EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 741
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On March 31 2017 23:05 opisska wrote: Do you even know why the USSR and then the Eastern bloc fell in the first place? It was because the planned economy decayed to the point where it was no longer sustainable at all. The economy was not only drained by military expenditures, but it also continuously kept not meeting demand with supply due to the nature of central planning. Eventually it became completely dependent on oil exports; when the oli price fell in the late 80s, there was widespread shortage of everything across the country and that's what started the dissolution. Shortage of bread is the greatest revolutionary leader. Which is pretty much what I wrote. You are not fullfilling the utility function of the people, you are fullfilling the plan. Since you have no good response mechanic (and the ones you have are not representative of the people, but of the ideological leaders), the plan and the people are diverging after you built up the obvious stuff. That doesn't mean you don't get economic growth. Economic growth just means you grow something. If you have two people producing and trading horse shit for pig shit and collecting them in big piles it is still economic growth. I guess those two people meet their respective demands then and we call it a great GDP. Military goods are a major example, not just in the Soviet Union but also in most other countries of the world. The demand for military goods is artificial and almost entirely statebased, even in the US it is more or less a planned economy, which is why the stock market around has been growing after Trump/the Republicans took over, since the investors know there will be a lot of state socializm in that sector in the near future. | ||
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Dav1oN
Ukraine3164 Posts
And by the way, if economy is based on weapon industry it means that anything was produced should be used somehow (ofc making some wars), cause otherwise it would be useless production. In this case bread would be times useful cause people likes to eat bread, not tanks and weapons. The same with army. Why would anyone support a huge army with lots of weapons if you not gonna use it? Planned economy was a bad decision, cause it never accounted citizens needs, people were interesting in foods and clothes more than ever. That's why later in later USSR any jeans from the US was like a huge piece of gold, soviets had nothing like that. If you state want's to produce only weapons - then your state is beyond awful in long terms, for anyone including own population. There is a clear differences between producing oil/weapons and producing foods/clothes/iphones and satellites. I'd say people always gonna choose last of two. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1973 Posts
On March 31 2017 23:27 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Legalord has: equated Nordic socialist healthcare with anything the USSR did, equated the quality of life with any iron curtain countries with their contemporaries, said that east Europeans are generally unpleasant, wrote that Putin is corruption free and smell like daisies, wrote that oppression did not happen under the soviets to warsaw pact countries. These are all things legalord has written or implied. So, yes someone here is denying all this and writing alternative history. The Nordic welfare-states were designed by politically savvy capitalists who wanted to deflect sympathy for the USSR by granting some concessions to socialists while maintaining a fundamentally capitalist infrastructure. It wasn't even their idea to begin with, it was originally a ploy by Otto von Bismarck to stop hemorrhaging votes to the left. So yeah, I'd say that the Leninist infrastructure of the USSR is worth comparing to the Nordic model. Nobody's saying it was sunshine and rainbows across the Iron Curtain, I mean even LL admitted that what they accomplished was heavily limited by the inherent backwardness of the economy. But let's not be dumb and eat up all the propaganda that says it was a total shithole with nothing good to say for it. Yeah, LL is biased towards Putin, he's admitted it. But he's providing his perspective and I'd rather get the opportunity to hear that with knowledge that it's subjective rather than constantly circulate the same opinion over and over again, regardless if that common opinion happens to be closer to the truth. I'm reminded of my experience in listening to dialogues about Northern Ireland. It's total bullshit when unionists and republicans just point out the other side's evils and never acknowledge their own. The peace process only started working when both sides began to concede that they had done some evil shit. Just the same, the first-world barely acknowledges the terrible things it's responsible for. As a result the Russian nationalists only double down on their paranoia and biased view of history. Let's get everything out in the open and try some objective criticism rather than just laughing at somebody's colorful viewpoint. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5739 Posts
On March 31 2017 23:06 LightSpectra wrote: Nobody here is denying (at least from what I have seen) that the USSR is responsible for many atrocities, especially under Stalin. The claim however is that towards the end of its lifespan, i.e. under Brezhnev and Gorbachev, the USSR was a total shithole in terms of quality-of-life. That is not the whole case. Certainly many people saw it that way, but also there were many who think life was better in the '70s and '80s. So again, are we to write off their opinions entirely because those people are ignorant or liars? Should we write off their opinions because of atrocities the USSR committed? LegalLord has repeatedly called people who point those out (to explain why many Eastern European countries have gripes with Russia) "whiners" and other such terms. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 31 2017 23:27 LightSpectra wrote: The only reason anybody is talking about Stalin is because you tried to bait LL by saying "He is only moments away from saying "Look Stalin wasn't that bad. He got a lot of things right." " The problem with this is that everyone is pushing for selective topics for discussion. We can discuss the USSR in the 70s and 80s, but only their domestic issues. The fact that they split Germany in half for the better part of 40 years is off the table. But all of US’s actions are up for grabs anytime someone wants to point out the US/EU are bad too. It is fine to discuss things, but we should do it with the understanding that none of us were alive in that era. I am likely the oldest person in this thread and I wasn’t alive for the majority of what we are talking about. I remember watching the Berlin wall fall when I was 9 and thinking it was weird people would be so angry at a wall. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1973 Posts
