6 ms·

So a bit like a capitalist entrepreneur who needs to have a brilliant idea and be a great salesman, the scientists in USSR had to have a cunning social skills t

So a bit like a capitalist entrepreneur who needs to have a brilliant idea and be a great salesman, the scientists in USSR had to have a cunning social skills to push their ideas through layers of un-interested bureaucracy. A Sisyphian task that would just cause them to become disengaged. That's how that society got its alcoholics, poetry evenings and other sublimation hobbies.

cosmodisk 6y ago
It wasn't just the scientists, literally everyone had to do it.If you wanted something unique or just unusual ( compared to whatever the norm is set to in Moscow). Smart politicians from the occupied countries used to come up with some creative ideas on how to convince Moscow to give green light for projects and etc.
rgblambda 6y ago
The only major difference I see is that the entrepreneur aims to make money from the innovation as opposed to trying to improve society. Money was clearly a better motivator though.
- FreakyT 6y ago
  Yeah, the "individual motivation" bug still really hasn't been fixed in most pure non-capitalist economic system proposals IMO. That's why I think a blend works best -- like what you see a lot in Europe.
- mantas 6y ago
  The major difference is there're multiple investors in capitalist society. Essentially they compete with each other and more successful investors get to invest in more stuff. Meanwhile in SSRS-style society, there's a single point of approval. There's no market of ideas/thinking. It's set by power games, usually not related to the subject at all.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
icefo 6y ago
The article made me think that the guy who rejected the proposition rejected it because it would have lessened the importance of his ministry as most of the job within could have been automated if the project turned out to be successful. I'd also say that great social skills are just as important today. Society is not meritocratic, you can have best idea, the best solution to a problem if you can't sell it or react appropriately to criticism (even to you coworkers) you're going to be frustrated. I'd that sometimes include being "cunning" if the person you're talking to is not being honest you don't have to be either.
vidarh 6y ago
One of my pet theories is that economic growth is surprisingly poorly correlated to economic or social systems except for one thing: Stability. Bring stability, and people learn the mechanisms that works for their society, and overcome surprisingly large differences in type of obstacles. Be it dealing with the vagaries of the free market, or how to maneuver a Soviet-style bureaucracy. It's in fact almost depressing how little effect even quiet massive political changes appears to have on growth on "just" national level relative to the effects of larger global trends; but an alternative view is that it shows humans abilities to work around messed up political limitations.
- keiferski 6y ago
  “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” - Orson Welles, The Third Man, 1949 Ancient Greece was also exceptionally politically unstable and yet produced the foundations of Western civilization.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    Meanwhile, Switzerland got a three-peat of Nobel Prizes in Medicine in 1948, 1949, and 1950. It makes sense that a guy like Welles would value art and throw scorn on technology. Stability is necessary for investment and the build-up of capital; it isn't necessary to make a painting.
    - keiferski 6y ago
      Renaissance Italy was also a hotspot for the development of technology, far more than Switzerland at the time. A lot of this development was driven by warfare and enabled by achievements in the arts: perspective, for example, enabled far more detailed schematic drawings. Or, the numerous architectural innovations which enabled buildings like the Duomo to be constructed. Most of the best-known Italian renaissance artists were also engineers. There’s something missing in our appreciation of the Renaissance, says Paolo Galluzzi, professor of the history of science at the University of Florence-something very important. While we rightly glorify this period as an extraordinary flowering of humanism and the arts, most of us have overlooked the engineering accomplishments that were just as much a part of the Renaissance as the “Mona Lisa.” https://www.technologyreview.com/1998/01/01/237121/the-art-of-renaissance-engineering/ https://www.technologyreview.com/1998/01/01/237121/the-art-o...
mike_ivanov 6y ago
I don't understand why are you being downvoted. You are factually correct - which I can confirm as a first hand witness (and a participant) of what you have described here.
mempko 6y ago
> cunning social skills to push their ideas through layers of un-interested bureaucracy Seems like corporate America to me...

cosmodisk 6y ago

It wasn't just the scientists, literally everyone had to do it.If you wanted something unique or just unusual ( compared to whatever the norm is set to in Moscow). Smart politicians from the occupied countries used to come up with some creative ideas on how to convince Moscow to give green light for projects and etc.

rgblambda 6y ago

The only major difference I see is that the entrepreneur aims to make money from the innovation as opposed to trying to improve society. Money was clearly a better motivator though.

FreakyT 6y ago
Yeah, the "individual motivation" bug still really hasn't been fixed in most pure non-capitalist economic system proposals IMO. That's why I think a blend works best -- like what you see a lot in Europe.
mantas 6y ago
The major difference is there're multiple investors in capitalist society. Essentially they compete with each other and more successful investors get to invest in more stuff. Meanwhile in SSRS-style society, there's a single point of approval. There's no market of ideas/thinking. It's set by power games, usually not related to the subject at all.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

icefo 6y ago

The article made me think that the guy who rejected the proposition rejected it because it would have lessened the importance of his ministry as most of the job within could have been automated if the project turned out to be successful. I'd also say that great social skills are just as important today. Society is not meritocratic, you can have best idea, the best solution to a problem if you can't sell it or react appropriately to criticism (even to you coworkers) you're going to be frustrated. I'd that sometimes include being "cunning" if the person you're talking to is not being honest you don't have to be either.

vidarh 6y ago

One of my pet theories is that economic growth is surprisingly poorly correlated to economic or social systems except for one thing: Stability. Bring stability, and people learn the mechanisms that works for their society, and overcome surprisingly large differences in type of obstacles. Be it dealing with the vagaries of the free market, or how to maneuver a Soviet-style bureaucracy. It's in fact almost depressing how little effect even quiet massive political changes appears to have on growth on "just" national level relative to the effects of larger global trends; but an alternative view is that it shows humans abilities to work around messed up political limitations.

keiferski 6y ago
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” - Orson Welles, The Third Man, 1949 Ancient Greece was also exceptionally politically unstable and yet produced the foundations of Western civilization.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  Meanwhile, Switzerland got a three-peat of Nobel Prizes in Medicine in 1948, 1949, and 1950. It makes sense that a guy like Welles would value art and throw scorn on technology. Stability is necessary for investment and the build-up of capital; it isn't necessary to make a painting.
  - keiferski 6y ago
    Renaissance Italy was also a hotspot for the development of technology, far more than Switzerland at the time. A lot of this development was driven by warfare and enabled by achievements in the arts: perspective, for example, enabled far more detailed schematic drawings. Or, the numerous architectural innovations which enabled buildings like the Duomo to be constructed. Most of the best-known Italian renaissance artists were also engineers. There’s something missing in our appreciation of the Renaissance, says Paolo Galluzzi, professor of the history of science at the University of Florence-something very important. While we rightly glorify this period as an extraordinary flowering of humanism and the arts, most of us have overlooked the engineering accomplishments that were just as much a part of the Renaissance as the “Mona Lisa.” https://www.technologyreview.com/1998/01/01/237121/the-art-of-renaissance-engineering/ https://www.technologyreview.com/1998/01/01/237121/the-art-o...

mike_ivanov 6y ago

I don't understand why are you being downvoted. You are factually correct - which I can confirm as a first hand witness (and a participant) of what you have described here.

mempko 6y ago

> cunning social skills to push their ideas through layers of un-interested bureaucracy Seems like corporate America to me...