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Cheap wants, expensive needs. This is our economy now. "I love my iPhone, but I worry about health insurance." as I've heard it put here on HN. Ironically, th

Cheap wants, expensive needs. This is our economy now. "I love my iPhone, but I worry about health insurance." as I've heard it put here on HN. Ironically, the Soviet system fell from opposite. Expensive wants, cheap needs. Everyone saw the West getting cheaper and cheaper consumer goods and central planning failed to keep up. Now we get to see what happens.

yetihehe 5y ago
Soviet system fell because there was not enough to even satisfy needs. There were always some shortages.
- heterodoxxed 5y ago
  Once Perestroika liberalized their economy, they had distribution issues, sure. But before then, housing, food, clothing all were cheap and available. The food was simple, the apartments small and the clothing dull, but it was all there and for very little cost. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R000601440024-5.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R0006014... But they liberalized their economy in order to compete on the consumer goods boom in the West. That desire for consumer goods had a big role in destabilizing the system. And today, the converse desire for cheap staples and necessities in the face of intense asset inflation may be destabilizing our current system.
  - bzbarsky 5y ago
    I suggest talking to some people who actually lived through the pre-perestroika era in the USSR. Yes, there was generally clothing in stores. Whether there was clothing in your size (no matter what size you were; pretty much all normal sizes tended to be hard to find in practice) was a big gamble on any given day. When you say "apartments were small"; I just want to make sure we understand that we're talking about things like a family of 4 living in a 16 sq meter room plus shared access to a small kitchen (this is personal experience here). And note that if we're talking about smaller towns or villages the situation was different yet again: more living space, but running water might be a real problem. Heck, consistent hot water was a problem even in reasonably large cities. The 80s brought their own set of problems, but it was not all rosy before that, by a long stretch. Saying "it was all there" elides the fact that what was there was quite poor quality, especially compared to what was available even just across the border in Romania, much less Western Europe or the US.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
eyivghh 5y ago
The Soviet system was “expensive needs, non-existany wants, faked numbers to fool the useful idiots in the West”

yetihehe 5y ago

Soviet system fell because there was not enough to even satisfy needs. There were always some shortages.

heterodoxxed 5y ago
Once Perestroika liberalized their economy, they had distribution issues, sure. But before then, housing, food, clothing all were cheap and available. The food was simple, the apartments small and the clothing dull, but it was all there and for very little cost. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R000601440024-5.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85M00363R0006014... But they liberalized their economy in order to compete on the consumer goods boom in the West. That desire for consumer goods had a big role in destabilizing the system. And today, the converse desire for cheap staples and necessities in the face of intense asset inflation may be destabilizing our current system.
- bzbarsky 5y ago
  I suggest talking to some people who actually lived through the pre-perestroika era in the USSR. Yes, there was generally clothing in stores. Whether there was clothing in your size (no matter what size you were; pretty much all normal sizes tended to be hard to find in practice) was a big gamble on any given day. When you say "apartments were small"; I just want to make sure we understand that we're talking about things like a family of 4 living in a 16 sq meter room plus shared access to a small kitchen (this is personal experience here). And note that if we're talking about smaller towns or villages the situation was different yet again: more living space, but running water might be a real problem. Heck, consistent hot water was a problem even in reasonably large cities. The 80s brought their own set of problems, but it was not all rosy before that, by a long stretch. Saying "it was all there" elides the fact that what was there was quite poor quality, especially compared to what was available even just across the border in Romania, much less Western Europe or the US.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

eyivghh 5y ago

The Soviet system was “expensive needs, non-existany wants, faked numbers to fool the useful idiots in the West”