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Soviet Communism vs Capitalism: FIGHT! [split]
Goumindong
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I can't get behind that USSR>western world thing, though. No way. If nothing else, they hamstrung themselves by subsuming science to ideology, ruining their environment/agricultural base. Remember the breadlines? The wrong rules can be as bad, if not worse, than no rules.
Not western world. Entire world. The western world has been extracting wealth from the third world for ages. It does this through imbalanced power.
You cannot say "capitalism is great, look at how successful it is" without factoring in the externalized costs such as resource extraction[Oil/diamonds, etc]
Its like saying "Corporate America is great, look at Enron!"
If anything is telling, its that Russia after the U.S.S.R. collapsed LOST GDP, and LOST per capita income, and is just barely getting back to where it was, and that only because of vast oil reserves and leftover power from the communist era.
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OMG I so want to reply to this and go off on how wrong this is and all that stuff but damn it's off-topic times 5 and so I won't.
Damn.
What the hell is wrong with you? If you think its wrong, just say "its wrong" and give a short explanation if not, then don't. When you do this it makes me think "he has no argument and is a douche"
In the time it took you to type that you could have given a short explanation.
For instance. "You are wrong, because nations no longer hold colonial interests"
Which would be wrong because the lack of colonial interests does not prevent an entity from appropriating welfare in other manners.
what are you trying to argue? that the USSR was successful or something? because that makes less than zero sense, and that's impossible
Taken out of context the thread makes no sense.
I argued that in the context of social services, socialistic approaches can yield better results for the aggregate than capitalistic approaches. To illustrate this, i said i would be willing to bet that the U.S.S.R. before it collapsed would compare favorably to the aggregate of the rest of the world.
The Cat said "i don't buy that for the western world" I corrected her because doing such would be like looking at a single company and not looking at how its practices affected others. Such, if you don't account for tribute extracted in a non-traditional manner, and all the forms that capital and production is taken from the third world to support the west, then you aren't really looking at the entire picture. Like looking at Enron and saying "its a good company", despite that in order to be a "good company" they had to do multiple billions of dollars in damages to Washington state. Even more to California and to a host of other States, and millions to their shareholders.
I am not saying communism is better than capitalism, especially not reasonably managed capitalism, but I am saying that it isn't so cut and dry as it seems, and that, especially since it can be clearly shown how a socialized medicine system benefits the people over a private medical system, that socialistic practices are the proper solution to some problems in capitalist society.
Edit: I was specifically referencing how the means of production/payment need to follow the means of distribution. And how different means of distribution make sense for different products. Such that essential products that cannot be supplied by the market at the correct rate[doesn't include things like food and housing, since those are provided by the market in correct quantities while still maintaining quality differences], and are primarily distributed via triage[As there is no benefit to unnecessary medical care, where there is benefit to unnecessary housing or food], a socialized system will produce the greatest general welfare.
So such a system would need to be able to determine who is in most need of medical care.
How will your Socialist System be more efficient than a capitalist system in making this distribution?
This is completely and utterly absurd.
From what I am reading, the USSR has never exploited another country. Draining Eastern Europe for all it was worth? Didn't happen. Destroying bodies of water by diverting streams for farming? Didn't happen.
I never really thought that there was someone who really wanted old style communism back.
We can all agree that shock therapy sucks and is a bad recovery strategy, but using that as the "reason" that communism is good, its totally ridiculous.
As an example: The USSR was unable to update its equipment effectively. Because of this cars which were made in the USSR had a value less then their manufacturing cost. They literally had negative value.
Also, capitalism never existed before large scale imperialism and exploitation. Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations" in 1900.
I'm sick of hearing about how all trade is exploitation. China, India, Vietnam, they could all kick the multinationals out of their countries, but they don't. In fact, THEY WANT THEM THERE! We're all thinking "poor poor third world" when their getting wealthy off of exporting goods to the US, they're getting wealthier then before. I don't understand why the fuck people are in these stupid anti-business movements to protect the third world when the third world has real problems. For instance, I've heard of this thing called "medicine", and apparently its difficult to come by over there. Perhaps you dumbasses should go give them their freaking polio shots instead of whining about Wal-Mart.
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I frag, therefore I am.
Just once, I'd like to be able to go on XBL, and NOT be called a mother-fucker.
Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776.
The mixed system?
The only real resource exploitation that occured at that time was the Spanish mining of gold and silver, which proved to be an ineffective method for sustainable economic growth.
mmmnmnnnmnmm that's not even really true. certain post-Soviet countries did really well with it, especially Poland. in fact, a lot of political scientists think that's a better approach than gradualism, given the nature of the world economy
We already do. Its called triage. Doctors prescribe medicines for individuals to consume.
Also, free markets allowed for organic development of infrastructure. People used their own money and elected their own leaders to develop communities that best benefit them. Couple that it with Constitutional rights to life and liberty, you've got yourself a rapidly succeeding society.
The only problem is sustaining it.
Fuck, didn't think of people as a resource. You're right.
It also sets my teeth on edge when you mention democratic election as a consumer good. I mean, it's increasingly becoming so, but that's a bad thing.
