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I lived under communism for 10 years, and it worked. Crime was almost non-existent in my country. It took few cops to keep peace in each town. By the time so
by ardit33 18y ago
I lived under communism for 10 years, and it worked. Crime was almost non-existent in my country. It took few cops to keep peace in each town.
By the time somebody went in front of the judge, everybody new who did it, and 99% of the time they were found guilty, and where shipped to jail.
Of course, there are many drawbacks to it. If you oposed the party, you will be swiftly send to jail.
Very effective, in a scary way.
Then democracy came, and crime shot up. Still relatively low (compared to the US), but still much higher that it used to be.
In a democratic society, it will be problematic to have cops being judges too. The problem is that there will be always bad apples among the cops, and giving them such great power, makes a fertile ground for abuse, and with no real check and balances in place.
- Tichy 18y agoCould it be there simply wasn't anything worthwhile to steal?
- Oompa 18y agoBecause theft is the only crime?
- Tichy 18y agoNo, but probably the most common kind of crime (including robberies)? Another reason could be that everybody had enough - nobody was rich, but nobody was starving in the streets, either?
- pavelludiq 18y agoIn the 80's in Bulgaria a lot of people owned tape players and TV sets and some even had computers(pravets 8 was a popular apple ][ clone in the eastern block, a lot of people had one conected to their tv sets). So your argument is not very well justified. Please avoid talking abouth topics you don't have sufficient information abouth.
- Tichy 18y agoPerhaps you haven't noticed that I formulated my statement as a question? Please refrain from telling me what I am allowed to talk about.
- astine 18y agoThere was plenty to steal, if you knew where to find it, and a dearth goods only increases the motivation. In the former Soviet States, crime of all sorts was very low. You'd of had to have been really desperate to brave the Soviet police; and the secret police.
- ardit33 18y agoYes, there were plenty of things to steal, even in poor countries. Everything is relative, you don't have to have a plasma screen, or high-end stuff to be worth stealing something. Clear example, we had a troubled guy in our neighborhood (alcoholic father, poor and all). In my old house, we had three chikens (it was in the suburb). He stole one of them, from our house and cooked it with his friends, and ate it. Eventually his friends ratted him out, so the local cops, came with a van, and gave him a beating and made him buy my us a replacement one. He asked for forgiveness, and never came close to our house. So, there you go, police justice in action. Eventually this guy did more things in other places, and ended up in jail. Meanwhile, the neighboorhood was really calm, and basically nothing happens. Democracy came, the police had much less controll on what was going, judges and prosecuters could get corrupted, etc. This guy graduated in a super-criminal, and was unstopable. He could bribe his way out charges, initmidate witnesses, etc. Eventually he steped on the wrong feet, and got assasinated, (middle of the day, by a sniper). So, there you go. Police actioning actually works and makes things a lot safer. But you have to give a lot of freedoms to reach that point. Is the extra safety really worth it when you can't voice your opinion without being afraid being roughed up by this super cops?
- DenisM 18y agoThere are several alternative reasons for it: consumerism in communist states was nowhere near as rampant, so that helped a lot. Then, once you steal something it was hard to sell. Even if you do sell it, it was hard to buy something else because distribution system was crooked. And you could not flaunt your wealth either.