On March 31 2017 23:50 maybenexttime wrote: LegalLord has repeatedly called people who point those out (to explain why many Eastern European countries have gripes with Russia) "whiners" and other such terms. Well I'm not defending that behavior. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1973 Posts
On April 01 2017 00:12 Plansix wrote: The problem with this is that everyone is pushing for selective topics for discussion. We can discuss the USSR in the 70s and 80s, but only their domestic issues. The fact that they split Germany in half for the better part of 40 years is off the table. But all of US’s actions are up for grabs anytime someone wants to point out the US/EU are bad too. It is fine to discuss things, but we should do it with the understanding that none of us were alive in that era. I am likely the oldest person in this thread and I wasn’t alive for the majority of what we are talking about. I remember watching the Berlin wall fall when I was 9 and thinking it was weird people would be so angry at a wall. I don't think anything is off the table. I'm for 100% truth and reconciliation. If you want to talk about all of the evils done by and under Stalin and Khrushchev and Brezhnev, by all means. What I don't get behind is the notion that we should accept ipso facto that day-to-day life under Leninism was just total shite, because some people who lived in that time and place have said that, and because Stalin/Khrushchev/Brezhnev did lots of terrible things. Why do I not get behind that? Is it because I'm a Leninist and I'm apologizing for that ideology by defending its results? Not at all. It's because I think the most productive way to move forward is to look beyond the shallow propaganda that our countries have been feeding us for decades and to try to be as objective as possible. When you say "life under communism was just awful", and there's somebody who remembers what it was like in the 1980s in East Germany or Soviet Russia and they happen to think it was better in those times (something like 50% of people from the former East Germany seem to believe that btw), then that person is going to think you're a liar or seriously misinformed. So guess what their attitude is going to be if you then start to talk about all the evil shit Putin is responsible for? | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 01 2017 00:12 Plansix wrote: The problem with this is that everyone is pushing for selective topics for discussion. We can discuss the USSR in the 70s and 80s, but only their domestic issues. The fact that they split Germany in half for the better part of 40 years is off the table. But all of US’s actions are up for grabs anytime someone wants to point out the US/EU are bad too. It is fine to discuss things, but we should do it with the understanding that none of us were alive in that era. I am likely the oldest person in this thread and I wasn’t alive for the majority of what we are talking about. I remember watching the Berlin wall fall when I was 9 and thinking it was weird people would be so angry at a wall. You come from a different society too. I had teachers in Austria that were pretty straight up pro communism, many of my relatives who have always been very leftists and still thought that Stalin was overall a monster. In Greece people voted for a straight up communist party in 2015. In Germany there is a Democratic Socialist party (at around 10 percent) which used to be led by someone who played somewhat of a role in taking down the Berlin Wall and the GDR and is now led by someone who was actually detained in the GDR. That didn't turn them away from the thought, that there are good things to salvage from the socialist ideas, in particular the Marxist analysis of capitalism. Simply put, there are facts that were respected in the West during the cold war. The Soviet industrialization and economic growth under and after Stalin was something that for some time was thought to be unmatchable by liberal systems. That's simply true. This doesn't make Stalin a savior, but if you want a scientific discussion about facts, you can't just go and say: "but it was Stalin, so it was bad and there is nothing to learn from it except for don't do anything that could be branded as communism". | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On March 31 2017 07:09 warding wrote: Legallord do you know where to find statistics on car ownership rates in the Soviet Union? Only in Russian. http://infotables.ru/avtomobili/26-avtomobili-sssr/140-avtomobili-sssr-proizvodstvo-avtomobilej-v-sssr That's the best source you'll get. Looking at the US numbers that would put it at about 1/4 of what the US makes, which seems reasonable. People had cars but it was hard to get one - in that they were very affordable but because the price of a car was set by the government you had to wait on a waitlist for a few years to get one. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On April 01 2017 00:26 Big J wrote: You come from a different society too. I had teachers in Austria that were pretty straight up pro communism, many of my relatives who have always been very leftists and still thought that Stalin was overall a monster. In Greece people voted for a straight up communist party in 2015. Talking about the KKE? | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
