HorseLord posted:I've seen plenty of True American Capitalist Heros describe post 91 as a liberation, and how everyone there is so much better off. Point out that there's now massive wealth inequality and poverty, and how the fall caused shitloads of homelessness and tanked life expectancy, and they stick their fingers in their ears. You got your numbers wrong, anyways, as only about 33% of urbanites had their own dacha. Of course, only 6% of Americans own a second home, comparatively.
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Nov 5, 2014 16:10
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Effectronica posted:You got your numbers wrong, anyways, as only about 33% of urbanites had their own dacha. Of course, only 6% of Americans own a second home, comparatively. Well it's not like the average american worker would really do much with a summer retreat considering they get like 3 days off an entire year
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Nov 5, 2014 16:17
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Ah, I did get the number wrong, I was going top of my head. I knew it was absurdly high compared to the west though.Bob le Moche posted:Yeah they are made up it's not like anyone who was alive in the 1980s is still around today The nuclear arms race was hilarious. khrushchev goes "I'm not giving numbers but we've got enough missiles for our needs". The US fly over and see that in fact, the USSR has jack poo poo. They don't bother telling the media, though, who harp on about a "missile gap". The US naturally uses this as an excuse to go hardcore on nukebuilding. Khrushchev was incompetent. HorseLord fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 16:17
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Granted, the standard of living in the USSR wasn't as high as the West or the US especially, but at no point in Russian history was it , and if anything the gap widened across the 1990s. The closet the Soviets got during the 1980s was roughly 45% or so per capita of the US, less than Thailand. In 1928, the USSR's GDP per capita was 1/5 of less than the US less than Guatemala (using historical estimation).
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Nov 5, 2014 17:18
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Can we try using a different measure than per-capita GDP when discussing quality of life? A country where the majority lives in abject poverty can still have a high per-capita GDP as long as the ruling elite is ultra-rich. Per-capity GDP is basically a measure of "how much economic production is gotten out per human being" and doesn't say much about anything most people care about
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Nov 5, 2014 17:28
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Bob le Moche posted:Can we try using a different measure than per-capita GDP when discussing quality of life? A country where the majority lives in abject poverty can still have a high per-capita GDP as long as the ruling elite is ultra-rich. per-cap GDP is a pretty good measurement for how rich or poor a nation is, and the US is an outlier when it comes to plotting GINI and GDP/Capita together:  (from the Visualizing Economics blog).
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Nov 5, 2014 17:31
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Yeah I guess the measure can still be useful in the sense that if GDP per capita is high but well-being is low, you know it's because of bad governance and not of material and technological limits to productivity Corrolary to that is that if quality of life manages to be relatively high even with low per capita GDP then they're probably doing something right Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 17:35
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Bob le Moche posted:Can we try using a different measure than per-capita GDP when discussing quality of life? A country where the majority lives in abject poverty can still have a high per-capita GDP as long as the ruling elite is ultra-rich. It isn't necessarily one to one, but quality of life wasn't my point but resources were. In fact, the Soviet Union had very low inequality from most reports, something around .2 or so (at least according to one figure I saw). However, the average white middle class American had a far more comfortable life, however, 1. that sort of lifestyle simply wasn't possible at that in the USSR and 2. not everyone by far lived that life style in the US. Nevertheless, there is an expectation for the Russians to produce the "American dream" is something the US didn't do for a lot of its own people. One big reason it wasn't possible of course is that the Russia during the 1920s was a blasted hulk of a country that was dirt poor to begin with and then World War 2 happened. Ultimately the USSR was fighting a losing fight from the get go since the West had almost a laughable advantage in resources, if anything the real story of the Cold War is how the hell the Soviets were able to keep up with the West for so long in the first place considering the disparity in size of economies. Basically, they competed with the US with both hands tied behind their back and their legs glued together and still were able to keep pace in many fields. (One reason for example the Soviet were behind in electronics was simply how enormously expensive it was.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 17:44
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It's always "you suck compared to america" and never "congratulations for building a modern country out of literally a tsarist 16th century timewarp", and it's tiresome as hell.
