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How many privately owned cars were there in the Soviet Union? Seems like automobiles are tools of the bourgeoisie, so it seems perfectly inline that a socialis
by floxy 4y ago
How many privately owned cars were there in the Soviet Union? Seems like automobiles are tools of the bourgeoisie, so it seems perfectly inline that a socialist paradise would tightly control them.
- wildrhythms 4y agoThe societal structure under The Party was oligarchical; not socialist. The whole point was that it vilified the goals of socialism under the name of socialism.
- cratermoon 4y agoDid you mean totalitarianism? Orwell was a democratic socialist.
- xvedejas 4y agoAs someone who is neither, I think it's clear that plenty of democratic socialists are anti-nondemocratic socialism. Surely the biggest critics of a government falsely claiming to pursue an ideology, are those true believers of the ideology, seeing their ideas used as cover for something else?
- int_19h 4y agoIt goes beyond indignation; there's long-standing bad blood between two camps. Soviets specifically actively persecuted democratic socialists (Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries) during the 1917 revolution. In late USSR, some political dissidents also self-identified as some kind of demsoc or demcom, such as e.g. Aleksandr Skobov.
- schoen 4y agoIn-world, it gets referred to as "oligarchical collectivism" by a purported critic.
- cratermoon 4y ago"Oligarchical Collectivism" refers to Stalinism, not socialism.
- schoen 4y agoI mean "the societal structure under The Party" as referred to by wildrhythms above.
- idlewords 4y agoThis is the ANSII standard critique of socialism, that it will invariably assume an oligarchal form no matter how lofty the ideals of the founders. The "no true Scotsman" arguments about what does and doesn't constitute real socialism always seem miss this point.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Overtonwindow 4y agoInteresting fact about the Soviet union: the grapes of wrath was banned, because the government was worried that if Soviet citizens knew that even the poorest Americans could afford a car, they would revolt.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoSource. https://sites.psu.edu/comm150honors/2016/02/04/the-grapes-of-wraths-foreshadowing-of-the-cold-war/ https://sites.psu.edu/comm150honors/2016/02/04/the-grapes-of...
- mvhvv 4y agoI see this mentioned a lot, but I don't think it's entirely true. The book was apparently well liked in the USSR due to the obvious anti-capitalist reading. The film was imported by the government intending to screen it as a propaganda piece, but quickly cancelled. The part about the farmer having his own truck seeming like a luxury to soviet citizens is true, but it's a bit unfair to say it was banned when the book was so well regarded.
- twelve40 4y ago17 million privately owned cars in 1991, about 1/5 per capita than Europe at the time. Unless you are talking about 1948, when the country was a burnt-out desert recovering from 30 million war dead.
- idlewords 4y agoMaybe a better comparison is to 1975, the height of advanced socialism, when 0.8% of Soviet households owned a car. Cited in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Soviet_Union#cite_note-50 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_the_Soviet_Union#...
- twelve40 4y agosure, the next line after your quote says they realized it's not enough and massively ramped up production in the 70s. there was never a ban or stigma on private cars, it's simply a very expensive and wasteful way to move people, especially in 1948 when it was one big smoldering ruin. And when everything is walkable, and there is plentiful public transport. But if you really really wanted a car, you could eventually get it and people had millions of them.
- jlawson 4y ago"if you really really wanted a car, you could eventually get it" Never in my life have I ever seen the word 'eventually' doing so much work.
- twelve40 4y agoshrug why is this so surprising? it was never a well-off society, most people in Kenya today for example probably have to bust their ass their whole life and still may not be able to get a car. but hey, if you want to keep believing that there was a crazy dictatorship ban on cars, help yourself.
- tptacek 4y agoThey realized it wasn't enough and massively ramped up production after 1975.
- defrost 4y agoOrwell was an ardent critic of the Soviet system and neither Animal Farm nor 1984 are examples of a "socialist paradise". It's a trait of the midriff of Mexico and Canada to blindly conflate Soviet Authoritarianism, Communism, Socialism, the Nazi NDP, etc with near zero understanding of the differences .. which leads to a region wide confusion between their system and free market capitalism. Political education and civics in the US could use a shake up.
- booleandilemma 4y agoWho do you suppose could teach us? China? Cuba? Venezuela? North Korea? Maybe you should move to one of those countries. the midriff of Mexico and Canada Keep hating.
- defrost 4y agoHating? Bemused .. and you've essentially confirmed why. Enjoy your personal myopic bicameral Stockholm.
- simple-thoughts 4y agoThere’s a single maximally virulent system of “managerialism” that all of those options you list (and others including modern absolute monarchism and even modern theocratic states) follow. Other alternatives that were common historically were eliminated by these. Competitions between these variants of managerialism are mostly about finding an ideal balance rather than fundamental difference.
- idlewords 4y agoSince people tend to overthink these definitions, I'll share the pragmatic Polish one: capitalism is the economic system where you can buy sausage, while socialism is the one where you can't.