Once again: American Optimism and Slavic Fatalism....

If you would like to read my essay, "American Optimism Meets Slavic Fatalism"---read it as opposed to merely cite it as did (it would seem) a group of economists who have now replicated the earlier mis-citation by an economist.  (I knew they couldn't write; but no one ever told me they also cannot and do not read.....), you can find it at my Academia.edu site.  Look for me under my full name:  Mark J. Lovas

The article is not perfect, and I'm sure the relevant literature is far beyond what I managed to say. Yet, I continue to believe that the basics are there, and that they continue to be relevant as I listen to people playing the game of "essentializing" on the term "Russian"--behaving as if there were some common, timeless, and unchanging essence which the term "Russian " captures--a thesis which is both false, and for which my interlocutors have been unable to produce any sort of evidence.  (I do not count one's personal experience of communism/totalitarianism as proof of anything.  All experience can be misunderstood and itself requires analysis.)