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Nov 5, 2014 17:53
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HorseLord posted:It's always "you suck compared to america" and never "congratulations for building a modern country out of literally a tsarist 16th century timewarp". Yeah, Soviet residential buildings are ridiculed in the states, but honestly for many people they represented the first modern habitation they actually had a chance to live in. They aren't pretty, but in a place where the elements can often be deadly, I much rather live in a concrete structure with heat and electricity than a wooden hut. It wasn't like everyone was living in suburban track homes and suddenly made everyone live in public housing because they were just a bunch of mean guys. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 17:56
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Bob le Moche posted:Yeah they are made up it's not like anyone who was alive in the 1980s is still around today I know you can't read and all but the key word is "universal." The pro-Stalin argument here literally is "some people owned mercedes cars when Reagan was president." Which is stupid on many levels. One of the funnier ones being that internet communists are cheering how nice the elite had it.
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Nov 5, 2014 18:19
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The key to distinguishing between stalinism and accurate historiography: Stalin's geopolitical decisions were correct. He correctly predicted that the western allies would appease Nazi Germany, delay helping the USSR for as long as possible and find any excuse to appease fascists in general. He particularly disliked Churchill because he had expressed pro-fascist sympathies pre-war, a dislike justified by his decisions during the war. But he was also the greatest factor in the dysfunction of the USSR, not necessarily because Trotsky, Lenin or X would have 'been better', but that the power structure of a single all-powerful leader was his creation. rudatron fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 18:19
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Best Friends posted:I know you can't read and all but the key word is "universal." The pro-Stalin argument here literally is "some people owned mercedes cars when Reagan was president." Which is stupid on many levels. One of the funnier ones being that internet communists are cheering how nice the elite had it. No, what's stupid is forgetting everything said except the dachas, then trying to compare it to how elite american yuppies had fancy cars. What's stupid is claiming "internet communists" are praising the lifestyles of the elite, when "internet communists", right here on this page, are discussing how the lives of the most poor and destitute people of one of the poorest nations on earth were improved massively. What's stupid is describing a third of all soviet urban families as "elite" and not being self aware enough to wonder why american land of free capitalism usa #1 unclesamistan doesn't have that many "elites" in it's urban centers. It's almost as if unchained capitalism promotes uneven wealth distribution or something. HorseLord fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 18:41
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rudatron posted:The key to distinguishing between stalinism and accurate historiography: Stalin's geopolitical decisions were correct. He correctly predicted that the western allies would appease Nazi Germany, delay helping the USSR for as long as possible and find any excuse to appease fascists in general. He particularly disliked Churchill because he had expressed pro-fascist sympathies pre-war, a dislike justified by his decisions during the war. Admittedly, one party rule was going to always be an issue with the USSR and even if after the USSR remained a influx oligarchy, it was probably going to still be a pretty rough ride at times. That said, one party rule was basically how the Russian Revolutionary/Civil War worked out and the simple fact that Russia was never anywhere close to a democracy in the first place. There is plenty to criticism Stalin for, at the same time, somethings like crash industrialization and 5 year plans pretty much had to happen. If the Soviets hadn't put every effort they had in technical and industrial improvement they would have been completely screwed and they knew it well in advance. Btw, Tsarist Russia had been industrializing but there was no way it was going to make the same strides in that short of an amount of time, if anything industrialization had taken decades to finally get off the ground after the 1860s. quote:No, what's stupid is forgetting everything said except the dachas, then trying to compare it to how elite american yuppies had fancy cars. It isn't a secret either that classes existed in the Soviet Union, but they were pretty "squeezed". One family in a building might have had a dacha, and another didn't but that often was about it. Seriously, the difference between a white middle class family and a black working class family in the US in the 1960s was far more severe. If anything there was a discussion earlier about how Kalashnikov was "cheated" because he only became a two star decorated general living in a comfortable flat when he should have made billions instead. Kalashnikov WAS far of the elite and if anything he was on the top end, he just didn't get a mansion out of it, damned one way or another. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 18:43
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HorseLord posted:
*talks about how the elite got dachas for like a page* UH, ACTUALLY, UNLIKE CAPITALISTS, I AM VERY CONCERNED WITH, THE POOR. YOU MONSTER.