True, they are mostly Democratic Socialist parties, although as far as I remember Varoufakis called himself an erratic Marxist. Not that too many people nowadays care. Socialists, Communists, Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists... all the same for most people. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On April 01 2017 00:48 Big J wrote: True, they are mostly Democratic Socialist parties, although as far as I remember Varoufakis called himself an erratic Marxist. Not that too many people nowadays care. Socialists, Communists, Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists... all the same for most people. Yeah overall Syriza would rather be labelled as democratic socialism, but there were communist organizations/parties indeed within that coalition. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On April 01 2017 00:22 LightSpectra wrote: I don't think anything is off the table. I'm for 100% truth and reconciliation. If you want to talk about all of the evils done by and under Stalin and Khrushchev and Brezhnev, by all means. I used to teach history before deciding that I hated US schools. US and EU history were my focuses for my masters before I stopped. Truth isn’t something you can find in history. People who are looking for that should look to philosophy because that is the only field that even dares to try to find truth. History is the study of flawed, imperfect information in an effort to have some vague understanding of our past. That is why I am so resistant to this discussion that “looks beyond the propaganda”. The propaganda is part of it and can’t be disregarded. It shaped peoples understanding of it. There is no objective observer in history and never will be. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1973 Posts
Americans that critique the USSR for invading Czechoslovakia but staying silent or praising when the US invaded Grenada and Cuba for the same purpose. And then they wonder why Latin America has an overwhelmingly negative opinion about the USA. That's the kind of crap that drives me up the wall. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Ghostcom
Denmark4783 Posts
On April 01 2017 01:28 Plansix wrote: But people protested both those military actions in the US and of our history books do not paint those invasions as justified. Are we unable to discuss Russia because we sinned in the past and only the pure may critique other nations? At this point I'm either completely missing the point of the discussion or you are being incredibly obtuse. Of course you are welcome to critique whatever you want (using sound arguments and not stupid one-liners). That does not, however, mean that just because some things are deserving of critique bars everything with which these things are associated from being worthy of praise. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On April 01 2017 01:51 Ghostcom wrote: At this point I'm either completely missing the point of the discussion or you are being incredibly obtuse. Of course you are welcome to critique whatever you want (using sound arguments and not stupid one-liners). That does not, however, mean that just because some things are deserving of critique bars everything with which these things are associated from being worthy of praise. Of course, I agree. The cold war and US/USSR relations took place over the span of 50 years. An entire generation of people grew up in that era, which was as varied as any other part of history. Every nation had their moments of glory and failure. The history of the cold war and its end has been discussed and studied by the very people who lived through it. It was a war based on fear, a lack of understanding and no reliable way to obtain creditable information the other nation. At the end of WW2, there were fewer than 30 Russian historians in the US. And their information was comically incomplete. The same was true for Russia. Critiquing the actions of either country has to be done with the full context of the era they existed in, not based on current sentiments. Neither nations were saints during that conflict. But there is a huge difference between trying understand their motivations and saying the US was wrong to be wary of Stalin(or something along those lines). | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18187 Posts
On April 01 2017 01:28 Plansix wrote: But people protested both those military actions in the US and of our history books do not paint those invasions as justified. Are we unable to discuss Russia because we sinned in the past and only the pure may critique other nations? I don't really know what Russian history books say about the Warsaw pact, but I'm not even sure LL is trying to justify most of the atrocious acts under communism. While I disagree with most of what LL has to say, pointing to the distribution of services that was better organized in communist countries than in the US does not seem out of line. It's the tired old point made by Michael Moore as well: Cuba's education system may be poor as dirt, but at least it's poor as dirt for everybody. Hospitals there are two classes: one for everybody, and one for foreign medical tourists (and presumably the ruling class). I can tell from personal experience that the ones for everybody are not bad. The embargo has left them very short on lots of supplies (because unfortunately for them, a lot of modern pharmaceuticals and medical machines are made by US companies), but the medics are the same quality as those who work in the tourist hospitals, and every single Cuban has free access to them. That said, there's a reason they get left further and further behind (and not just Cuba, but to a far more relevant extent the USSR), and that's because the planned economy was just horribly inefficient. Or as the latest few episodes of "The Americans" put it succinctly: "it is mindblowing that the USSR cannot feed its people. We have same beautiful land, and same crops. But we transport by horse and cart so by time they arrive, they rotten." I've seen with first-hand experience that in a planned economy the will to innovate is absolutely nil. In the US you can start Google in your garage and get filthy stinking rich. In Cuba you *could* start Google in your garage (well, not really, because you'd need internet access), but it's likely the thought police would arrest you before you got anywhere, and if you did manage to create something great, the state would simply take control, and you'd be left with nothing. So why bother? Any innovation is provided top-down in government labs, and that is simply less efficient than under capitalism. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On April 01 2017 02:25 Acrofales wrote: I don't really know what Russian history books say about the Warsaw pact, but I'm not even sure LL is trying to justify most of the atrocious acts under communism. As always, LLs vague posting style makes it hard to pin him down to any one argument or belief. Its the reason I called him the Aaron Burr of the US politics thread. | ||
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