7 ms·

I agree that the USSR had not fell because of the communism per se. It's been destroyed by the apathy, caused by people getting their basic needs covered withou

I agree that the USSR had not fell because of the communism per se. It's been destroyed by the apathy, caused by people getting their basic needs covered without the need to work. When they started - they've got a boost in productivity, even higher than the article describes. They've built up quite a lot in the 1920s-1930s. However, as the workforce become filled with the generations that took this system for granted, its effect turned into the opposite direction and by 1970s, as the last pre-revolutionary generation retired, there had been very few people left who actually wanted to do anything productive. The country went along for a while selling oil and other natural resources but the oil prices dropped in 80s and that was the end of it. There was just not enough oil any more to feed the whole country of 250M people.

jjoonathan 14y ago
Hmm, actually I think we still disagree about the reason for the fall of the USSR (I hesitate to say "disagree" because I don't hold my opinion strongly, I was tossing it out to solicit opposing opinions). What you described sounds very much like falling due to communism. I have heard a quote "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work," and I suppose my question is which side caused the ohter. My opinion was that "they pretend to pay us" came first (the domestic economy collapsed under military spending) and "we pretend to work" followed. Do you think this is true or do you think it happened the other way around? I cannot believe that starvation and apathy could coexist, so at some point the USSR's system must have prevented people from working for additional income, yes? In this case, the distinction between BI and communism becomes apparent: if the supply of labor falls below demand in BI, wages rise until people go back to work. Companies function as usual and are free to fire lazy workers. If food becomes more expensive, wages effectively fall until farmers can hire enough help (human or otherwise) to crank production back up again.
- pandaman 14y ago
  This is a quote from a stand up comedian, Michail Zhvanetskiy I believe. I don't think it describes the economy in the USSR very well even though it's catchy and funny. People considered working as some out of ordinary experience. For instance there were so-called "student construction squads" (строительные отряды, ССО) that consisted of young people, usually students, who toured the countryside and doing whatever construction work they could find (and there was a lot). This was a very well paid job and you could make a year of normal salary in a few months. People joined those to make enough money to buy new furniture or car etc. and after that returned to slacking off at their government job/study. There had been many more outlets like this so there were ways of getting reward for hard work. However very few entertained the idea of doing this full time.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  There have been a number of BI experiments and the results have so far been universal, initial growth followed by stagnation. The challenge is to create productive work for these people so that they can earn an income. Some of the Chinese 'make work' projects have been interesting in that regard but they are not a final solution. What might be a more durable system would be to create a manufacturing plant that these folks could work in. It doesn't have to be complex, could be as simple as making cinder block for building construction. It has to be run as a business in the sense that standards are set and checked and people are paid based on their production. You have to be rigidly scrupulous about keeping corruption out of it, this is a lot harder than you estimate. Ideally the production is consumed in other projects. (like building buildings or railroads or other factories).
  - seoguru 14y ago
    Do you have any references to these experiments that were followed by stagnation? I only found a few experiments listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee and all appeared to have positive outcomes with no mention of stagnation.