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Nov 5, 2014 18:52
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Btw, the numbers I have seen are closer to 50% of the urban population in larger cities btw, the "elite" is a rather broad interpretation.
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Nov 5, 2014 18:55
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It's almost like it's a bad faith argument coming from a right-winger more interested in attacking anything that smells of leftism than in trying to understand what happens in the real world
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Nov 5, 2014 18:56
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Bob le Moche posted:It's almost like it's a bad faith argument coming from a right-winger more interested in attacking anything that smells of leftism than in trying to understand what happens in the real world Granted, it is a much easier fight as well. Ultimately, a car or a nice flat was more of sign of class than a Dacha. I know plenty of people from the former Soviet Union who had family dachas and their families were very far from the "elite."
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Nov 5, 2014 19:01
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I'm interested in figuring out how both the idea that the USSR was evil and sucked and terrible, and the idea that it produced an urban population that's 33-50% mercedes owning yuppie-equivalent, can fit in the same head. Idk if dachas are the indicator of elite wealth then it seems pretty obvious you should be going full lenin immediately.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:04
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The people in the country got to live in summer homes all year long, those lucky dogs. Now, back to our regularly scheduled program of talking about how capitalism is failing because a way way smaller fraction of America lives in poverty. (The solution btw is of course, murdering millions of people and reducing the quality of life of all survivors, naturally). Yes, lots of extremely good faith arguments here. Going all the way from "actual economics is a lie because I saw a guy on MSNBC once say the dow would hit 36000" to "Stalin was extremely nice to live under because maybe a third of all people got dachas," we're really getting the full swing of honest good faith arguments here. HorseLord posted:I'm interested in figuring out how both the idea that the USSR was evil and sucked and terrible, and the idea that it produced an urban population that's 33-50% mercedes owning yuppie-equivalent, can fit in the same head. First, sweet innumeracy there, but second the only person holding the lovely Stalinist dacha up as some unheard of luxury here is you. Best Friends fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 19:05
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The USSR failed in the end though so I don't think that really points to Marxist-Leninist theoretical strength I mean a proper theory should have been able to withstand internal and external pressure I figure.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:10
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Are you lonely, Best Friends? I bet you find comfort in arguing against not what anyone actually said.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:11
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Ardennes posted:Admittedly, one party rule was going to always be an issue with the USSR and even if after the USSR remained a influx oligarchy, it was probably going to still be a pretty rough ride at times. That said, one party rule was basically how the Russian Revolutionary/Civil War worked out and the simple fact that Russia was never anywhere close to a democracy in the first place. The one party system of the USSR was obviously non-democratic, but worker's councils are actually a pretty great example of a truly democratic institution and really deserve to be looked into. We should also keep in mind that anyone who seriously studies the way the two-party system of the US government functions in practice for example would be hard-pressed to see it as being particularly democratic or as being representative of the people in any way. You have to be a bit delusional and idealistic to think that the US government was at any point in its history anything other than a dictatorship of the propertied class. The kind of radical democracy I would personally love to see exist doesn't happen very often in practice unfortunately.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:13
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tbp posted:The USSR failed in the end though so I don't think that really points to Marxist-Leninist theoretical strength I mean a proper theory should have been able to withstand internal and external pressure I figure. That's like saying democracy was a bad idea because France got wrecked by Nazi Germany or Athens fell to undemocratic foes. I wonder if there was a Spartan Fukuyama declaring the end of history and that the world had settled on monarchical slave-states as the final model of human existence? OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 19:13
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well all human beings fail in the end so i'm not sure that points to the theoretical strength of any political ideology
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Nov 5, 2014 19:15
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Bob le Moche posted:The one party system of the USSR was obviously non-democratic, but worker's councils are actually a pretty great example of a truly democratic institution and really deserve to be looked into. When you say something like this, explain what worker's councils are or give an example, otherwise nobody has a clue what you're talking about. I don't know what you mean; are you referring to places like Mondragon? quote:We should also keep in mind that anyone who seriously studies the way the two-party system of the US government functions in practice for example would be hard-pressed to see it as being particularly democratic or as being representative of the people in any way. You have to be a bit delusional and idealistic to think that the US government was at any point in its history anything other than a dictatorship of the propertied class. The US has obviously not been a dictatorship of the propertied class, otherwise the political history would be wildly different. There is a huge gap between saying that the propertied elite in the US wield an inordinate amount of power and saying that it's a 'dictatorship'. For one thing, dictatorship implies a centralized control. What you seem to be saying is that the US has been an oligarchy, but that's only true in so far as all political systems with uneven distribution of power are oligarchies. quote:The kind of radical democracy I would personally love to see exist doesn't happen very often in practice unfortunately. What kind of radical democracy would you personally love to see?
