6 ms·

I do wonder if there will ever be a reevaluation and integration of the Soviet Union in Western thought, one free of the context of needing to prove ourselves b

by retrac 6y ago

I do wonder if there will ever be a reevaluation and integration of the Soviet Union in Western thought, one free of the context of needing to prove ourselves better than that system. For all its horrors and atrocities, the Soviet economy grew, and worked. Oh, not very well. But better than 0% growth. In 1910 the average Russian was an illiterate peasant. In 1980 the average Russian was a literate urban dweller with electricity and indoor toilets on their floor with twice the life expectancy of their great-grandparents. This is, again, not intended as a defence of that monstrous system. It can be condemned on purely moral grounds alone, in my opinion. And it was not as efficient by most analyses, either. Still, I bring it up because, as a counter-example, it complicates both of the commonly made assertions mentioned in the article: that poverty hasn't decreased in any meaningful sense, and that the capitalist system is the only means of greater than 0% growth in material production.

lupire 6y ago
The Soviet economy improved early in 20th Century, as did most thanks to industrialization, but by the end of the Cold War the economy was largely an illusion outside of the military spending. That's why the Cold War ended -- non-"revolutionary" leaders realized the Soviet Communist system was an utter failure economically.
- retrac 6y ago
  You cannot ignore the military spending, though. It is wealth production as with anything else. I am not suggesting the wealth was fairly or reasonably distributed. (Then again, is it truly under any system?) I am pointing out that wealth was produced and existed. And that there was a fairly steady rate of growth sustained for about half a century in all. Of course the 70s onward stagnation was real, and coupled with unsustainable military spending, it eventually collapsed in on itself. Still. The USSR produced about a billion tonnes of steel or so while it existed, with production exponentially increasing over time. That fact is a serious problem for a theory that claims this cannot happen under such a system. And many popular wonks do effectively make such claims.
  - slibhb 6y ago
    > That fact is a serious problem for a theory that claims this cannot happen under such a system. And many popular wonks do effectively make such claims. These theories claim that free markets are better at generating wealth not that closed markets can't ever, under any circumstances work at all.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Even the claim "the USSR produced a billion tons of steel while causing only several million people to starve to death in perfectly avoidable ways" doesn't really pose any problems for the theory that its economic system is fundamentally incapable of working.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - adolph 6y ago
    > You cannot ignore the military spending, though. It is wealth production as with anything else I disagree with this assessment. For a transaction to produce wealth each counterparty gets more out of it than they put in. In many transactions this is true. The fruit of the agriculturist allows me to focus on computer typing. The things I type allow some people to make better decisions. At each step we each add value that produces wealth. Some transactions are entirely comprised of loss. Military spending is a form of insurance against catastrophic loss. While some industries capture the wealth from that sort of spending, they do not reciprocate with value. The value is turned into craters for training or worse and too often into decreasing the wealth cycles in other parts of the Earth.
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    > That fact is a serious problem for a theory that claims this cannot happen under such a system. You are arguing with weakest possible form of argument, no surprise that you can show that it is low quality
- hakfoo 6y ago
  In a way, though, the cold war forced the Soviet Union and its satellites to be more economically self-dependent and develop. By the end of the 1980s, they were producing home computers, stereo equipment, and televisions. Much of it may have been low-quality and/or knock off of Western gear (see: the myriad ZX Spectrum clones) but they actually did develop the manufacturing base. A lot of Western countries of similarly low or developing economic position would just import American, European or Japanese goods. Interestingly, you did see something similar in places like Brazil where the import restrictions led to a fair amount of license-built and local manufacturing.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wffurr 6y ago
One might argue that the vastly increased computing power and big data systems of today have made the Soviet central economy more feasible than ever. Gigantic multinational firms generally operate internally as a planned economy in and of themselves in just such a fashion. This is often cited as a reason for firms to grow in the first place; efficient allocation of capital and resources within the firm. The trick is to subject that system to democratic control in a sustainable way.
- airstrike 6y ago
  The Soviet system didn't fail because of unsuitable science, but due to human nature. Let any man or woman centrally decide the economy and you're implicitly positing that bias and corruption will fare better than a (relatively) free market of competing ideas.
  - hakfoo 6y ago
    Do we have a really 'relatively free market of competing ideas?" It feels like a lot of the core principles are so strongly bolted in place that any argument we can have is the equivalent of arguing about paint and the positioning of furniture, not the actual floor plan anymore. Is there any place in the current Western system to meaningfully argue the paradigm of private property rights, or the freedom to contract?
  - pm90 6y ago
    You're right that central planning offers more opportunities for corruption and bias but I fail to see how that would be the major cause for failure of the Soviet system. China still follows the central planning model, and has had much success. Most scholars seem to agree that the Soviet system failed simply because when the people realized just how stark the difference were in the standard of living between themselves and the Western nations, they simply did not want to live in the same system anymore [0]. [0]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/20/everything-you-think-you-know-about-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-is-wrong/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/20/everything-you-think-yo...
    - 6y ago
syops 6y ago
From 1919 to 1959 the Soviet Union fought a civil war, a world war in which they bore the brunt of the fighting in the European theater, faced famine, and purges and also managed to be the first to put a man in orbit. Tragedy and triumph all in the span of 40 years. They had impressive accomplishments along with some truly dark human rights abuses.
dcolkitt 6y ago
> In 1910 the average Russian was an illiterate peasant On the eve of World War I, Finland and Russia were on near parity in terms of GDP per capita. It's GDP per capita was only 12% higher than the rest of the Empire. By the end of the Soviet Union, Finland has nearly three times the GDP of the USSR. If the Russian Revolution had installed a liberal democratic government (as it did in the case of Finland), Russia would most probably look like a Nordic country today. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  I suspect that, being enormous, things in Russia would still look different to Finland if they had taken a liberal democratic path. Perhaps more similar to America or the EU.
- syops 6y ago
  Finland was not nearly as traumatized by the war as the Soviet Union was. Finland did not fight a brutal civil war. Finland didn't have U.S., and British forces trying to subvert it's government during a civil war. Finland is much smaller and homogeneous than the Soviet Union. Finland after the war was never the recipient of embargoes (that I know of). I think it is not possible to state what most probably would have happened had Russia established a liberal democratic government. For one, without the forced industrialization instituted under communism would Russia have survived the Nazi invasion?
  - zokier 6y ago
    > Finland did not fight a brutal civil war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_White_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_Whit... "Together with the harsh prison-camp treatment of the Reds during 1918, the executions inflicted the deepest mental scars on the Finns, regardless of their political allegiance" "The Civil War was a catastrophe for Finland: around 36,000 people – 1.2 percent of the population – perished. The war left approximately 15,000 children orphaned"