    - omegant 14y ago
      In Spain something similar has been used for decades now. It's called PER , rural employment plan, it's not exctly BI, as people Is supposed to earn the pay with days recolecting fruits or olives. But there is a lot of fraud and most people avoids doing them but they still receive the paycheck. Initially it was done to improve the poverty of that country zones, and it certainly has improved, but people has become adicted to the free money and that region is perpetually low growth figures. Peole just works the necesary to live, you must add tha the climate is pretty good and is easy to be at a terrace all day having a coffe or some beers. This system also is prone to ballot buys by local policians. Every time someone wants to reduce the payments she looses lots of votes. I think that on it's own BI will improve the living conditions of people dramatically, but on the long run will need to be substituted and complemented by other system.
dllthomas 14y ago
Most of the Basic Income proposals I've heard don't go as far as covering basic needs very well; meanwhile there will be money available working to provide for people who aren't able to get enough of their needs currently met. And if you want nice things, you'll still have to work. There aren't zero parallels to the USSR, but it's really not going as far, and I expect the human responses to be different.
- pandaman 14y ago
  Neither the basic needs were covered very well in the USSR, at least as I've been growing up in 80s. E.g. jeans already had been a luxury item. Housing, medicine etc. available for the most people were way below "poor" of the western world. I grew up in a 12 m^2 room in a 3-room flat shared with another family and was lucky, because many of my parents colleagues lived in dorms. I am aware that the BI proponents believe that jealousy is a stronger drive than apathy. And this is undoubtedly true for some fraction of humanity. I just think they overestimate how big is this fraction.
  - dllthomas 14y ago
    Not jealousy per-se, but the drive to want more. People work long after basic needs are met. I admit my understanding is somewhat shallow, but I think the problem with the USSR had at least as much to do with price controls as any cash transfers. In a capitalist system with BI, if there's a labor shortage the wages paid to labor will increase and the price of goods will increase accordingly, and people will be motivated to take those jobs as the BI payments shrink in purchasing power. The HUGE advantage is that when there is a labor surplus, those people that remove themselves from the work force (voluntarily, involuntarily, or semi-voluntarily) still play a role in aggregate demand.
    - pandaman 14y ago
      It does not matter what you call it but people who had their basic needs covered for generations do not just go and work because they want more. Some do, most - don't. Even as the USSR had been crumbling down and the cheap government goods had became hard to find people would rather go and line up for many hours to buy everyday groceries than do something to earn more money and buy much better goods without much hassle. This phenomenon is not very noticeable on small scale (both in population and time). So I'd recommend paying a closer attention to the USSR history and being a bit critical to the "we overspent them" or "they did not do socialism right, duh" explanations. In my opinion, if it's been possible to overspend a superpower that had its own spaceships then overspending small fry like Libya, North Korea or Iran would not take any time at all. And free market just does not work when people have their basic needs covered. There also had been very small free market in the USSR and it was so small not because communists had been screwing with it (at least not more than the western governments screw with their markets), it's been small because most people just ignored it. If they could not find something in the government store then they would not buy it, even if they could afford the free market price.
yuhong 14y ago
Of course, back then technology was not as well developed as it is now.