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Nov 5, 2014 19:16
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tbp posted:The USSR failed in the end though so I don't think that really points to Marxist-Leninist theoretical strength I mean a proper theory should have been able to withstand internal and external pressure I figure. A proper theory should have withstood a what a 4 or 3 to 1 economic advantage indefinitely? That seems a pretty high goal post. Hell, the different between the Warsaw Pact and the US, NATO and other allies was probably even higher. Btw, I don't think Marxist-Leninism is the answer, but pretending it was a "equal fight" it just intellectually dishonest. Bob Le Moche posted:The one party system of the USSR was obviously non-democratic, but worker's councils are actually a pretty great example of a truly democratic institution and really deserve to be looked into. The issue of course the worker councils were centralized pretty quick, which is defensible in a utilitarian sense but I don't know if you would want to follow than path of purpose unless you had to. As for the US, I would say a "managed democracy" of the propertied class is more accurate, elections happen but choices and outcomes are managed. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 19:19
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Obdicut posted:When you say something like this, explain what worker's councils are or give an example, otherwise nobody has a clue what you're talking about. I don't know what you mean; are you referring to places like Mondragon? Here's wikipedia's description: Wikipedia on worker's councils posted:A workers' council is a form of political and economic organization in which a single place of work or enterprise, such as a factory, school, or farm, is controlled collectively by the workers of that workplace, through the core principle of temporary and instantly revocable delegates. Wikipedia on soviet democracy posted:Soviet democracy (sometimes council democracy) is a form of democracy in which workers' councils called "soviets" (Russian for "council"), consisting of worker-elected delegates, form organs of power possessing both legislative and executive power. The soviets begin at the local level and onto a national parliament-like assembly. According to Vladimir Lenin and other Marxist theorists, the soviets represent the democratic will of the working class and are thus the embodiment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.| Obdicut posted:The US has obviously not been a dictatorship of the propertied class, otherwise the political history would be wildly different. There is a huge gap between saying that the propertied elite in the US wield an inordinate amount of power and saying that it's a 'dictatorship'. For one thing, dictatorship implies a centralized control. What you seem to be saying is that the US has been an oligarchy, but that's only true in so far as all political systems with uneven distribution of power are oligarchies. Sure, that's what I meant by the words I used. The interests of the propertied class are overwhelmingly what dictates policy. Whenever other interests are taken into account it's usually only because not doing so would result in more harm than good to the ruling class. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 19:27
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Bob le Moche posted:Yeah they are made up it's not like anyone who was alive in the 1980s is still around today The US had a black guy trounce the poo poo out of supposed white ubermensch in that olympics though.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:28
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HorseLord posted:Are you lonely, Best Friends? I bet you find comfort in arguing against not what anyone actually said. "Well, time for my daily labors talking about the superiority of Marxist-Lenninist thought in long form with my intellectual compatriots, as we fight the good fight on Somethingawful dot com. What's this? This guy is making fun of us and our obviously superior arguments. Haha, what a loser. LOOOSER. Get a job, loser!"
