4 ms·

I find it rather strange that people tend to blame the famine on communism and central planning

chaostheory 4y ago
Why?
nradov 4y ago
Central planning usually causes shortages of everything including food. Famines are a routine occurrence under communism. https://victimsofcommunism.org/curriculum-chapter-2/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/curriculum-chapter-2/
- quacked 4y ago
  After reading several autobiographies of people who lived in the USSR, I've started to think that material shortages are actually the deliberate goal of people who run communist countries. More succinctly, without material shortages, communist-inspired governments rapidly cease to exist. If the People are not presently experiencing a material shortage, then they do not rely on authority figures to go about the daily business of feeding and policing themselves. Without regular contact between the People and the central authority personnel, it becomes impossible for the central authority personnel to supervise and grant/revoke permissions for them. Supervision and permission were the two components absolutely required for the government of the USSR to continue to exist--supervision allows for the early identification of threats to the government structure, and "permission" systems create excuses for the government to deploy the violent martial caste against threats to their supremacy. (It is self-evident that people don't like living inside systems where they're constantly monitored and supervised; millions of people around the world work very hard to leave supervision-heavy countries for less-supervised ones. Also, children everywhere chafe against school, and prisoners chafe against prison.) So I don't believe a truly centrally-planned, communist government will ever generate a useful material surplus (food, medicine, tools, etc.). If it did, the People who enjoyed the results of the surplus would immediately stop participating in the centrally planned processes mandated upon them by the planning committees. Conversely, the first thing any centrally-planned government will do is organize itself in such a way that all important goods become scarce, so that it can guarantee regular contact points with citizens and set up a robust system of permission granting and revocation.
Fernicia 4y ago
What is strange about that?
zabzonk 4y ago
who else would you blame it on? communist, centralised states are reknown for causing these kinds of problems - look at the ussr in the 1920s and 30s.
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  So the ideas of communism is what cause people to kill off sparrows or was it just bad information and bad/incomplete research on what role sparrows played
  - SonicScrub 4y ago
    The power and control wielded by centrally planned economies allows for wide-scale top-down dictation which vastly exceeds that of the democratic-capitalistic states. Thus enabling destruction on this scale. It's not about specifics of ideology, it's about how much authority is concentrated in the hands of the central planners. If central planning only works in a world where perfect knowledge of the state of the economy is possible, then central planning can never work. Fun side note: I really love The Culture sci-fi series by Iain M. Banks, for it's depiction of a truely utopian, classless, centrally planned Galactic Empire. As it turns out, this is the ideal form of human social organization provided that the central planning is done almost exclusively by post-singularity benevolent AI ( who are essentially gods). This is about the only scenario where central planning seems viable.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Also, authoritarian communist states in practice have a very hard time course correcting from courses their leaders decided on.
      - SonicScrub 4y ago
        Just want to expand on this comment, because it can be easily handwaved away with a "our version will be democratic". The level of power afforded to central planners is a stabilizing force away from distributed power, and towards tyrannical governments. Every government's primary objective is to retain power for themselves, else how would they achieve their goals? Every other objective must be subservient to this, because no other objective can be achieved without it. This is true be it a state is democratic, monarchic, communist, or whatever. Give a governing power 100% control of a national economy, and they will use it to entrench their own power. If they fail to do so, they will lose power to those who will. Benevolence cannot be relied upon as a long term stabilizing force.
more_corn 4y ago
This was 100% a problem caused by central planning and failure to consider second order effects. But at the core the problem was blindly following the suggestion of a leader who is not making evidence based decisions. This will always end in tragedy. I regret to report that such leaders can and do emerge under every economic system. Maybe free markets are less susceptible to them because the leaders have less power over people’s lives in free markets. Perhaps the takeaway should Be to limit the power our leaders have over us because the world is complex and a central plan will never encompass the realities of every individual.

Why?

Central planning usually causes shortages of everything including food. Famines are a routine occurrence under communism. https://victimsofcommunism.org/curriculum-chapter-2/ https://victimsofcommunism.org/curriculum-chapter-2/

quacked 4y ago
After reading several autobiographies of people who lived in the USSR, I've started to think that material shortages are actually the deliberate goal of people who run communist countries. More succinctly, without material shortages, communist-inspired governments rapidly cease to exist. If the People are not presently experiencing a material shortage, then they do not rely on authority figures to go about the daily business of feeding and policing themselves. Without regular contact between the People and the central authority personnel, it becomes impossible for the central authority personnel to supervise and grant/revoke permissions for them. Supervision and permission were the two components absolutely required for the government of the USSR to continue to exist--supervision allows for the early identification of threats to the government structure, and "permission" systems create excuses for the government to deploy the violent martial caste against threats to their supremacy. (It is self-evident that people don't like living inside systems where they're constantly monitored and supervised; millions of people around the world work very hard to leave supervision-heavy countries for less-supervised ones. Also, children everywhere chafe against school, and prisoners chafe against prison.) So I don't believe a truly centrally-planned, communist government will ever generate a useful material surplus (food, medicine, tools, etc.). If it did, the People who enjoyed the results of the surplus would immediately stop participating in the centrally planned processes mandated upon them by the planning committees. Conversely, the first thing any centrally-planned government will do is organize itself in such a way that all important goods become scarce, so that it can guarantee regular contact points with citizens and set up a robust system of permission granting and revocation.

Fernicia 4y ago

What is strange about that?

zabzonk 4y ago

who else would you blame it on? communist, centralised states are reknown for causing these kinds of problems - look at the ussr in the 1920s and 30s.

kevviiinn 4y ago
So the ideas of communism is what cause people to kill off sparrows or was it just bad information and bad/incomplete research on what role sparrows played
- SonicScrub 4y ago
  The power and control wielded by centrally planned economies allows for wide-scale top-down dictation which vastly exceeds that of the democratic-capitalistic states. Thus enabling destruction on this scale. It's not about specifics of ideology, it's about how much authority is concentrated in the hands of the central planners. If central planning only works in a world where perfect knowledge of the state of the economy is possible, then central planning can never work. Fun side note: I really love The Culture sci-fi series by Iain M. Banks, for it's depiction of a truely utopian, classless, centrally planned Galactic Empire. As it turns out, this is the ideal form of human social organization provided that the central planning is done almost exclusively by post-singularity benevolent AI ( who are essentially gods). This is about the only scenario where central planning seems viable.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Also, authoritarian communist states in practice have a very hard time course correcting from courses their leaders decided on.
    - SonicScrub 4y ago
      Just want to expand on this comment, because it can be easily handwaved away with a "our version will be democratic". The level of power afforded to central planners is a stabilizing force away from distributed power, and towards tyrannical governments. Every government's primary objective is to retain power for themselves, else how would they achieve their goals? Every other objective must be subservient to this, because no other objective can be achieved without it. This is true be it a state is democratic, monarchic, communist, or whatever. Give a governing power 100% control of a national economy, and they will use it to entrench their own power. If they fail to do so, they will lose power to those who will. Benevolence cannot be relied upon as a long term stabilizing force.

more_corn 4y ago

This was 100% a problem caused by central planning and failure to consider second order effects. But at the core the problem was blindly following the suggestion of a leader who is not making evidence based decisions. This will always end in tragedy. I regret to report that such leaders can and do emerge under every economic system. Maybe free markets are less susceptible to them because the leaders have less power over people’s lives in free markets. Perhaps the takeaway should Be to limit the power our leaders have over us because the world is complex and a central plan will never encompass the realities of every individual.