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> One can debate the practical merits of planned economies all day long but this does not change the fact that privatization is theft. No, it's not. Theft is t

> One can debate the practical merits of planned economies all day long but this does not change the fact that privatization is theft. No, it's not. Theft is theft. Privatization is privatization. There's been some pretty poorly implemented privatizations in history, but also some decent ones. I'm in Mongolia now, and they did an okay job of it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_Stock_Exchange http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_Stock_Exchange Still imperfect, but much better than the clusterfuck that was communism. Seriously, everyone remotely educated in an ex-communist country hates communism. I've been to most of them - Cambodians, Chinese, Mongolians, Ukrainians, Czechs... it's only people who live in the outstandingly, legendarily prosperous West that wax poetic about the horrors of that era. Seriously, I've seen a lot of it firsthand. I've also been to still-somewhat-communist places like Vietnam, and they operate a hell of a lot worse than their neighbors. Anyways. Generally speaking, trying to repair a massive, systematically flawed system is hard. It's like how the tax breaks on mortgage interest screw up American housing prices, making it so high earners have more of an incentive to buy housing, thus locking younger people, lower earning people, and senior citizens out of housing, or making them pay inflated prices. It's screwed up. It's a bad system. But unwinding it now would cause a cascading set of problems in the housing market. Thankfully, that poor system of incentives is limited to one sector of the American economy, whereas communism pretty much systematically destroys innovation, free thought, invention, and any semblance of sanity and order. Seriously, go compare equivalent communist and non-communist countries. West Germany and East Germany, Taiwan and PRC, Cambodia/Vietnam and Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore (not perfect comprables, but close-ish). Hong Kong and PRC. Oh yeah, and North Korea and South Korea. Communism sucks. Unwinding a broken system is hard to do, but thank god they're trying to move past communism. Edit: Lots of upvotes and lots of downvotes. To the people downvoting, look - Hacker News is, what, 80%+ Western Europe, USA, and Australia? If you're sitting at your computer in San Francisco, you've never been further out of the States than Cancun, and you've gotten your worldview from some professor of Postcolonial Studies that also has never gotten outside of San Francisco, then I don't know what to tell you. Seriously, stop and reflect for a moment. Communism actually fails in real life. And I don't mean fails the way AT&T's customer service fails. I know it's not a realistic short term suggestion, but if you get the opportunity, check out Cambodia, the Killing Fields, and Security Center 21. Check out Saigon, and note that much of the infrastructure hasn't been replaced since the Fall of Saigon in 1975 (the fire hydrants are still almost all American-made - when they've occasionally failed, they're just removed and not replaced). Compare West Berlin and East Berlin for a stark contrast. Seriously. I don't know what to tell you. Communism is really, really bad. If you're in the West and have never left the West, you don't understand and can't understand. Go through a few of these countries critically, yes on paper, but also in the real world and see how bad things were, and how much better they are in sane places with private property and rule of law. I'm not writing this for my health - if you currently are sympathetic to forced-collectivism, I'd really encourage you to look at how it's turned out historically. If you're sympathetic to communism, I'd like you to stop that, because I think it's destructive the same way that believing in religious violence is destructive.

