The Shallow and Uneven Diffusion of Capitalism into Everyday Life in Post-Soviet Moscow

Abstract

A small but rapidly growing body of scholars of contemporary economic development in both Eastern and Central Europe and beyond have begun to question the narrative of impending capitalist hegemony. The aim of this article is to contribute to this emergent stream of thought by first developing a conceptual framework to map the incursion of capitalism and persistence of multiple economic practises in any economy and second, applying this to understanding the everyday economy of post-Soviet Moscow. Conceptualizing economic practises along a spectrum from market to non-market oriented practises, cross-cut by another spectrum from wholly monetized to wholly non-monetized practises, this reveals the shallow and uneven permeation of market practises in post-Soviet Moscow as well as how both work cultures and the nature of individual economic practises vary across Moscow's urban landscape.