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When polled, about 60% of folks who lived and worked as adults in the soviet bloc regret its fall into capitalism.

by kilna 4y ago

yonaguska 4y ago
Notably missing from the polls, the millions that died in prisons, labor camps, or just starved.
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  Notably missing from understanding is that advocating for collective ownership of things for the benefit of the masses instead of the 1% is not the same as advocating for gulags and mass graves. It's as ridiculous as advocating for space exploration and people like you retorting "you want Challenger 10, you do, you want schoolteachers dying in agonising explosions". Salvador Allende became President of Chile in 1970, he presided for 3 years before being taken down by a coup supported by the US government. In the time he was in power, he pushed a socialist program for Chile. Let's see some highlights of his "prisons, labor camps and starving", eh? - nationalization of large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking) - a programme of free milk for children in the schools and in the shanty towns - payment of pensions and grants was resumed - increased construction of residential buildings, averaging 55,000/year - all part-time workers granted rights to social security, and increased payments - proposed electricity price-increase withdrawn - bread prices fixed - 55,000 volunteers sent to the south to teach literacy, and provide medical care - obligatory minimum wage for workers of all ages was established - free milk introduced for expectant and nursing mothers and [young] children - free school-meals established - rent reductions - construction of Santiago subway rescheduled to serve working-class neighbourhoods first. - state-sponsored distribution of free food to neediest citizens. - minimum taxable income-level was raised - middle-class Chileans benefited from elimination of taxes on modest incomes and property. - Exemptions from capital taxes were extended, benefitted 330,000 small proprietors. - According to one estimate, purchasing power went up by 28% between October 1970 and July 1971.[53] - The rate of inflation fell from 36.1% in 1970 to 22.1% in 1971 - Average real wages rose by 22.3% during 1971. - Minimum real wages for blue-collar workers were increased by 56% during the first quarter of 1971 - real minimum wages for white-collar workers were increased by 23% - Although the acceleration of inflation in 1972 and 1973 eroded part of the initial increase in wages, they still rose (on average) in real terms during the 1971–73 period. and, much more; - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Presidency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Presidency By contrast, the UK today has 27% of children living in poverty[1], and the UK government has voted against free school meals for children, and just tried to push through a tax cut for the rich, and electricity prices have gone up while energy companies are posting record profits, housing construction is down and prices are up so normal citizens are being priced out of the housing market. [1] https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-fi...
  - random314 4y ago
    You have been unfortunately and predictably downvoted.
    - bradleyjg 4y ago
      I appreciate a full throated defense of real socialism over people that say “fuck capitalism” and then when you dig into the details they want capitalism with some regulations and redistribution.
- random314 4y ago
  And by how much would that have affected the poll numbers? Or is this just a glib low effort put down?
  - yonaguska 4y ago
    glib low effort put down to a glib low effort statistic. When there are an estimated 7 to 9 million excess deaths recorded for the duration of the USSR, there's certainly going to be some survivorship bias with any polling. The fall of the soviet system to capitalism was a mess, but it doesn't actually tell us anything about how people felt about communism vs capitalism. The statistic presented was in defense of socialism/communism. But, the transition from the soviet union to capitalist Russia was messy in its own right. Russia was looted by oligarchs taking advantage of the disarray. All that being said, it looks like the poster was referencing this article, which is based on a survey conducted in 2009, long after the collapse of the soviet union...but one year into a worldwide recession. So I'm still not sure what conclusions one can really draw from that survey. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/Why-nearly-60-percent-of-Russians-deeply-regret-the-USSR-s-demise https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/Why-nearly-...
- kilna 4y ago
  Oh thanks, good point. Bringing up the people killed by the ideology puts Capitalism on even shakier footing. In one country, India, capitalism killed more than the overinflated imperialist "estimates" for all soviet bloc countries over its entire lifetime. If we're including dead people in our hypotheticals, then there's the near-entire population of the Americas and Australia before colonialism, and a good chunk of Africa, Asia and elsewhere.
  - yonaguska 4y ago
    I'm really not interested in beating a dead horse. My only point is that using one survey from an unsuccessful implementation of communism, is not a sufficient critique of capitalism. I no longer buy into either ideology as inherently good/bad anyways. At the end of the day, the powerful will exploit any system to their own benefit. I do believe that Communism is inherently dangerous, but only because it relies on an involuntary contract from everyone in the system to participate in a specific way. That contract violates the human impulse to act in their own short term rational interest. So you need to enforce rules, and that means establishing a more authoritarian governing body. Communism demands personal sacrifice of the accumulation of private wealth- and humans are naturally selfish. It just doesn't scale well.

