You're viewing a single thread.
you could pull waayy more ugly pictures from us imperialism. or against their own.
socialists have something to show for in the form of actual progress in the quality of life of its citizens.
socialists have something to show for in the form of actual progress in the quality of life of its citizens.
Oh, good, so they didn't have to go to extreme measures to keep their own citizens from fleeing to the capitalist hellholes of the West?
not really
vietnamese can leave, chinese can and do go everywhere. cubans too.
not really
Oh, cool, I must have hallucinated all of those emigration restrictions during the Cold War, along with the Berlin Wall and civilians getting machine-gunned for trying to leave their glorious socialist paradise. Silly me.
Amazing how far fascists will go to deny reality.
vietnamese can leave,
Yeah, now they can. You wanna remind me what the most pro-free market country in Asia is?
chinese can and do go everywhere
Since the 80s, sure. Before that, not so much. You also wanna remember what happened to China's economy in the 80s? Something that rhymes with 'Lengism'? Unless you want to claim China today as socialist, in which case, I have a few hundred People's Billionaires to sell you.
cubans too.
Wanna remind me how Cubans escaped to the US throughout the Cold War and into the modern day?
Funny enough, you completely missed one of the socialist countries that DIDN'T have ridiculous emigration restrictions during the Cold War, but I guess Yugoslavia just isn't pure enough for you lot.
if we are talking about heavily propagandized policies enacted 100 years ago to try and curb imperialism, we could be talking about all the death bought upon them by the west.
the us is the very last country that can talk about machine gunnings, because they were the ones sponsoring most of it through all of recent history, including and especially in the socialist countries you seem to hate so hard for.... doing just that?
americans and the brits did full on scorched earth in vietnam and china, and nowadays they have healthcare while you are still shooting up kids in schools. the us sponsored dictatorship throughout my entire continent. literally.
talk about denying reality. i guess they don't teach you world history for a reason. nononono everyone else is the fascist here.
if we are talking about heavily propagandized policies enacted 100 years ago to try and curb imperialism,
"You don't understand, they HAD to gun down people for trying to escape our Socialist Paradise, or else Imperialism would win!"
Impressive.
Thanks for being utterly unable to contradict any of the points brought up that disprove your half-hearted attempt to defend the massacres of your favorite fascist states.
the us is the very last country that can talk about machine gunnings, because they were the ones sponsoring most of it through all of recent history, including and especially in the socialist countries you seem to hate so hard for… doing just that?
Cool, so you can back up the part where we were supposedly machine-gunning our own citizens to stop them from fleeing this capitalist hellhole, right? Since that was the topic brought up?
Oh, wait, of course you can't.
americans and the brits did full on scorched earth in vietnam and china, and nowadays they have healthcare while you are still shooting up kids in schools.
Oh, of course, having healthcare now justifies all of your fascist regime's atrocities. By the way, would you like to elaborate on the economic systems of China and Vietnam in the modern day? You know, now that they have healthcare? Just curious.
Also, when did the Brits do 'full on scorched earth' in China? 1901?
He said that the Commie countries had many people wanting to leave, because they were shit holes. Which is true. Soviets broke our economies, killed our innocents (Milada Horáková) and hurt the people. Go to hell sov-tard
Don't hurt yourself in your confusion.
Just to remind you comrade, Soviet leaders themselves found it unbelievable how full the supermarket shelves are when they visit the West.
South Koreans are far taller than North Koreans-- because the latter enjoy supermarket shelves always being full.
Just to remind you comrade, Soviet leaders themselves found it unbelievable how full the supermarket shelves are when they visit the West
Overly full shelves in supermarkets weren't the case in the USSR by design, not by accident. Most capitalist countries run what are called "surplus economies", in which companies normally manufacture more goods and services than they can allocate, and a certain percentage of output, as well as input, is wasted. The Soviet economy, on the contrary, ran a shortage economy. In a shortage economy, you plan the production of goods and services so that it will match the demand as closely as possible, therefore very rarely having a surplus of any good or service unless that's designed to be exported, but also not leaving any capital or any human labor available without using. Since the Soviet economy was mostly closed off to the outside world and was primarily self-reliant, it wanted to employ its resources in the most efficient way possible. Unemployment was literally 0%. Producing, say, 10% more loaves of bread, or 10% more milk, or 10% more eggs, in an attempt to create a surplus in supermarkets as in the western world, necessarily implied lowering the amount of labor and capital used in other sectors of the economy, e.g. 10% fewer electric drills or 10% fewer trolleybus parts.
Surplus in supermarkets in the west compared to lack of surplus in supermarkets in the Soviet Union isn't a consequence of "the success" of the west, but of the different priorities and designs. Either way, surplus in supermarkets in the US isn't very useful when 40 million US citizen, of whom 12 million are children, live in food insecurity.
Sure, it's an effective system to develop patience waiting in line for hours and perfecting rationing.
There was zero employment at the expense of national budget. People are paid regardless of productivity. And even then, productivity is questionable given the restrictive period plans whereby workers and managers are under pressure to meet quotas, and resort to distorting statistics and figures to appease the party apparatchiks, or else they get punished in euphemistic term. Who knows if there was actual more abundance in certain goods and commodities in Soviet Union.
