The latest in our series of translations of Russian national-conservative thinker Egor Kholmogorov.
Translated by: Fluctuarius Argenteus; slightly edited by AK.
Original: http://zavtra.ru/blogs/pravoslavnyij-sotsializm
Socialism Not Dead: Paradoxes of an Unsolved Problem
It may seem strange that, at the turn of the 21st century, the word “Socialism” is back in the popular political idiom. The final decade of the preceding century seemed to have been the time of its complete (and, so it would seem, irreversible) annihilation.
Soviet-style “Real Socialism” ended in a pathetic disgrace, striking its colors at the sight of a sausage pointed at its heart. Who would have thought that churning out missiles, dams, and factories wouldn’t be enough to sustain a planned economy based on communal property? It was also necessary to grant the Socialist people access to consumer goods at least remotely comparable to those available under Capitalism; otherwise, falling behind not only in living standards but also in technology became inevitable. Soviet Socialism collapsed under the weight of this contradiction, while China enacted reforms so deep that, while looking at Chinese billionaires, one can’t help but wonder whether it’s still Socialism or a “Red Capitalist” oligarchy of the Chinese Communist Party – quite probably no worse than any other oligarchy in history.
Meanwhile, the Capitalist world with its triumphant Liberalism seemed to have scored a doubtless moral victory. Not only did it outpace Socialism, it completely consumed it. All more or less sensible Socialist ideas were incorporated into the structure of the “welfare state”, leaving “Real Socialism” with such dubious achievements as complete socialization of property or pedantic ideological censorship. Socialism appeared to have been entirely devoured and digested by a Capitalism that had reached in this struggle a new stage in its historical evolution.
A quarter of a century after this victory over Socialism, the foundations of the global Liberal order are more and more visibly shaken. Within the US Democratic party, Hillary Clinton’s Liberalism, oriented at racial and sexual minorities, has been challenged by “Democratic Socialist” Bernie Sanders who is cajoling White American workers into rising against the 1%, the Wall Street loan sharks. Socialist? US Presidential candidate? Early 21st century? It seems patently absurd. Meanwhile across the pond, the Labour party in the UK eschewed fine-looking bureaucrats in favour of Jeremy Corbyn, a Socialist, an anti-militarist, and general diehard Leftist. One of his first acts as leader of the Shadow Cabinet was creating a committee for a new economic policy, including such anti-inequality fighters as Thomas Piketty and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.
All of a sudden, we not only see a ressurection of Socialism in two of the leading countries of the Capitalist world, but positioning itself as a powerful political political alternative to the dominant Liberal mainstream. If we take into account that this mainstream is also under attack by right-wing populism of the likes of Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen (the program of the latter replete with anti-Capitalist and anti-Globalist vocabulary), the Liberal “end of history” seems to have ended quite rapidly. If this wave hasn’t reached us yet, it is only because both our Liberalism and our Capitalism are quite peculiar, and our political system doesn’t operate under Western-style rules. However, one cannot completely shut oneself off from a revolution of ideas, and it seems likely we will soon hear the march of a new Socialism here in Russia.
What is the cause of this 2010s Socialist re-revolution? The return of economic conditions that had caused the heyday of Socialism in the 19th century and were drastically changed in the 20th. The driving force of the Socialism of two centuries ago was a contradiction between the ideals of civil liberty and equality brought about by the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, and an absolute economic inequality typical of ancien régime Europe. The latter became more prominent and intolerable at the start of the Industrial Revolution, when hundreds of thousands of proletarians became concentrated in the stench and stuffiness of the working-class suburbs of developed countries.
Liberalism was faced with a monstrous and insoluble contradiction: why, after declaring human rights and liberties in thought and politics, giving equal rights to all social strata and doing away with the feudal ladder of estates, should it remain the guardian of a gap between wealth and misery, the protector of economic inequality? The situation of defending equality in the sphere of ideas, less important for most of the people, and championing inequality in the sphere of the stomach, of much greater everyday importance, seemed entirely ridiculous.
