-billionaire is the same - merely because of the nature of the size of a billion. It is so large that comparing a billion to a million is essentially equivalent to comparing a billion to a penny.
The same wealth disparity exists in the west. Are you suggesting Russia is the governing model in our future?