Thank you for showing us that you've never read any seriou economic analysis about the USSR and you're just regurgitating anti-communist propaganda. Productivity in the USSR was comparable to any western capitalist country, except possibly in agriculture for complicated reasons that I'm not gonna get into. If you make such claims of big productivity differences between USSR and western countries, you should back that up with serious sources, so please go ahead and enlighten us all.
Breadlines happened during wartime and during the perestroika, not at any other times, again please feel free to look that up.
There was zero employment at the expense of national budget
I take it you mean unemployment. But your logic doesn't make any sense. Employed people, you know, produce goods and services. Not like unemployed people. The inefficient thing that runs at the expense of the national budget is unemployment, you know, when you have to maintain people who don't work.
Nobody claims that the USSR didn't have flaws in its economic planning. The lack of supervision and crackdown on infringement led to a decent bit of stealing from state property and resale at the black market. The fake production quotas happened in some sectors at times. And too-strong top-down planning led to some problems like the plan to plant corn in Siberia. But all economic systems have flaws and the USSR was absolutely not less efficient on average than any western country, as proven by the fact that it went from being a feudal backwater empire in 1917 to the second world power of the 20th century.
Thank you for showing us that you've never read any seriou economic analysis about the USSR and you're just regurgitating anti-communist propaganda.
The standard communist thought terminating response "you haven't the theory, so you don't know what you're talking about and shut up". That maybe the case, but that is irrelevant. Which system is still standing as we speak? Even China is communist in name only and is a state capitalist with rapid increasing number of billionaires than the United States in the past couple of years.
Rationing and breadlines still happened for more years as opposed to free market economy, man. It's not even consumer and basic commodities that is scarce, but even cars are. It is well known how Soviets had to wait seven to ten years just to buy a car. There is scarcity economy because the system is not great, with prices of everything controlled by the state, which is contrary to the realities of market supply and demand. If communism is great, it wouldn't have fell. And the remaining "communist" countries are only as such in name only.
Again, thank you for enlightening us with your lack of researched analysis. Please, I beg you to tell me a single book on the topic that you've read.
It's not even consumer and basic commodities that is scarce, but even cars are
Cars are a consumer commodity. I already explained the shortage economy of the USSR. You're trying to compare the consumer capabilities of citizens of the USSR with what, those of the US? The literal hegemon country of the world, participating in colonialism and unequal exchange to absurd degrees, and industrialized for 100 years more than the USSR? The comparison is ridiculous.
If communism is great, it wouldn't have fell
...which it didn't. The illegal, antidemocratic, top-down dismantling of the USSR, was a political decision taken by a few politicians in the party, not a "failure that made the country crumble". The USSR survived to a civil war, and to a WW2 in which Nazis murdered 25mn+ soviet inhabitants. Much worse economies like that of Cuba still subsist with a very healthy base of communist citizens. Please, go read a history book, instead of spouting the anti-communist propaganda we've all heard a million times. The USSR didn't fall, it was dismantled.
Mate, stop with the coping and repeating the same drivel of "read theory" because communists can't think for themselves. The theory is nil when the empirical evidence is there. Communism fell. USSR fell when the constituent states seceded. The former Eastern European elected to form their own independence. China is communist in name only. Cuba is as you said-- subsisting-- as a result they cannot maintain their buildings and many historical buildings are deteriorating. Many Cubans earn more money as taxi drivers than doctors!
More people risked crossing the wall and borders being shot and crossing the sea to flee from communist countries, than people from capitalist countries to communist states.
You're trying to compare the consumer capabilities of citizens of the USSR with what, those of the US?
Oh the strawman, the refuge of those who are-- well-- grasping for straws. I never said anything about the US. But sure, do so and ignore the other capitalist countries whose citizens could easily buy more cars and in an instant, such as UK, France, Japan, South Korea and Italy. And those countries are known for car manufacturing.
But sure go ahead, keep coping with the drivel that scarcity economy in communist states is by design when it is just a cover that communist countries are, in fact, experiencing chronic food, consumer and commodity shortages because of voodoo economics they practice. Lol, "scarcity by design" is the funniest cope I have seen from tankies. Tell that to the people who died from Holodomor, famine in China, and from Lysenko's agricultural bonkers of a science. Even China abandoned communism wholesale and Cuba finally acknowledged that the "market is a fact of life" and allowed greater degree of economic liberalisation into their constitution.
Dream on bud. Communism will work any minute now despite contrary to empirical evidence that it is plain as day for the eyes to see. See with your eyes for yourself, instead of spouting what you call "theory" with your script like an non-thinking NPC.
no use in having full shelves when half of the citizens in capitalist countries cant afford eating it.
south korea is a great example of a hugely unequal society where this is the norm.