tokenadult 15y ago
Seriously, go compare equivalent communist and non-communist countries. West Germany and East Germany, Taiwan and PRC, Cambodia/Vietnam and Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore (not perfect comprables, but close-ish). Hong Kong and PRC. Hear. Hear. I am very familiar with the PRC and Taiwan comparison, as a speaker and reader of Chinese (since the Cultural Revolution) who has been to both countries, and your point is quite correct that it is by no means easy to wind down a communist system. Russia had a communist dictatorship for a whole human lifetime, and less challenge from an alternative model across a border with free flow of information, so that task is especially hard in Russia.
- light3 15y ago
  Its not really fair to compare PRC with Taiwan, they started off on completely different footings. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan: "When the KMT government fled to Taiwan it brought the entire gold reserve and the foreign currency reserve of mainland China to the island, which stabilized prices and reduced hyperinflation.[citation needed] More importantly, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, the KMT brought the intellectual and business elites from mainland China.[63] The KMT government instituted many laws and land reforms that it had never effectively enacted on mainland China. The government also implemented a policy of import-substitution, attempting to produce imported goods domestically. Much of this was made possible through US economic aid, subsidizing the higher cost of domestic production." China in 1949 just started baby booming after the war. I'm not saying whether Communism is better or worse, but it does tend to drive away those already in positions of wealth and power.
jarek 15y ago
I was born in a communist country (which ceased to be communist ~2 years later) and I downvoted you for gross generalizations and incendiary statements that have little to do with communism as an economic system. Thanks for assuming.
- lionhearted 15y ago
  Normally a fan of your comments Jarek - you're a smart dude and I like reading what you have to say - but when you see an incorrect generalization, you can just point out how your experience is different rather than saying "that's wrong" without saying where or why. As for incendiary, I don't know man. Is calling the Nazis really fucking bad incendiary? Is calling the Crusades utterly barbaric incendiary? Is calling the Genghis Khan not a nice guy incendiary? That's the class and order of magnitude of horror we're dealing with here. So, you were 2 years old when an SSR started transitioning to a liberal democracy (or whatever the system is, I don't want to be assuming). Yes, "everyone educated" is a generalization, but it's true enough to be correct. I do see people that are pro-Communist, but they tend to be the uneducated nationalists. They're the same kind of people that are pro-white power in the American South, neo-Nazis in Germany, and Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East. I don't think they're actually pro-Communist in terms of the economics, so much as they're in rage and want to cling on to any cause. That's what I've actually seen with, y'know, walking around and talking to a lot of people and doing business and socializing with a lot of people across a lot of different classes. The people who are educated don't like communism. Pretty much all of them, from taxi drivers to entrepreneurs to professors to writers to journalists to construction workers to... everyone. But again, I've liked your comments so you're welcome to express disagreement here if you want a discussion. I do think communism is really, really bad, and should get the same treatment as Nazism, slavery, the crusades, etc - because when it was implemented, it did equivalently large amounts of damage. (Actually, more damage, technically, than any of those)

tokenadult 15y ago

Seriously, go compare equivalent communist and non-communist countries. West Germany and East Germany, Taiwan and PRC, Cambodia/Vietnam and Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore (not perfect comprables, but close-ish). Hong Kong and PRC. Hear. Hear. I am very familiar with the PRC and Taiwan comparison, as a speaker and reader of Chinese (since the Cultural Revolution) who has been to both countries, and your point is quite correct that it is by no means easy to wind down a communist system. Russia had a communist dictatorship for a whole human lifetime, and less challenge from an alternative model across a border with free flow of information, so that task is especially hard in Russia.

light3 15y ago
Its not really fair to compare PRC with Taiwan, they started off on completely different footings. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan: "When the KMT government fled to Taiwan it brought the entire gold reserve and the foreign currency reserve of mainland China to the island, which stabilized prices and reduced hyperinflation.[citation needed] More importantly, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, the KMT brought the intellectual and business elites from mainland China.[63] The KMT government instituted many laws and land reforms that it had never effectively enacted on mainland China. The government also implemented a policy of import-substitution, attempting to produce imported goods domestically. Much of this was made possible through US economic aid, subsidizing the higher cost of domestic production." China in 1949 just started baby booming after the war. I'm not saying whether Communism is better or worse, but it does tend to drive away those already in positions of wealth and power.

jarek 15y ago

I was born in a communist country (which ceased to be communist ~2 years later) and I downvoted you for gross generalizations and incendiary statements that have little to do with communism as an economic system. Thanks for assuming.

lionhearted 15y ago
Normally a fan of your comments Jarek - you're a smart dude and I like reading what you have to say - but when you see an incorrect generalization, you can just point out how your experience is different rather than saying "that's wrong" without saying where or why. As for incendiary, I don't know man. Is calling the Nazis really fucking bad incendiary? Is calling the Crusades utterly barbaric incendiary? Is calling the Genghis Khan not a nice guy incendiary? That's the class and order of magnitude of horror we're dealing with here. So, you were 2 years old when an SSR started transitioning to a liberal democracy (or whatever the system is, I don't want to be assuming). Yes, "everyone educated" is a generalization, but it's true enough to be correct. I do see people that are pro-Communist, but they tend to be the uneducated nationalists. They're the same kind of people that are pro-white power in the American South, neo-Nazis in Germany, and Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East. I don't think they're actually pro-Communist in terms of the economics, so much as they're in rage and want to cling on to any cause. That's what I've actually seen with, y'know, walking around and talking to a lot of people and doing business and socializing with a lot of people across a lot of different classes. The people who are educated don't like communism. Pretty much all of them, from taxi drivers to entrepreneurs to professors to writers to journalists to construction workers to... everyone. But again, I've liked your comments so you're welcome to express disagreement here if you want a discussion. I do think communism is really, really bad, and should get the same treatment as Nazism, slavery, the crusades, etc - because when it was implemented, it did equivalently large amounts of damage. (Actually, more damage, technically, than any of those)