Eastern Europe was part of the U.S.S.R and would be considered along with the rest. Though im not sure what destroying bodies of water has to do with anything if the people are better off. That isn't to say that the U.S.S.R. didn't extract tribute, but it did so from its member states and not other states. To foreign states it acted as beneficiary for the most part.[typically by selling cheap arms and exporting cheap food]. This wasn't necessarily good, but it wasn't extracting tribute. A few notable exceptions remain of course.[Afganistan]
There are a good number of people who really want old style communism back. They currently live in capitalist Russia[with less GPD and less per capita income than they had in old style capitalism, let alone with reasonable real income growth assumed]. I am not one of them. I am illustrating a point. That the system does not necessarily produce lower aggregate welfare.
I'm sick of hearing stupid fucking idiots who don't understand context or the contention being made, ignoring the point so they can rant off about their pet peeve.
I am sick of people not understanding the concept of tribute. And thinking that somehow, tribute started working in 1900, after the formal practice of tribute had nearly been extinguished. Its almost as if Machiavelli, Thucydides, Realism, or the entire concept of states interacting with one another never existed.
I am sick of how its impossible to make comparisons because some people have a hate on for thinking about increasing societal welfare.
What? No.
Poland was not part of the USSR, Bulgaria was not part of the USSR, East Germany was not part of the USSR.
And the USSR plundered and crushed any opposition within those countries.
No, its pretty much true.
Also, keep in mind. The important wording is not "exploitation" though it may occur.
But extraction. I.E. one country appropriating capital from another by various means.
You mean trade? As in I give you something and you give me something back in return?
They were, for all intents and purposes at the time, a singular unit. Technically they were seperate, but for the purposes of the comparison they would not be.
aw shit, i can't argue with your inescapable logic
That's like saying Canada is part of the USA.
The Warsaw Pact nations, while heavily dependent on Moscow, were not directly controlled by it.
There was also a lot of difference between the nations. East Germany was distinctly different from the other Warsaw Pact countries. So was Hungary.
Yes, but determinants of said actions are elected people. They serve the public interest (one hopes). The Transportation commission doesn't just arbitrarily install roads and track, they connect important places. Because people would have a shit-fit if they didn't, and vote them out.
That's the catch-22 of democracy; the greater good is usually denied in favor of whatever the majority wants, and they're not usually the same thing.
No. I am saying that the capital extraction inflates the perceived value of capitalism. Capitalism, with protections, can exist without tribute, anything can exist without tribute. But currently, it does not. That appropriated capital inflates the value we see for capitalism, because we only see the capital accumulation[I.E. the west], and don't see the extraction that has been done.
So when we look at capitalism, we go "ya, United States!" instead of "Yea, United States, Brazil, and Nigeria!" We see the effect the extracted tribute brings to the capitalist. But we don't see the effect that extracted tribute had on those it was extracted from[military coups etc]
It seems like any good the USSR was able to do was only from exploiting the Warsaw pact. Just like the US exploits the third world. What exactly is the difference?
B: Read up on Stalin and The Ukraine.
C: Read up on the hellhole that was East Germany.
Yes, they extracted tribute from their member states, who didn't want to give tribute. Multiple revolts occured during the period when Russia had control over Eastern Europe, and the "Iron Curtain" prevented people from emigrating to the west, which they would have done in droves.
And if they wanted Communism back, why didn't they let the August revolt succeed? Why was there only one revolt that tried to bring back communism (others had to do with Yeltsin's autocratic power, or the destruction of the economy as a result of Shock Therapy)?
Which if fair, since Canada and the U.S. are being lumped together. As are other nations. It is important though that you state "dependent" and not that they were paying tribute.
But whether or not they were having tribute extracted it makes sense to include them in the comparison.
Sorry, i just don't really want to go into it here. Its enough of a pain as it is.
I dunno - it's difficult to justify the political authoritarianism and lack of representation that eventually enveloped the soviet system, and I guess you could probably make a case that the ultimate downfall of the Soviet system was not their propensity for command economics so much as the lack of governmental accountability.
And you mean labor as a form of tribute? Once again, these third world countries are welcoming the multinationals, in fact they're pushing each other to get in line.
Who exactly pays tribute to the USA?
Yes, that is why i included Pact nations in the examination.
And what does the success of a revolt have to do with the statement that there are people who really do wish to see communism back, having experienced both?
Which, at the end of the day, were the same things. If spending isn't need-based or meaningfully directed/controlled, what's the difference?
yeah, except russia didn't really go balls to the wall with shock therapy like poland and hungary and other places did. it's almost uniform: in post-soviet bloc countries, the countries that used shock therapy are better off than the ones that used gradualism.
the thing about shock therapy is that it temporarily sets your economy back, but then allows for a relatively quick recovery and integration into the world economy. gradualism eases the transition, but also promotes much much slower growth.
Also, does anyone know about some historical theory about all revolutions, how they really just are a cycle? I think it's interesting because the cycle appears to hold true for all revolutions, including the one that put the Bolsheviks in power, except for the American Revolution. At least, not yet