Oh, cool, you wanna compare nutrition statistics between North and South Korea? I'm sure this will back you up about how terrible the capitalist hellhole of South Korea is!
sure, but lets factor in the brutal sanctions, and how the north is sectioned off on mostly unfertile mountain land.
stop doing that to cuba btw, its starting to stink. if socialism were so bad i think you could let them fail fair and square, and show us how bad it actually is, no?
How cute that you always have an excuse for why life under your favorite regimes that actually follow your ideal policies instead of departing from ML orthodoxy is always so dog shite, without exception. Almost like MLs are just fascists searching for excuses to brutalize the proletariat.
stop doing that to cuba btw, its starting to stink. if socialism were so bad i think you could let them fail fair and square, and show us how bad it actually is, no?
Sure. I've been an opponent of sanctions on Cuba for years. Btw, you want to remind me how many capitalist countries are sanctioning Cuba right now? I always lose track.
Hillary Clinton, the boogeyman, also supports lifting sanctions, I suppose since she's such a good socialist?
Also, if the ML systems you so adore can't operate without being subsidized by capitalism, aren't they really just extensions of capitalist regimes?
Cuba isn't even their dream communist utopia in terms of their own ideology, but they don't care. Cuba hasn't nationalized their extremely lucrative tourism industry. The massive profits from those fancy resorts aren't being redistributed to the workers.
But apparently they think that as long as you call yourself communist, you are.
See also: China- private property ownership and investment, billionaires and a fucking stock exchange. I actually had a Tankie tell me that if I just read Marx, I would see that earning capital is a feature of communism. That's how nuts these people are.
Go ahead and mentally travel in time to when there are only socialist countries left on earth.
With all the dirty liberal countries wiped out, who do the socialists blame for every bad thing that happens?
Oh no, your leader got caught embezzling "guess we missed a lib at the last culling". Get fucked lmao
Nutrition in the USSR by the 70s was literally healthier than that of the USA...
No response for the capitalist hellhole of South Korea, I see.
Wanna know how South Korea grew what it is to be? Implementing a fascist government that pushed against workers' rights and performed crackdown against unions, applied protectionism to key industries, and welcomed international investment into those sectors, thus becoming a tech giant at the expense of workers of the past, and now participating in unequal exchange as do all other developed capitalist countries
Oh, cool, so North Korea is behind because they didn't implement a fascist government that pushed against workers' rights and performed crackdowns against unions, applied protectionism to key industries, and welcomed foreign capital into those sectors?
Fucking lmao.
But sure, tell me how South Korea's greatest periods of growth were definitely under the periods of dictatorship and military junta and not the democratic period that resulted in reaction to that.
But sure, tell me how South Korea’s greatest periods of growth were definitely under the periods of dictatorship and military junta and not the democratic period that resulted in reaction to that.
Source? I'm finding historic yearly relative GDP growth for South Korea to be more or less stable since the 60s, proving that the policy of the authoritarian period worked and established an industry that allowed the country to grow and continue growing. Even the Wikipedia article on the history of South Korea acknowledges this, in my understanding it's relatively common knowledge:
[context: 1963 and onwards] Top priority was placed on the growth of a self-reliant economy and modernization; "Development First, Unification Later" became the slogan of the times and the economy grew rapidly with vast improvement in industrial structure, especially in the basic and heavy chemical industries. Capital was needed for such development, so the Park regime used the influx of foreign aid from Japan and the United States to provide loans to export businesses, with preferential treatment in obtaining low-interest bank loans and tax benefits.
During the past half-century, the Republic of Korea’s economy has shown impressive growth, with average annual GDP growth rate surpassing 7.1%, raising the level of real per capita GDP in international prices almost 26 times (Table 1). Average GDP growth rates accelerated to 7.5% in the 1960s, 8.6% in the 1970s, and 9.3% in the 1980s
https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/183353/adbi-wp571.pdf
Still no response for North Korea's fantastic workers' rights and democratic institutions, huh?
From your own source:
The Republic of Korea has had a remarkable economic performance since the early 1960s, achieving per capita income of $27,000 to become the world’s eighth-largest trading nation.1 However, the economy’s recent growth performance has been rather disappointing. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged only 4.1% during 2000–2010, marking a significant drop from the average of 7.9% achieved during 1960–2000. Moreover, from 2011 to 2015, the Republic of Korea’s GDP growth averaged only 3.0%
So you're choosing to cherrypick a few decades of comparably similar growth (2 points percentage difference), growth was relatively stable since the 60s as I said.
We love our supermarket shelves, don't we folks? The biggest and the fullest in the world, mao zedong, stalin, they all love our supermarket shelves. 30 different flavors of oreos, all in one aisle. can't have that in russia, folks, can't have that, horrible country, horrible country. You can only have pizza hutt in russia, folks, believe me, or, as I call it, pizza butt, and that's only because of our favorite supreme leader gorbachev. You couldn't even choose your healthcare plan in the USSR, folks, can you believe it? They only had one plan, horrible, horrible healthcare. I'm going to go make out with supreme leader Kim, folks, but I'm going to hate every second of it, believe me.
Don't forget the 30 different kinds of bread and cheese available at supermarket shelves.... without rationing or waiting in line for hours to be given one loaf of bread for the day....