Lolwut? USSR recovered from being a devastated bomb crater of a country faster than Europe did on American dollar while waging a cold war against the rest of the world. They beat the US to space time and time again too.
Come the 80s, their manufacturing was well ahead of the west, and there weren’t any food issues either, so I’m not sure what you mean? The horrors of Stalin’s collectivisation efforts were a good bit before the cold war, and that wasn’t really an issue of food manufacturing.
Nobody was forced to do any type of work more than anybody is under capitalism, if anything under capitalism as it is today - you take what you are given.
In the USSR, higher education being free (as is the socialist tradition) gave people a lot more choice, no need to balance student debt against future potential earnings and as such ability to pay health expenses, like we see in the US today.
They suffered from consumer goods issues because things like game consoles and tamagotchi can’t exactly be planned in a planned economy.
It’s why I personally believe in a dual-economy, where necessities are planned centrally, from housing to infrastructure to utilities and independent worker co-operatives do the rest, I think that’s the lesson there ultimately. Oh and fuck the Russian Federation.
I think you’re looking at history through rose-colored glasses. Read pretty much any story from those who left the USSR to get a better picture of how life was there. Here are a two that I’ve read:
- The Persecutor
- A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka
Feel free to find your own, but I find real stories of people trying to flee more valuable in understanding life in an area than books with economic figures.
If life was so good there, why did so many try to flee? Leaving was incredibly hard, why was that?
I personally believe in a dual-economy
I disagree, but we probably agree more than we disagree.
For example, I believe in a strong safety net (something like UBI), and believe we should eliminate minimum wages. If you don’t need to work to meet basic needs (food and shelter), you won’t take work unless it improves on that basic set of needs. Maybe that means we’ll increase automation or immigration to fill roles nobody wants, or maybe that means pay will increase. Either way, it shouldn’t be centrally planned.
I think the lesson from the USSR is that centrally planned economies are repressive, and that we need to come up with better ways of solving the needs of the poor or we’ll have another popular uprising that goes way beyond what anyone actually wanted.
Socialist policies should be limited, imo, to voluntary associations, like co-ops and private unions. It shouldn’t enter government policy because politicians like power more than actually helping people.
Read pretty much any story from those who left the USSR to get a better picture of how life was there.
A very unbiased account indeed
but I find real stories of people trying to flee more valuable in understanding life in an area than books with economic figures.
I don’t. People for the most part are morons that gulp down ivermectin and bleach enemas by the truckload to make their healing crystals work in time for Sunday church, so they can pray away the gay. People are fickle, and are often at odds with facts. As a trans person I know this well.
If life was so good there
That’s the neat part, I never claimed that. The USSR was a shithole, but the user I originally responded to was wrong as well. Two things can be true at once.
UBI
Or just nationalize necessities to cut out capitalist middlemen taking a cut. All a UBI of $100 will do is raise prices by $100 because people now have $100 more, and landlords et al. will want those $100. Under capitalism and neoliberalism the rich will always be at the top of the food chain in this manner.
Socialist policies should be limited, imo, to voluntary associations, like co-ops and private unions.
So they can be easily crushed by capitalist lobbying in western “”““democracies””".
I admire neolibs who genuinely want to make things better, and you have my respect for that, but I think you’re just a bit naive and haven’t quite thought everything through.
A very unbiased account indeed
Oh certainly, any personal account is going to be full of selection bias. But it helps give a look behind the scenes to help interpret the stats and whatnot we see in academic papers. Those stats come with a cost, and the cost was often born by minorities and those who weren’t well-connected. That’s my point here.
All a UBI of $100 will do is raise prices by $100 because people now have $100 more
That $100 has to come from somewhere, and if we follow a balanced budget, it’s not coming from debt, but from taxes.
But yes, there will be some price adjustment if something like UBI is done in a vacuum. Look at the COVID subsidies for examples of just that, or the EV subsidies where dealers/manufacturers just jack up the price of EVs to match the credit.
