6 ms·
>to those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves I'll violate the rule but I'll comment you were probably downvoted because of this
by danlugo92 6y ago
>to those who imposed socialism on others, but did not live in it themselves
I'll violate the rule but I'll comment you were probably downvoted because of this part of your comment.
- kmonsen 6y agoI don’t really see why though? I’m a socialist (the Scandinavian kind), but that seems a petty good description of what happened back then.
- throwlaplace 6y agobecause what the fuck do two department stores have to do with state owned means of production? somehow anything that's the slightest bit off shows that sOcialISm iS eViL but the same kind of bad faith reading of any of the structures of capitalism is explicitly forbidden.
- derrick_jensen 6y agoHe is just stating it matter-of-fact, since they could use USD to purchase things at a (free) market price.
- throwlaplace 6y agodo you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there >One chain belonged to the Vneshposyltorg (Foreign Mail Order Trade) and was intended for Soviet citizens who received some income in foreign currency. Some of them were forced to sell their currency for ruble-denominated Vneshposyltorg checks, while others never laid their hands on foreign currency, receiving their pay from Western sources in Vneshposyltorg checks via Soviet intermediaries (which, again, allowed the foreign currency to stay in Soviet government hands). The checks were to be used to purchase goods in the Vneshposyltorg Beriozkas. but like i said feel free to keep perpetuating these bad faith interpretations
- derrick_jensen 6y agoState owned production and distribution. The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods.
- throwlaplace 6y ago>The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods. wonderful! so then you must understand why these stores were orthogonal to communism right?
- derrick_jensen 6y agoGoogle's definition of socialism "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." Private enterprise isn't the community. I'll admit that the state isn't the only way these things can organize, but it is probably the most common (excluding groups like the Mennonites)
- m0zg 6y agoI grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться". My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but impossible for a regular Ivan to acquire due to the aforementioned illegality of foreign currency). 99.999% of soviet citizens _did not_ receive income in "foreign currency", and by definition "invalutny ruble" could only be bought with foreign currency. Or just handed out to a party apparatchik through other mechanisms. Those folks weren't suffering at all, best everyone else could tell. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB...
- vinay427 6y ago> socialist (the Scandinavian kind) Surely there exists better terminology for this than a highly regionally contextual qualifier. Perhaps democratic socialist, or social democrat, or something involving welfare? Overloading the word with other meanings just adds fuel to the fire of inaccuracy and hyperbole in political discourse, perhaps recently most often in the US.
- nsajko 6y agoThat is not overloading, rather you are the one who is using the term overly specifically. Maybe it would be better to say Leninism or something.
- vinay427 6y agoThat's a fair point actually, thanks.
- Taniwha 6y agoI think the word you wanted to describe the USSR was "communist", there west is full of countries with socialist social welfare systems that genuinely care for their citizens
- vinay427 6y agoYep, I replied to the other comment but I'll concede that I was using this term too specifically and inaccurately. In any case, my point wasn't in opposition to the social welfare systems in Scandinavian countries, for instance, as I'm at least reasonably familiar with the services they provide to citizens which generally seem to genuinely work as you said.
- kmonsen 6y agoI totally agree with you, but it is not useful when talking in the US today. Socialist/socialism means communist here and is mostly just a swear word. The distinction between capitalist socialism and authoritarian communism is often ignored although the systems really have nothing in common.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Yetanfou 6y agoIt would be... unfortunate... if the truth leads to downvotes. If it is really the case that people downvoted for that reason I would really like to know the reason why as it would indicate either a failure of their history teachers or an ideological stance.
- bawolff 6y agoBecause its an irrelavent inflamatory political dig. How true it is is beside the point. As an example with a different context, if someone was talking about the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to eliminate malaria, and then in the middle randomly added a dig about how MS had mean bussiness practises in the 90s, i would also downvote them, regardless of how true that might be.