by retrac 6y ago

lupire 6y ago

The Soviet economy improved early in 20th Century, as did most thanks to industrialization, but by the end of the Cold War the economy was largely an illusion outside of the military spending. That's why the Cold War ended -- non-"revolutionary" leaders realized the Soviet Communist system was an utter failure economically.

retrac 6y ago
You cannot ignore the military spending, though. It is wealth production as with anything else. I am not suggesting the wealth was fairly or reasonably distributed. (Then again, is it truly under any system?) I am pointing out that wealth was produced and existed. And that there was a fairly steady rate of growth sustained for about half a century in all. Of course the 70s onward stagnation was real, and coupled with unsustainable military spending, it eventually collapsed in on itself. Still. The USSR produced about a billion tonnes of steel or so while it existed, with production exponentially increasing over time. That fact is a serious problem for a theory that claims this cannot happen under such a system. And many popular wonks do effectively make such claims.
- slibhb 6y ago
  > That fact is a serious problem for a theory that claims this cannot happen under such a system. And many popular wonks do effectively make such claims. These theories claim that free markets are better at generating wealth not that closed markets can't ever, under any circumstances work at all.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    Even the claim "the USSR produced a billion tons of steel while causing only several million people to starve to death in perfectly avoidable ways" doesn't really pose any problems for the theory that its economic system is fundamentally incapable of working.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- adolph 6y ago
  > You cannot ignore the military spending, though. It is wealth production as with anything else I disagree with this assessment. For a transaction to produce wealth each counterparty gets more out of it than they put in. In many transactions this is true. The fruit of the agriculturist allows me to focus on computer typing. The things I type allow some people to make better decisions. At each step we each add value that produces wealth. Some transactions are entirely comprised of loss. Military spending is a form of insurance against catastrophic loss. While some industries capture the wealth from that sort of spending, they do not reciprocate with value. The value is turned into craters for training or worse and too often into decreasing the wealth cycles in other parts of the Earth.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  > That fact is a serious problem for a theory that claims this cannot happen under such a system. You are arguing with weakest possible form of argument, no surprise that you can show that it is low quality
hakfoo 6y ago
In a way, though, the cold war forced the Soviet Union and its satellites to be more economically self-dependent and develop. By the end of the 1980s, they were producing home computers, stereo equipment, and televisions. Much of it may have been low-quality and/or knock off of Western gear (see: the myriad ZX Spectrum clones) but they actually did develop the manufacturing base. A lot of Western countries of similarly low or developing economic position would just import American, European or Japanese goods. Interestingly, you did see something similar in places like Brazil where the import restrictions led to a fair amount of license-built and local manufacturing.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wffurr 6y ago

