Source: Piketty’s World Inequality Report 2022
I shared this deep in a dunk thread earlier and figured there’s probably many comrades who haven’t seen this data. I think it’s very good rhetorically because a lot of libs have an incredibly vibes-based impression that the Soviet Union was just an Animal Farm old-boss-same-as-the-new-boss situation.
Instead, this demonstrates that Russia underwent one of the most dramatic inversions of income inequality of any country in recorded history.
For comparison here is the US over the same time period:
China:
And the UK:
Comparing China negatively to the USSR makes sense, but comparing it negatively to the UK shows how people on this board are still very capable of being birdbrained and taken by a single, specific data set without considering the broader context. While the UK is making strides in austerity, China is continuously building [back] up from the gutting by Deng and making advancements in socialization. Show me where in the UK they build entire modern apartment complexes for dirt-poor villages living in rustic conditions and turn them over for free. How many hospitals do they erect, how many miles of new rail do they lay to provide infrastructural support?
Of course the UK, being so small and having spent so long as the industrial center of the planet (though those days are long past) already has some of this infrastructure rather than needing to build it . . .
People here miss the main reason for the Chinese graph. Due to rapid modernaziation and urbanization China is at a point where it has two countries with different levels of income within itself. One with some 200-300 million people in the big cities earning basicaly European level salaries and incomes and one of some 200-300 million rural residents that make 2-3 times less at least (and then various stages in between).So in the process of massive urbanization in a very short period of time a shitton of people have been uplifted to high income status while a shitton are in the way and a shitton are still not uplifted but most likely will. That creates a very unique impact in inequality metrics without context
Also that doesnt translate to equaly huge disparty in quality of life or purchasing power since in rural or small town China life ,even beyond rent, is indeed much cheaper compared to urban ereas in a degree not seen in the vast majority of countries . That particular configuration is very specific to China. For example the median US “rural” income is just 20% lower than the median urban one and despite that income inequality is so immense nationwide
And all that ignoring the particularities that arise if you try to make a wealth graph for China instead of income. With 90% home ownership rate, very large savings compared to other countries, an ever present in kind welfare state and a “at least on paper” people’s state that can be argued to actively control most of the wealth in various ways . Even for a “de formed” workers state how can you really make a wealth graph that accounts for the non capitalist particularities of ownership and control
Also how can you even compare stats like that between different modes of production. The bottom 50% in 1930s China were landless peasant serfs slaving on feudal warlords and living till 33 years old. What does them having 25% of Chinas income share even mean or even matter? How can you compare it to the situation I described above. How is it even calculated in such a context ?
It’s nothing like comparing and calculating the stats in Western capitalist countries now vs in the 30s or 40s
The graph also doesn’t take imperialism or colonialism into account, how amerikkka’s global south vassals are vastly poorer than the vast majority of Americans living within the USA’s borders. Income also doesn’t always equal class. Labor aristocrats in the USA can make more money than the petite bourgeoisie, for instance.
I absorb all my China info 3rd hand or worse from internet communists, but word on the street is that the CPC had explicitly stated that the primary contradiction of this era is uneven development between rural and urban areas, and resolving this contradiction is now a primary focus.
The USSR in its prime was able to challenge the USA on a lot of moral issues that would have never been brought up by other powers. For instance, I’m pretty sure that civil rights was not able to progress as it did without the ability for the USA to be shamed into action.
That said, both China and Russia seem like they are near pre-revolution levels of income disparity right now. So, I don’t know who would be the standard bearer pushing for economic equality now.
both China and Russia seem like they are near pre-revolution levels of income disparity right now.
Uhhhh China’s life expectancy pre revolution was 33 years old. There is absolutely zero comparison between China of today and the humiliation years of hyper exploitation by the British, Americans, Japanese and so on.
It’s disappointing but necessarily surprising tbh. China has been doing state capitalism for a while now.
As for your question these statistics aren’t necessarily contradictory to the idea of extreme poverty being reduced/eradicated. As this is basically a measure of wealth inequality, and while it might be worse than pre revolution, the standard of life is undoubtedly much higher. This is a result of China’s explosive economic growth, there is simply way more wealth in China than ever before. So a higher wealth inequality isn’t necessarily a good indicator of poverty. It is however an apt representation of the CCP’s economic policies over the past two decades and is a good indicator that poverty will rise once China’s growth slows down if wealth inequality isn’t addresed.
wonder how those stats are calculated. The bottom 50% in 1930s China were literal serfs with a life expectancy of 30 doing borderline slavery to feudal landlords. Are we really gonna pretend they owned like 20-30% of the country’s income share ? What does that even mean or matter in a feudal context
I’m not sure the graphs support that conclusion by themselves. The dip in US top 10% occurred simultaneously with Pearl Harbor and the US joining WWII, not the formation of the Soviet Union. For the UK it likewise seems tied to World Wars I and II and decolonization. For WWI it makes sense that it did not impact the US quite as much, especially since the US in fact was a financier of the European nations, and was notoriously unforgiving of war debts. Michael Hudson has argued this debt a major factor in provoking the buildup of Nazi ideology in Germany as France and England directly and indirectly required all of those debts to come from Germany.
The measure in these graphs is inequality of income rather than of wealth. Perhaps nationalization of production during wartime is the causal factor? Unemployment goes way down as people go off to fight or are employed in war manufacture. In any case it’s hard to separate the influences of war and political system on this data.
I know everyone here is doing China discourse here but the honestly not insignificant inequality that remained in the USSR is kinda interesting to see.
Ahh so the US has always been shit and continues to get worse
The US getting worse correlates with the destruction of the USSR. The ruling class saw the exact moment in time they had won and began to exploit harder knowing they no longer had to put up anymore pretence to compete with the socialist threat.
Ugh, they wasted no time too… literally a straight line up and hasn’t slowed at all ☹️
Not to worry. Income inequality in the USA is at similar levels to France in the pre-revolutionary era. These two times and places are vastly different, of course, but if you were a member of the bourgeoisie, would you feel secure? I’ve been feeling lately that the relentless sinophobia in the corporate press is a kind of proof that the monster is indeed afraid. If they were unafraid, they would have no problem with occasionally allowing communists to speak in public. But even on the internet, outside of a few niches like hexbear, this is strictly forbidden. Even the American masses are not actually that stupid and are perhaps not even so evil. Given the right circumstances and education and leadership, they could become just as radicalized as people in China during the revolution.
