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yeah I eat rear end posted:I never said it was a perfect system but there's a reason the soviet union collapsed and the US is still standing (even if it's in a bit of a slump lately). There is a reason, but in all honesty, it probably had nothing really to do with capitalism versus socialism. If it was the "Tsarist Union" instead of the Soviet Union under the same constraints it would have still collapsed. Hell, you could say that Russia regardless of what happened after 1917 was probably completely hosed. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Dec 10, 2017 |
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Dec 10, 2017 14:41
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uncop posted:The problem is westerners calling countries communist on the basis of their leaders being (actually or nominally) communists. I mean not even the own propaganda of any of these ”real-socialist” countries called them communist. Since the economic content of these countries never mattered, it’s not surprising that one would miss the economic (but not political) convergence toward western-style capitalism that started in the 60’s and 70’s. I would say as a reaction to isolated authoritarian party states’ inherent inability to make a definitive break with capitalism in the first place (leaving more dynamic and/or exploitative capitalism as the best strategy), but that’s beside the point. They largely couldn't for the fundamental reason of trade.
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Dec 10, 2017 16:50
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uncop posted:I would say that the real pressing reason was a military one, the commie bloc put together was fairly self-sufficient and the true arena of economic competition with the west was in military capacity. A big military requires a big economy, which required rapid industrialization through intensified exploitation, which required a political authority opposed to the workers rather than by and for them, invalidating any basis for a self-sustaining movement away from capitalist relations. And like every single one of those regimes was born out of some international military conflict. During the 1920s/1930s, the Soviet Union was absolutely not self-sufficient and ran a giant trade deficit. One reason workers were pushed so hard was to try to basically produce exports to pay for all the imports the country needed. There was no way for the Soviets to isolate themselves fully from the rest of the world, especially since they needed basic machinery they couldn't build themselves (admittedly so would have a capitalist Russia). The only things the Soviets could re-ably export during most of this period was grain, eggs, and oil. (Also, there really was no sane choice but to produce a large military from the 1930s through the Cold War.)
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Dec 10, 2017 17:45
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Yeah, I can see why you guys hate the poo poo out of historians and the books they write.
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Dec 10, 2017 18:15
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Anyway, China is if anything still quite centrally planned on an industrial level, just not completely so.
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Dec 10, 2017 18:29
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yeah I eat rear end posted:That's more because of irresponsible gambling and excess alcohol use So basically you already live in a Soviet Union inside of your head.
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Dec 10, 2017 19:09
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Magius1337est posted:ok but we're getting rid of the humanities degrees Yeah right man, Americans already know too much as it is. I mean there is no point in learning from history.
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Dec 10, 2017 19:49
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comedyblissoption posted:If you were a white collar worker in America receiving healthcare benefits, the amount you pay monthly is likely far below what the company pays for insurance as part of your compensation. You also pay large amounts of compulsory taxes for medicare and medicaid. The payroll taxes for these public healthcare programs are also additionally "matched" by the employer. This is just dumb accounting trickery to hide part of your compensation that you are paying for these programs. A fair comparison between how much you pay in germany and the US would account for all of these costs. Between what most people pay between federal and state taxes, FICA (both their individual/employer costs), and their out of pocket health care costs, the "burden" of living in Europe really actually doesn't seem that much.
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Dec 10, 2017 20:15
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Btw, 15-20% of the population of the gulag there for religious/political crimes. 46% of the population of prisoners in the US prison system are sentenced for drug convictions, most of them non-violent. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Dec 12, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 12:30
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