Excuses invented for explaining why some people are poor and some rich pushed those who considered this to be an injustice to certain solutions. “Private property is inviolable, you have no right to infringe upon it, therefore, you dare not touch the wealth of others,” said the wealth apologists. “It simply means that property is theft, and it must be destroyed or redistributed to close the gap between wealth and poverty,” replied the champions of the poor. “Liberty is not the equality of results but that of opportunities. We should be equal at square one, and then let each one gain according to his energy and talents,” said the wealth apologists. “Then we should socialize the work effort, and then we’ll have a common result: From each other according to their ability, to each other according to their needs. Also, let’s create truly equal opportunities, because the prospect of equal chances for millionaires and have-nots is a bald-faced lie,” replied the champions of the poor.
The ideas, methods, and moral high ground of the Socialism of yesteryear stemmed from a European yearning for equality, described by Alexis de Tocqueville, and the angst caused by the monstrous material inequality in the Europe in an age when the gaps between wealth and poverty were insurmountable. These gaps are the subject of a spirited dialogue between a young Rastignac and a cynical, conniving Vautrin in Honoré de Balzac’s Le Père Goriot. Vautrin explains to Rastignac, then a young idealist, that his chances of making good money thanks to learning, personal qualities, and industriousness are equal to zero. The only way of winning a fortune is getting it from somebody who already has it, by way of inheritance or marriage. The only way of becoming rich is being rich.
The world that spawned most Socialist theories, especially those of Saint-Simon, Proudhon, and Marx, was not a liberal world of free competition and equal opportunity. It was a polarized world devoid of a middle class: the 1% of haves and the 99% of have-nots.
What did this mean in practice? All talk of alleged opportunity in life granted by a Liberal version of Capitalism seemed naught but a myth. Big money was a magnet that attracted even bigger money. The lion’s share of national income, regardless of the pace of its growth, was distributed in the same proportion that was fixed in the structure of national capital. Simply put, those who controlled the majority of wealth gained the majority of income while making little to no effort.
America was the sole exception, with a lower concentration of wealth and a higher share of income distributed through free competition. Hence the image of the USA as a Promised Land, a land of opportunity, a magnet for migration. A good way of making money in Europe was moving to America (with the possibility of returning to the Old World with newfound wealth in tow left open).
No industrial growth, no Socialist attacks on the government or the bourgeoisie could change anything in the structure of this world until the start of World War I. This explains the revolutionary character of European socialism and the borderline utopian radicalism of its proposed solutions: Total socialization of industry, expropriation of the ruling classes, dictatorship of the proletariat, dreams of a World Revolution.
Source: Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty. Not part of Kholmogorov’s article.
This World Revolution did come to pass – but it started not in 1917, but in 1914. As brilliantly demonstrated by Thomas Piketty in Capital in the 21st Century, the Great War kickstarted a default of old European wealth. The horrors of war, the collapse of world trade, the Russian Revolution with its devastation and expropriation of the wealthy classes, the defeat and hyperinflation in Germany and Austria, the demographic crisis and budget deficit in the UK and France, the impeding dismantlement of colonialism – all of this led to a catastrophic decline in capital concentration in Europe.
Source: From Soviets to Oligarchs: Inequality and Property in Russia 1905-2016 by Filip Novokmet, Thomas Piketty, and Gabriel Zucman (2017). Not part of Kholmogorov’s article.
The revolutionary role of Russia, whose bourgeoisie was sacrificed at the altar of transformation, consisted not so much in socializing property and launching the Socialist experiment as in crashing the world rent. The enormous Russian debt that had fed millions of rentiers all over Europe turned into dust in the blink of an eye and doomed the rentier civilisation to extinction.
From the 1920s to the 1940s, the level of capital concentration in the world capitalist system continued its decline. Contributing factors included the Great Depression that had finally made its way to America, the devastation of World War II, the post-war wave of nationalisations, and tax deductions for national reconstruction. The ratio of capital to national income fell from 6:1 under the old regime to 2:1, i.e. the entirety of concentrated capital (be it in the form of real estate, shares, or foreign assets) became equal to only two years’ worth of national income.
What were the socioeconomic consequences of this Great Default? The grip of Capital loosened, its magnetic effect wasn’t as far-reaching, and the problem of economic equality was tackled within the framework of global Capitalism, without employing the radical recipes of fin de siècle Socialism. More precisely, those radical recipes were relegated to countries that were lagging behind in industrial development, such as Russia and China. The main goal of this radicalism was a wilful, determined achievement of an industrial breakthrough. Socialism in so-called Socialist countries was most concerned with productivity and not wealth redistribution.
