Any unregulated system will eventually generate non-ideal consequences. The scales will always tip in the favor of someone if not for logical checks and balances.

In 2021, the average personal wealth of the richest one percent in Russia was valued at over 2.5 million euros. In the same year, the bottom 50 percent of the country’s population held an average wealth of 3,300 euros, or just over three percent of the total national wealth.

The estimated Gini coefficients, a standard measure ranging from 0 to 1, with 1 being the most unequal, range from 0.63 in 1998 to 0.86 (2002-03). As the authors observe, if these trimmed sample “estimates are to be believed, one might consider North Korea as the country with the most unequal distribution in the world.”