One might argue that the vastly increased computing power and big data systems of today have made the Soviet central economy more feasible than ever. Gigantic multinational firms generally operate internally as a planned economy in and of themselves in just such a fashion. This is often cited as a reason for firms to grow in the first place; efficient allocation of capital and resources within the firm. The trick is to subject that system to democratic control in a sustainable way.

airstrike 6y ago
The Soviet system didn't fail because of unsuitable science, but due to human nature. Let any man or woman centrally decide the economy and you're implicitly positing that bias and corruption will fare better than a (relatively) free market of competing ideas.
- hakfoo 6y ago
  Do we have a really 'relatively free market of competing ideas?" It feels like a lot of the core principles are so strongly bolted in place that any argument we can have is the equivalent of arguing about paint and the positioning of furniture, not the actual floor plan anymore. Is there any place in the current Western system to meaningfully argue the paradigm of private property rights, or the freedom to contract?
- pm90 6y ago
  You're right that central planning offers more opportunities for corruption and bias but I fail to see how that would be the major cause for failure of the Soviet system. China still follows the central planning model, and has had much success. Most scholars seem to agree that the Soviet system failed simply because when the people realized just how stark the difference were in the standard of living between themselves and the Western nations, they simply did not want to live in the same system anymore [0]. [0]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/20/everything-you-think-you-know-about-the-collapse-of-the-soviet-union-is-wrong/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/20/everything-you-think-yo...
  - 6y ago

syops 6y ago

From 1919 to 1959 the Soviet Union fought a civil war, a world war in which they bore the brunt of the fighting in the European theater, faced famine, and purges and also managed to be the first to put a man in orbit. Tragedy and triumph all in the span of 40 years. They had impressive accomplishments along with some truly dark human rights abuses.

dcolkitt 6y ago

> In 1910 the average Russian was an illiterate peasant On the eve of World War I, Finland and Russia were on near parity in terms of GDP per capita. It's GDP per capita was only 12% higher than the rest of the Empire. By the end of the Soviet Union, Finland has nearly three times the GDP of the USSR. If the Russian Revolution had installed a liberal democratic government (as it did in the case of Finland), Russia would most probably look like a Nordic country today. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...

dan-robertson 6y ago
I suspect that, being enormous, things in Russia would still look different to Finland if they had taken a liberal democratic path. Perhaps more similar to America or the EU.
syops 6y ago
Finland was not nearly as traumatized by the war as the Soviet Union was. Finland did not fight a brutal civil war. Finland didn't have U.S., and British forces trying to subvert it's government during a civil war. Finland is much smaller and homogeneous than the Soviet Union. Finland after the war was never the recipient of embargoes (that I know of). I think it is not possible to state what most probably would have happened had Russia established a liberal democratic government. For one, without the forced industrialization instituted under communism would Russia have survived the Nazi invasion?
- zokier 6y ago
  > Finland did not fight a brutal civil war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_White_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War#Red_and_Whit... "Together with the harsh prison-camp treatment of the Reds during 1918, the executions inflicted the deepest mental scars on the Finns, regardless of their political allegiance" "The Civil War was a catastrophe for Finland: around 36,000 people – 1.2 percent of the population – perished. The war left approximately 15,000 children orphaned"