When polled, about 60% of folks who lived and worked as adults in the soviet bloc regret its fall into capitalism.

by kilna 4y ago

When polled, about 60% of folks who lived and worked as adults in the soviet bloc regret its fall into capitalism.

yonaguska 4y ago

Notably missing from the polls, the millions that died in prisons, labor camps, or just starved.

jodrellblank 4y ago
Notably missing from understanding is that advocating for collective ownership of things for the benefit of the masses instead of the 1% is not the same as advocating for gulags and mass graves. It's as ridiculous as advocating for space exploration and people like you retorting "you want Challenger 10, you do, you want schoolteachers dying in agonising explosions". Salvador Allende became President of Chile in 1970, he presided for 3 years before being taken down by a coup supported by the US government. In the time he was in power, he pushed a socialist program for Chile. Let's see some highlights of his "prisons, labor camps and starving", eh? - nationalization of large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking) - a programme of free milk for children in the schools and in the shanty towns - payment of pensions and grants was resumed - increased construction of residential buildings, averaging 55,000/year - all part-time workers granted rights to social security, and increased payments - proposed electricity price-increase withdrawn - bread prices fixed - 55,000 volunteers sent to the south to teach literacy, and provide medical care - obligatory minimum wage for workers of all ages was established - free milk introduced for expectant and nursing mothers and [young] children - free school-meals established - rent reductions - construction of Santiago subway rescheduled to serve working-class neighbourhoods first. - state-sponsored distribution of free food to neediest citizens. - minimum taxable income-level was raised - middle-class Chileans benefited from elimination of taxes on modest incomes and property. - Exemptions from capital taxes were extended, benefitted 330,000 small proprietors. - According to one estimate, purchasing power went up by 28% between October 1970 and July 1971.[53] - The rate of inflation fell from 36.1% in 1970 to 22.1% in 1971 - Average real wages rose by 22.3% during 1971. - Minimum real wages for blue-collar workers were increased by 56% during the first quarter of 1971 - real minimum wages for white-collar workers were increased by 23% - Although the acceleration of inflation in 1972 and 1973 eroded part of the initial increase in wages, they still rose (on average) in real terms during the 1971–73 period. and, much more; - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Presidency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Presidency By contrast, the UK today has 27% of children living in poverty[1], and the UK government has voted against free school meals for children, and just tried to push through a tax cut for the rich, and electricity prices have gone up while energy companies are posting record profits, housing construction is down and prices are up so normal citizens are being priced out of the housing market. [1] https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-figures https://cpag.org.uk/child-poverty/child-poverty-facts-and-fi...
- random314 4y ago
  You have been unfortunately and predictably downvoted.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    I appreciate a full throated defense of real socialism over people that say “fuck capitalism” and then when you dig into the details they want capitalism with some regulations and redistribution.
random314 4y ago
And by how much would that have affected the poll numbers? Or is this just a glib low effort put down?
- yonaguska 4y ago
  glib low effort put down to a glib low effort statistic. When there are an estimated 7 to 9 million excess deaths recorded for the duration of the USSR, there's certainly going to be some survivorship bias with any polling. The fall of the soviet system to capitalism was a mess, but it doesn't actually tell us anything about how people felt about communism vs capitalism. The statistic presented was in defense of socialism/communism. But, the transition from the soviet union to capitalist Russia was messy in its own right. Russia was looted by oligarchs taking advantage of the disarray. All that being said, it looks like the poster was referencing this article, which is based on a survey conducted in 2009, long after the collapse of the soviet union...but one year into a worldwide recession. So I'm still not sure what conclusions one can really draw from that survey. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/Why-nearly-60-percent-of-Russians-deeply-regret-the-USSR-s-demise https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2009/1223/Why-nearly-...
kilna 4y ago
Oh thanks, good point. Bringing up the people killed by the ideology puts Capitalism on even shakier footing. In one country, India, capitalism killed more than the overinflated imperialist "estimates" for all soviet bloc countries over its entire lifetime. If we're including dead people in our hypotheticals, then there's the near-entire population of the Americas and Australia before colonialism, and a good chunk of Africa, Asia and elsewhere.
- yonaguska 4y ago
  I'm really not interested in beating a dead horse. My only point is that using one survey from an unsuccessful implementation of communism, is not a sufficient critique of capitalism. I no longer buy into either ideology as inherently good/bad anyways. At the end of the day, the powerful will exploit any system to their own benefit. I do believe that Communism is inherently dangerous, but only because it relies on an involuntary contract from everyone in the system to participate in a specific way. That contract violates the human impulse to act in their own short term rational interest. So you need to enforce rules, and that means establishing a more authoritarian governing body. Communism demands personal sacrifice of the accumulation of private wealth- and humans are naturally selfish. It just doesn't scale well.