4 ms·

I've seen that vibe. In my experience, communism-was-better generally crystalizes out to two things: * Good old times / not remembering the bad parts. * Havin

I've seen that vibe. In my experience, communism-was-better generally crystalizes out to two things: * Good old times / not remembering the bad parts. * Having your path in life mapped out, i.e. not dealing with uncertainty.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Good old times / not remembering the bad parts. Probably because the "bad parts" never applied to them since they had the right socio-economic background (connections to the party), and they knew how to game the system so that it worked in their favor (did no actual work but were reaping the rewards). >Having your path in life mapped out, i.e. not dealing with uncertainty. Because after the fall of communism a huge portion of the population was financially illiterate since you grew up and were taught that the state will take care of everything, and suddenly you wake up in an economy that's 180 degress different to what you were taught and were used to your whole life, making people completely clueless to the new world of unregulated capitalism and an easy pray to all the scammers and wise-guy opportunists at every step, so inflation, poverty and unemployment was rampant, as well a huge amount of people fell victims to various Ponzi/pyramid/get-rich-quick schemes that were common in the west 100 years earlier but were new here.
- seadan83 3y ago
  In short, the post-fall countries transitioned to Kleptocracies more than anything else. The transition to capitalism was very spotty and state run businesses existed for a long time after the fall (and in many cases many businesses are still state run and have yet to transition). Out of the 200M+ [1] people in the USSR, what percentage would you say had connections to the party? My impression is that 99% (all but 2M) likely did not. Hence, the "bad" parts did apply to plenty of people and those are the people we are talking about. My experience is from living half a decade in a post-fall country from 1995 to 2000. The people I talked to that missed communism often now had it bad and were left behind. In essence the average quality of life was worse under the USSR but the extremes in quality of life were less - nobody was fully left behind as they are now. There was a very certain social net that was there. On the flip side, with less extremes, there was very little opportunity for advancement, so you wind up with a relatively homogeneously poor but not impoverished society. Post-fall, poverty rates jumped (from extremely low to very high), the homogeneously poor society was still poor and the safety net was completely removed (without any of the upsides of non-communism yet to be felt; it's a decades long process to change an economy from the USSR system). > unregulated capitalism The only unregulated capitalism's out there are black markets. The capitalism of countries in transition post-fall were largely capitalism in name only. Kleptocracy is AFAIK far more accurate of how to describe those transitional governments that still exist today (Belorussia, Russia, Georgia, the central Asian republics are all examples that exist today) > as well a huge amount of people fell victims to various Ponzi/pyramid/get-rich-quick schemes that were common in the west 100 years earlier but were new here Is there somewhere I can read more about this? My impression is the governments switched to democracies in name only. Huge portions of government were there to siphon as much as they could for their own personal gain. Want a drivers license? Pay a bribe. Want a building permit? Pay ten bribes? Want to move your grain to a port terminal? Pay a bribe at every city you pass through. (The very latter is a real example, I was very loosely involved with a post-fall USDA project that looked at that problem. Notably identifying, "Hey, here is your problem - the bribes. By the time a farmer has gotten their grain to port they've payed more in bribes than their base cost - this will not work!" [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_former_USSR.PNG https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_former...
- happymellon 3y ago
  Honestly even with capitalism most of this still applies. Those with the right connections get to basically make money off other people without having to actually do any work. A huge portion of the population is financially illiterate and easy prey to scammers. Ponzi/pyramid/mlm schemes still pop up to fleece people.
- touristtam 3y ago
  > Probably because the "bad parts" never applied to them since they had the right socio-economic background (connections to the party), and they knew how to game the system so that it worked in their favor (did no actual work but were reaping the rewards). Without having to "game" the system, one could easily fall for the rose-tinted glass effect. I have seen it a few times in people that have lived through the war (WWII) and would have happily told you how their leader weren't so bad (including the one in bed with or directly associated with Nazism).
bannedbybros 3y ago
[dead]

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>Good old times / not remembering the bad parts. Probably because the "bad parts" never applied to them since they had the right socio-economic background (connections to the party), and they knew how to game the system so that it worked in their favor (did no actual work but were reaping the rewards). >Having your path in life mapped out, i.e. not dealing with uncertainty. Because after the fall of communism a huge portion of the population was financially illiterate since you grew up and were taught that the state will take care of everything, and suddenly you wake up in an economy that's 180 degress different to what you were taught and were used to your whole life, making people completely clueless to the new world of unregulated capitalism and an easy pray to all the scammers and wise-guy opportunists at every step, so inflation, poverty and unemployment was rampant, as well a huge amount of people fell victims to various Ponzi/pyramid/get-rich-quick schemes that were common in the west 100 years earlier but were new here.

seadan83 3y ago
In short, the post-fall countries transitioned to Kleptocracies more than anything else. The transition to capitalism was very spotty and state run businesses existed for a long time after the fall (and in many cases many businesses are still state run and have yet to transition). Out of the 200M+ [1] people in the USSR, what percentage would you say had connections to the party? My impression is that 99% (all but 2M) likely did not. Hence, the "bad" parts did apply to plenty of people and those are the people we are talking about. My experience is from living half a decade in a post-fall country from 1995 to 2000. The people I talked to that missed communism often now had it bad and were left behind. In essence the average quality of life was worse under the USSR but the extremes in quality of life were less - nobody was fully left behind as they are now. There was a very certain social net that was there. On the flip side, with less extremes, there was very little opportunity for advancement, so you wind up with a relatively homogeneously poor but not impoverished society. Post-fall, poverty rates jumped (from extremely low to very high), the homogeneously poor society was still poor and the safety net was completely removed (without any of the upsides of non-communism yet to be felt; it's a decades long process to change an economy from the USSR system). > unregulated capitalism The only unregulated capitalism's out there are black markets. The capitalism of countries in transition post-fall were largely capitalism in name only. Kleptocracy is AFAIK far more accurate of how to describe those transitional governments that still exist today (Belorussia, Russia, Georgia, the central Asian republics are all examples that exist today) > as well a huge amount of people fell victims to various Ponzi/pyramid/get-rich-quick schemes that were common in the west 100 years earlier but were new here Is there somewhere I can read more about this? My impression is the governments switched to democracies in name only. Huge portions of government were there to siphon as much as they could for their own personal gain. Want a drivers license? Pay a bribe. Want a building permit? Pay ten bribes? Want to move your grain to a port terminal? Pay a bribe at every city you pass through. (The very latter is a real example, I was very loosely involved with a post-fall USDA project that looked at that problem. Notably identifying, "Hey, here is your problem - the bribes. By the time a farmer has gotten their grain to port they've payed more in bribes than their base cost - this will not work!" [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_former_USSR.PNG https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_former...
happymellon 3y ago
Honestly even with capitalism most of this still applies. Those with the right connections get to basically make money off other people without having to actually do any work. A huge portion of the population is financially illiterate and easy prey to scammers. Ponzi/pyramid/mlm schemes still pop up to fleece people.
touristtam 3y ago
> Probably because the "bad parts" never applied to them since they had the right socio-economic background (connections to the party), and they knew how to game the system so that it worked in their favor (did no actual work but were reaping the rewards). Without having to "game" the system, one could easily fall for the rose-tinted glass effect. I have seen it a few times in people that have lived through the war (WWII) and would have happily told you how their leader weren't so bad (including the one in bed with or directly associated with Nazism).

bannedbybros 3y ago

[dead]