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Also not everyone can be good looking, a great singer or a professional basketball player. But you are right communism solves all equality problems by making e

by nec4b 6y ago

Also not everyone can be good looking, a great singer or a professional basketball player. But you are right communism solves all equality problems by making everybody (except a few select and their families) miserly poor, prevents people (again except a select few) with talent to stand out and kills everyone else who is too unhappy with how things are.

Joker_vD 6y ago
The most hilarious thing about "a few select and their families" being rich is that it's not even true. Having a roomish (1 room per person + a living ropm) flat, a car with the personal driver, a small villa, and access to "closed for others" food and clothing stores was pretty much the most one could achieve -- and non of those things could be bought by money. Heck, that car and the villa? State-owned and attached to the position, you lose your place -- your successor gets them. Money simply could not buy one a lot: there was either nothing to buy, or the thing you wanted wasn't being sold. And yeah, the common populace did object to the higher-ranking party members and bureaucrats having those privileges. One of the slogans of perestroika was "away with privileges", I kid you not -- people would rather elites be as poor as them. Well, the irony is palpable: thirty years later, the common populace is not much richer than it used to be (teachers used to be able to easily travel by plane on their wage, not anymore), but the top-level government officials are way, way better off than they used to be.
- nec4b 6y ago
  Of course they were richer, way richer than common folk. You forgot to write access to western goods, skipping the lines for healthcare (some had privilege to use foreign healthcare), best schools, best food,... Compare that to hungry peasant dying by millions.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    Yes, because workers don't as a general rule get rich, the masters do. Again, my comment was not trying to argue for the benefits of Communism, but to explain why it does keep coming up. And it's because you can always come to the line personnel and tell them: "Don't you just hate it that while you do most of the actual work, the upper-ups earn hundreds times as much as you? Well, here's a solution: ..." And this solution was socialism and trade-unionism in the XIX century, communism in the XX, heck, even capitalism was sold as one in the very late Soviet Union, no kidding — it was seriously argued in the media that privately-owned firms would pay workers better than the state-owned enterprises, just look at the West, and many people actually belived that, really. Of course, none of those solution ever worked, and that's exactly why they will always be proposed, in one shape or another — socialism itself didn't appear out of nothing, "when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" was uttered in 1381. So there you go: the spectre of communism will haunt us all as long as inequality exists, that is, until the humanity stops existing.
- janeroe 6y ago
  >> Heck, that car and the villa? State-owned and attached to the position, you lose your place -- your successor gets them What country are you describing, pal? In Soviet Union it was "вольнодумство" ("freethinking"), which was a bad thing, to own personal cars / dachas by the highest members of partocracy only. Because that raised questions concerning their loyalty and belief in the system. But even they bought all that under the name of their wives and children. We've got plenty of memoirs of their scions to stop perpetuating the lies.

by nec4b 6y ago

Joker_vD 6y ago

The most hilarious thing about "a few select and their families" being rich is that it's not even true. Having a roomish (1 room per person + a living ropm) flat, a car with the personal driver, a small villa, and access to "closed for others" food and clothing stores was pretty much the most one could achieve -- and non of those things could be bought by money. Heck, that car and the villa? State-owned and attached to the position, you lose your place -- your successor gets them. Money simply could not buy one a lot: there was either nothing to buy, or the thing you wanted wasn't being sold. And yeah, the common populace did object to the higher-ranking party members and bureaucrats having those privileges. One of the slogans of perestroika was "away with privileges", I kid you not -- people would rather elites be as poor as them. Well, the irony is palpable: thirty years later, the common populace is not much richer than it used to be (teachers used to be able to easily travel by plane on their wage, not anymore), but the top-level government officials are way, way better off than they used to be.

nec4b 6y ago
Of course they were richer, way richer than common folk. You forgot to write access to western goods, skipping the lines for healthcare (some had privilege to use foreign healthcare), best schools, best food,... Compare that to hungry peasant dying by millions.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  Yes, because workers don't as a general rule get rich, the masters do. Again, my comment was not trying to argue for the benefits of Communism, but to explain why it does keep coming up. And it's because you can always come to the line personnel and tell them: "Don't you just hate it that while you do most of the actual work, the upper-ups earn hundreds times as much as you? Well, here's a solution: ..." And this solution was socialism and trade-unionism in the XIX century, communism in the XX, heck, even capitalism was sold as one in the very late Soviet Union, no kidding — it was seriously argued in the media that privately-owned firms would pay workers better than the state-owned enterprises, just look at the West, and many people actually belived that, really. Of course, none of those solution ever worked, and that's exactly why they will always be proposed, in one shape or another — socialism itself didn't appear out of nothing, "when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" was uttered in 1381. So there you go: the spectre of communism will haunt us all as long as inequality exists, that is, until the humanity stops existing.
janeroe 6y ago
>> Heck, that car and the villa? State-owned and attached to the position, you lose your place -- your successor gets them What country are you describing, pal? In Soviet Union it was "вольнодумство" ("freethinking"), which was a bad thing, to own personal cars / dachas by the highest members of partocracy only. Because that raised questions concerning their loyalty and belief in the system. But even they bought all that under the name of their wives and children. We've got plenty of memoirs of their scions to stop perpetuating the lies.