jjoonathan 14y ago

Hmm, actually I think we still disagree about the reason for the fall of the USSR (I hesitate to say "disagree" because I don't hold my opinion strongly, I was tossing it out to solicit opposing opinions). What you described sounds very much like falling due to communism. I have heard a quote "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work," and I suppose my question is which side caused the ohter. My opinion was that "they pretend to pay us" came first (the domestic economy collapsed under military spending) and "we pretend to work" followed. Do you think this is true or do you think it happened the other way around? I cannot believe that starvation and apathy could coexist, so at some point the USSR's system must have prevented people from working for additional income, yes? In this case, the distinction between BI and communism becomes apparent: if the supply of labor falls below demand in BI, wages rise until people go back to work. Companies function as usual and are free to fire lazy workers. If food becomes more expensive, wages effectively fall until farmers can hire enough help (human or otherwise) to crank production back up again.

pandaman 14y ago
This is a quote from a stand up comedian, Michail Zhvanetskiy I believe. I don't think it describes the economy in the USSR very well even though it's catchy and funny. People considered working as some out of ordinary experience. For instance there were so-called "student construction squads" (строительные отряды, ССО) that consisted of young people, usually students, who toured the countryside and doing whatever construction work they could find (and there was a lot). This was a very well paid job and you could make a year of normal salary in a few months. People joined those to make enough money to buy new furniture or car etc. and after that returned to slacking off at their government job/study. There had been many more outlets like this so there were ways of getting reward for hard work. However very few entertained the idea of doing this full time.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
There have been a number of BI experiments and the results have so far been universal, initial growth followed by stagnation. The challenge is to create productive work for these people so that they can earn an income. Some of the Chinese 'make work' projects have been interesting in that regard but they are not a final solution. What might be a more durable system would be to create a manufacturing plant that these folks could work in. It doesn't have to be complex, could be as simple as making cinder block for building construction. It has to be run as a business in the sense that standards are set and checked and people are paid based on their production. You have to be rigidly scrupulous about keeping corruption out of it, this is a lot harder than you estimate. Ideally the production is consumed in other projects. (like building buildings or railroads or other factories).
- seoguru 14y ago
  Do you have any references to these experiments that were followed by stagnation? I only found a few experiments listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee and all appeared to have positive outcomes with no mention of stagnation.
  - omegant 14y ago
    In Spain something similar has been used for decades now. It's called PER , rural employment plan, it's not exctly BI, as people Is supposed to earn the pay with days recolecting fruits or olives. But there is a lot of fraud and most people avoids doing them but they still receive the paycheck. Initially it was done to improve the poverty of that country zones, and it certainly has improved, but people has become adicted to the free money and that region is perpetually low growth figures. Peole just works the necesary to live, you must add tha the climate is pretty good and is easy to be at a terrace all day having a coffe or some beers. This system also is prone to ballot buys by local policians. Every time someone wants to reduce the payments she looses lots of votes. I think that on it's own BI will improve the living conditions of people dramatically, but on the long run will need to be substituted and complemented by other system.

dllthomas 14y ago

Most of the Basic Income proposals I've heard don't go as far as covering basic needs very well; meanwhile there will be money available working to provide for people who aren't able to get enough of their needs currently met. And if you want nice things, you'll still have to work. There aren't zero parallels to the USSR, but it's really not going as far, and I expect the human responses to be different.

pandaman 14y ago
Neither the basic needs were covered very well in the USSR, at least as I've been growing up in 80s. E.g. jeans already had been a luxury item. Housing, medicine etc. available for the most people were way below "poor" of the western world. I grew up in a 12 m^2 room in a 3-room flat shared with another family and was lucky, because many of my parents colleagues lived in dorms. I am aware that the BI proponents believe that jealousy is a stronger drive than apathy. And this is undoubtedly true for some fraction of humanity. I just think they overestimate how big is this fraction.
- dllthomas 14y ago
  Not jealousy per-se, but the drive to want more. People work long after basic needs are met. I admit my understanding is somewhat shallow, but I think the problem with the USSR had at least as much to do with price controls as any cash transfers. In a capitalist system with BI, if there's a labor shortage the wages paid to labor will increase and the price of goods will increase accordingly, and people will be motivated to take those jobs as the BI payments shrink in purchasing power. The HUGE advantage is that when there is a labor surplus, those people that remove themselves from the work force (voluntarily, involuntarily, or semi-voluntarily) still play a role in aggregate demand.
  - pandaman 14y ago
    It does not matter what you call it but people who had their basic needs covered for generations do not just go and work because they want more. Some do, most - don't. Even as the USSR had been crumbling down and the cheap government goods had became hard to find people would rather go and line up for many hours to buy everyday groceries than do something to earn more money and buy much better goods without much hassle. This phenomenon is not very noticeable on small scale (both in population and time). So I'd recommend paying a closer attention to the USSR history and being a bit critical to the "we overspent them" or "they did not do socialism right, duh" explanations. In my opinion, if it's been possible to overspend a superpower that had its own spaceships then overspending small fry like Libya, North Korea or Iran would not take any time at all. And free market just does not work when people have their basic needs covered. There also had been very small free market in the USSR and it was so small not because communists had been screwing with it (at least not more than the western governments screw with their markets), it's been small because most people just ignored it. If they could not find something in the government store then they would not buy it, even if they could afford the free market price.

yuhong 14y ago

Of course, back then technology was not as well developed as it is now.