I’m proposing replacing minimum wage w/ something like UBI (my preference is a Negative Income Tax for more of a direct replacement). That way that $100 isn’t being added to peoples’ means, but instead it’s replacing wages. Just increasing wages kills jobs, and just increasing money available causes inflation. So if minimum wage is $15, with $10 of that being needed for subsistence (housing and food, no luxuries), you’d instead get $10/hr regardless and jobs would pay $5/hr or whatever. That gives employees the freedom to say no to poor working conditions and inadequate pay without worrying about where their next meal is coming from. If nobody wants to work for those wages, wages will go up. If immigrants or teenagers are willing to take those jobs, wages will go down. A lot of jobs aren’t worth $15 and would be (and are) replaced with automation instead. This allows those jobs to continue to exist, without forcing people to be destitute. Likewise, if automation replaces a significant chunk of human labor, those people can continue to survive and pursue other options for employment (i.e. maybe they’ll pursue art or something).
I don’t think that type of policy would meaningfully impact prices. First of all, NIT (basically income-based UBI) was championed by Milton Friedman, a respected economist, and he certainly looked into inflationary pressure of such a system. Price increases are tempered by fed borrowing rate increases and NIT/UBI payout adjustments, which can keep total inflation stable, so any price changes are just moving money from one pocket to another. It’s only inflationary if we use borrowed money to fund it, but if it’s budgeted for through taxes, it’s not going to be inflationary.
rich will always be at the top
Sure, and moving to socialism won’t change that, all it does is replace “the rich” with “the well-connected.”
People being rich isn’t a problem, especially since generational wealth is often gone after 3 generations. Rockefeller’s (arguably the richest person ever) wealth has bees significantly diluted, so even the mega-wealthy will eventually lose their wealth. I’m guessing in 100 years, Musk’s, Bezos’, and Gates’ wealth will be largely diluted. Elon Musk wasn’t “mega-wealthy” 15 years ago. Jeff Bezos became rich around 25 years ago. Bill Gates became rich about 40 years ago. Most of the top billionaires are recently wealthy, and the same is largely true for multi-millionaires as well.
The important thing is that who “the rich” are changes periodically so we don’t get into a Russian oligarch situation.
Instead of looking at the income/wealth gap, we should be looking at standard of living changes for the average (median) person. As long as that’s improving year-over-year, things are getting better. Whether some people have tens or hundreds of millions doesn’t really impact me day-to-day.
Come the 80s, their manufacturing was well ahead of the west, and there weren’t any food issues either.
That’s not true. While the USSR did have a significant manufacturing capacity, it was often inefficient due to the planned economy. This led to factories closing after 1991 because they couldn’t compete with the free market. The quality of products was often subpar, and there was a lack of diversity and functionality. In fact, many essential items weren’t even manufactured.
This was a major contributor to the Soviet Union’s economic downfall and eventual collapse. If you read archival records (available through various books, for instance), you’ll find that even high-ranking officials like ministers and vice ministers were writing letters to each other in the 80s about the poor output in their respective sectors, including the oil industry, which was struggling due to outdated technology.
In the USSR, higher education being free (as is the socialist tradition) gave people a lot more choice
The idea that the Soviet Union had exceptional higher education is a myth. In reality, their education system was overly focused on technical skills, neglecting essential life skills like critical thinking, creativity, decision-making, and many others.
This became apparent in the 90s when many supposedly ‘highly educated’ individuals were involved in fraudulent schemes, failed to build and stand for democracy. While it’s true that the USSR produced some outstanding scientists, that’s where the excellence ended. A society cannot thrive solely on the backs of scientists and enginners. A well-rounded education is essential for prosperity.
In reality, their education system was overly focused on technical skills, neglecting essential life skills like critical thinking, creativity, decision-making, and many others.
The US is the only country in the western world that teaches strictly extra-curricular matters at a university level, afaik. I went to uni in the UK for computer science, all of my classes were only about computer science and it’s subdomains only, there are no “life skills” classes.
This became apparent in the 90s when many supposedly ‘highly educated’ individuals were involved in fraudulent schemes, failed to build and stand for democracy
As opposed to the low levels of fraud and extremely healthy democracies of which countries exactly?
As for the rest of your claims I would like to see direct sources. The “essential items” tidbit in particular I find suspect because the definition is quite fickle and the idea is subjective and depends on circumstances. Cars were famously not very common amongst USSR citizens. What was though is public transport, and we’re now in the west finding out that neglecting public transport and shifting towards personal vehicles has been a huge mistake, so that’s that.
I’d recommend reading some books about the Soviet Union, particularly its later years. It’s not feasible for me to provide an in-depth education on this topic in a single post. It’s clear that you are not knowledgeable, and I’m not sure why you’re arguing without being informed on the subject ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