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Nov 5, 2014 19:30
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Best Friends posted:"Well, time for my daily labors talking about the superiority of Marxist-Lenninist thought in long form with my intellectual compatriots, as we fight the good fight on Somethingawful dot com. What's this? This guy is making fun of us and our obviously superior arguments. Haha, what a loser. LOOOSER. Get a job, loser!" You seem pretty invested in this thread for the "I am just a cool guy making jokes" routine.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:37
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Nintendo Kid posted:The US had a black guy trounce the poo poo out of supposed white ubermensch in that olympics though. Yeah that was pretty rad
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Nov 5, 2014 19:39
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Ardennes posted:You seem pretty invested in this thread for the "I am just a cool guy making jokes" routine. He's just a puppet master.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:40
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HorseLord posted:He's just a puppet master. isn't everyone?
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Nov 5, 2014 19:41
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Nintendo Kid posted:The US had a black guy trounce the poo poo out of supposed white ubermensch in that olympics though. Yeah and then the US owned Jesse Owens by treating him like poo poo because of his skin color. Even the Nazis were nicer to him than we were lol edit: In my lovely opinion, the huge leaps we are already seeing in technology, infrastructure, power, production, and artificial intelligence is just the beginning. Once humanity gets enough scientific data we start to go into a feedback loop, speeding up our process and advances even quicker - something already starting to happening. Even if political parties do not become overtly 'Marxist', having unlimited free power for everyone, no hunger, and a extraordinarily improved standard of living for even the poorest of humans will no doubt have some very large socialist implications for future politics. Digi_Kraken fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 19:43
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Puppets of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your strings
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Nov 5, 2014 19:46
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Bob le Moche posted:Here's wikipedia's description: I don't want Wikipedia's description, though. If what you mean is the Marxist-Lennist version, go ahead and say so. or say 'like the Paris commune'. How do you deal with the classical problems with worker councils: the interests of non-workers and especially tyranny of the majority? How is this not an immediate recipe for the latter? Marx depended on a raised consciousness among the workers to prevent this; is that your solution as well? quote:Sure, that's what I meant by the words I used. The interests of the propertied class are overwhelmingly what dictates policy. Whenever other interests are taken into account it's usually only because not doing so would result in more harm than good to the ruling class. There is not one propertied class, though. Are you still operating by the Marxist monolithic idea of classes? The latter statement isn't disprovable. I can point to, say, the right to due process as a right that isn't immediately recognizable as benefiting the 'ruling class'. Usually, the answer to this is "It helps keep societal order", which can literally be said about anything.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:47
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So if you're all good and done with debating stalins achievements, I'd like to know how do you figure Marxism is going to be at all relevant in the 21st century?
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Nov 5, 2014 19:48
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Ardennes posted:You seem pretty invested in this thread for the "I am just a cool guy making jokes" routine. I resent the accusation that I consider myself to be, or have ever been, cool. But, uh, throwing stones at me of all people for trying to hard in this thread of all places is sort of funny.
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Nov 5, 2014 19:49
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Best Friends posted:I resent the accusation that I consider myself to be, or have ever been, cool. But, uh, throwing stones at me of all people for trying to hard in this thread of all places is sort of funny. Nah, you're down here in the muck with the rest of us. There is plenty of room. quote:So if you're all good and done with debating stalins achievements, I'd like to know how do you figure Marxism is going to be at all relevant in the 21st century? A Marxian analysis of the concentration of wealth and the disruption it causes on a capitalist mode of production from Capital. Class differences will likely become nearly vertical during the 21st century. quote:In a capitalist economy, technological improvement and its consequent increased production augment the amount of material wealth (use value) in society, whilst simultaneously diminishing the economic value of the same wealth, thereby diminishing the rate of profit — a paradox characteristic of economic crisis in a capitalist economy; "poverty in the midst of plenty" consequent to over-production and under-consumption. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Nov 5, 2014 |
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Nov 5, 2014 19:54
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