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Quite the opposite - in the west you won’t realistically get really rich unless your family is already rich (see Musk). In communist countries you can just bec
by trasz 5y ago
Quite the opposite - in the west you won’t realistically get really rich unless your family is already rich (see Musk). In communist countries you can just become a party member and then go up the ladder; see most polish leaders from those times.
- refurb 5y agoHow do you define “rich”? I’m talking affording those things the elite in communist countries had - consumer goods, foreign vacations, your own house. Those are all accessible by the middle to middle-upper class in the West. And no, party membership is not guaranteed to make you rich. And membership is not easy to get.
- trasz 5y agoIt surely depends on the time and the country, but for late 80s in Poland this stuff was available to regular party people, not “elite”. Party membership essentially meant you had to sign up and then avoid conflicts with the law and not get drunk too often, and that’s pretty much it. The party membership was less about party in a western, political sense, and more like being a good Boy Scout. I believe that’s also what party membership means today in China. (Disclaimer: my grandpa was a party member, he managed local part of the polish power grid.)