4 ms·

Eh, I would be very careful about incentives and side effects. Confiscation of property never quite goes the way you expect, and is usually semi-impossible with

Eh, I would be very careful about incentives and side effects. Confiscation of property never quite goes the way you expect, and is usually semi-impossible without a preceding war (see: 1917 Russia). The Soviet Union didn't have landlords to deal with, but the housing situation was not any better - just instead of apartments being unaffordable, you'd get in a queue for public housing that was like 20 years long...

tehjoker 5y ago
Our situation seems quite bad and deteriorating, so I am open to reopening the book on the Soviet idea. I think a careful analysis of why their housing was not ideal is needed. At the beginning of their project, many people lived in huts so the step up to small stark apartments was a huge step up for millions. After a few decades though, they appear to have failed to improve their housing infrastructure at a fast enough rate. I don't know exactly why. Some sources I've read say that once Krushev (and his base of support) were in power, they redirected resources into consumer goods to try to match western lifestyles too early. The previous plan was to constantly reinvest in heavy industry which creates exponential growth by providing the material basis for more heavy industry. This shifting of resources away reduced the rate of growth as the population continued to grow and resulted in a stagnating standard of living. This makes intuitive sense to me so far, but I have not done enough research to say this is conclusive. I would point out that in the US, we have the perception of being able to move wherever you want given enough money. However, in reality we are restricted (queued) by the affordability of housing and moving. The people at the top do have real freedom, but the bottom sections (most of them not present in this highly paid programmer forum) have very little.
- int_19h 5y ago
  Soviet economy was tilted very heavily towards heavy industry until the very end. For very simple reasons: that's what makes tanks and bombs. That aside, you can't look at economics of USSR in isolation from its politics. For example, under Stalin, most peasants were effectively tied to their land in kolkhozes and sovkhozes - they couldn't freely move to the cities where the better-paying jobs were, and thus couldn't compete for housing there.
  - tehjoker 5y ago
    Tanks and bombs (something the US also produces in spades (why would the USSR need an equipped military??)) are also consumables, they aren't additional investment in core heavy industry. They detract from economic growth and civilian improvements (though some military technologies do come back and help other areas of technical development). The urban centers had something like 10-20% of the population. If the peasants all moved to the cities, there would a) be not enough jobs and b) no food as no one would be producing it.
    - int_19h 5y ago
      I'm talking about tanks and bombs as proportion of the overall economic output. It was higher in USSR than it was in US, or indeed any other country. And I'm not saying that producing those things is an investment, but rather that Soviets consciously invested into heavy industry to the (rather significant) detriment to the rest of the economy, so as to have manufacturing capacity to produce them. > The urban centers had something like 10-20% of the population. If the peasants all moved to the cities, there would a) be not enough jobs and b) no food as no one would be producing it. Well, the peasants wanted to move to the cities because the pay and the overall quality of life there was better. Peasants in kolkhozes were essentially serfs, with the government coming and literally taking the "excess" of their food output away. This could have been solved by, you know, actually paying them properly for that food. But why pay when you don't have to, and would rather spend that money elsewhere - e.g. on industrializing the cities? One thing to keep in mind here is that Bolsheviks were very much not a peasant party. In the Constituent Assembly (which was directly elected by the population), they were a minority, and the most numerous party was the Socialist Revolutionaries, who actually represented the immediate interests of the peasants. Which is precisely why the Assembly did not rubber-stamp the Bolshevik government, and was forcibly dissolved. Similarly, in village councils, Bolsheviks rarely had a majority - so they introduced kombeds to override those unruly councils. Also, when the council system was first codified in the 1918 Soviet constitution, the Congress of Soviets (i.e. the ultimate legislative body) had one representative for every 25,000 constituents of urban councils, and one representative for every 125,000 constituents of rural councils - i.e. one factory worker effectively had the same voting power as 5 peasants . These kinds of things is why there were so many large peasant uprisings in Soviet Russia early on, to the point where they had to use poison gas to effectively suppress some of them.

tehjoker 5y ago

Our situation seems quite bad and deteriorating, so I am open to reopening the book on the Soviet idea. I think a careful analysis of why their housing was not ideal is needed. At the beginning of their project, many people lived in huts so the step up to small stark apartments was a huge step up for millions. After a few decades though, they appear to have failed to improve their housing infrastructure at a fast enough rate. I don't know exactly why. Some sources I've read say that once Krushev (and his base of support) were in power, they redirected resources into consumer goods to try to match western lifestyles too early. The previous plan was to constantly reinvest in heavy industry which creates exponential growth by providing the material basis for more heavy industry. This shifting of resources away reduced the rate of growth as the population continued to grow and resulted in a stagnating standard of living. This makes intuitive sense to me so far, but I have not done enough research to say this is conclusive. I would point out that in the US, we have the perception of being able to move wherever you want given enough money. However, in reality we are restricted (queued) by the affordability of housing and moving. The people at the top do have real freedom, but the bottom sections (most of them not present in this highly paid programmer forum) have very little.

int_19h 5y ago
Soviet economy was tilted very heavily towards heavy industry until the very end. For very simple reasons: that's what makes tanks and bombs. That aside, you can't look at economics of USSR in isolation from its politics. For example, under Stalin, most peasants were effectively tied to their land in kolkhozes and sovkhozes - they couldn't freely move to the cities where the better-paying jobs were, and thus couldn't compete for housing there.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  Tanks and bombs (something the US also produces in spades (why would the USSR need an equipped military??)) are also consumables, they aren't additional investment in core heavy industry. They detract from economic growth and civilian improvements (though some military technologies do come back and help other areas of technical development). The urban centers had something like 10-20% of the population. If the peasants all moved to the cities, there would a) be not enough jobs and b) no food as no one would be producing it.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    I'm talking about tanks and bombs as proportion of the overall economic output. It was higher in USSR than it was in US, or indeed any other country. And I'm not saying that producing those things is an investment, but rather that Soviets consciously invested into heavy industry to the (rather significant) detriment to the rest of the economy, so as to have manufacturing capacity to produce them. > The urban centers had something like 10-20% of the population. If the peasants all moved to the cities, there would a) be not enough jobs and b) no food as no one would be producing it. Well, the peasants wanted to move to the cities because the pay and the overall quality of life there was better. Peasants in kolkhozes were essentially serfs, with the government coming and literally taking the "excess" of their food output away. This could have been solved by, you know, actually paying them properly for that food. But why pay when you don't have to, and would rather spend that money elsewhere - e.g. on industrializing the cities? One thing to keep in mind here is that Bolsheviks were very much not a peasant party. In the Constituent Assembly (which was directly elected by the population), they were a minority, and the most numerous party was the Socialist Revolutionaries, who actually represented the immediate interests of the peasants. Which is precisely why the Assembly did not rubber-stamp the Bolshevik government, and was forcibly dissolved. Similarly, in village councils, Bolsheviks rarely had a majority - so they introduced kombeds to override those unruly councils. Also, when the council system was first codified in the 1918 Soviet constitution, the Congress of Soviets (i.e. the ultimate legislative body) had one representative for every 25,000 constituents of urban councils, and one representative for every 125,000 constituents of rural councils - i.e. one factory worker effectively had the same voting power as 5 peasants . These kinds of things is why there were so many large peasant uprisings in Soviet Russia early on, to the point where they had to use poison gas to effectively suppress some of them.