Western countries, however, having no need for a “great leap forward”, were able to afford the luxury of a “Socialism sans Socialism”. Social Democracy, Christian Socialism, Swedish Socialism, Social Reformism all followed the same model. Without abolishing private property as such, without creating a dictatorship of Leftist parties, by limiting themselves to a selective nationalisation, they achieved economic equality by fostering a system of high wages and a well-developed social sphere, ushering in the welfare state. Essentially, it was a huge Ponzi scheme organized according to Keynesian precepts: The state took away a sizable portion of incomes via taxation in order to redistribute this money, also as income but under a more egalitarian distribution.
This was the zeitgeist of the treinte glorieuses of 1945-1975, when all Western governments followed, with slight variations, a single socioeconomic policy targeted at bringing social inequality as far down as possible, raising national income redistributed as salaries to the detriment of rents, dividends, etc., and widening the social responsibilities of the state. It was the age of a rising middle class, the 40% that follow the 10%-strong strata of the wealthy; this class laid claim to 30-40% of national wealth as opposed to just 5% before World War I. The 50% of the poor were stuck with the same 5% as before, but at least they gained a much greater chance of breaking out of poverty by dint of education, good work, entrepreneurial spirit and general savvy.
The social lifts seemed to be working. A peculiar anthem of the era is Chuck Berry’s tongue-in-cheek 1964 song You Never Can Tell, the accompaniment to John Travolta’s and Uma Thurman’s wild gyrating in Pulp Fiction. It’s the story of a young Black couple from New Orleans that makes decent money, buys a house, mail-order furniture, a fridge, a phonograph, even a used jalopy… New capital growth was slow but steady, not in the form of rent or foreign bonds but mostly as real estate, shares and equity.
The most positive Soviet-era memories of those who were impacted by the system are based on largely the same processes, just disguised with red banners and “Glory to the Communist Party” posters. The income levels of Soviet workers were incommensurably lower, as was the quality of consumer goods offered by the market (it took a long time to realise that the Western market of the era was just a mechanism for redistributing wealth that was gained through not entirely market-based means). However, the Soviet system was infinitely more helpful with regards to restoring and accumulating… capital. It was even explicitly called “capital construction.” Most Soviet citizens were granted, entirely free of charge, real estate that was worth many years of individual income and still commands an impressive market price. And so construction proceededly rapidly apace to build the cosy, even slightly bourgeois world of 1970s Soviet comedies.
The Socialist system, like that of the West, followed the route of reconstructive capitalism. Meanwhile, Socialism as an idea gradually fell out of favor over the 20th century as its main raison d’être, inequality, disappeared. The semi-Socialist policies of Western countries created a perfect model village of Capitalism: Low inequality levels, broad opportunities, intensive social lifts, high levels of welfare, a wide availability of consumer goods thanks to a developed and flexible market. All of it seemed like a brilliant alternative to Socialist experiments: Socializing not wealth, not industry, but revenue, redistributing it so that everyone could decide where to spend it within a wide spectrum of options.
An ideal world of freedom and equality finally seemed to be within grasping distance. It also had a place for racial and gender equality, the 1960s becoming a triumph for equal rights activists of all stripes. At the same time, Socialism was quagmired in internal antagonism, the total control of the state eroding all freedom and neutering the enjoyment and variety of everyday life.
Source: Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty. Not part of Kholmogorov’s article.
However, the economic developments of the treinte glorieuses were the gravedigger for both Soviet Socialism and Western Welfare Capitalism. They signed their own death warrants themselves. A natural accumulation of capital was underway, via saving a part of income in the West or direct capital giveaways by the state in the USSR. But a feature of capital is that it “magnetizes” and draws income. The owner of capital tends to rent-oriented, not work-orientated, behavior. This “capitalist” wants to gain interest and rent, to make his capital inheritable, to pay the lowest taxes he can, and thoroughly despises the have-nots whose claims to a share of his income seem to him most outrageous.
The late 1970s saw the rise of a new Capitalism with many faces, from British Thatcherism to US Reaganomics to the waves of privatization that swept away the Soviet system and its socialist economy. It was a massive uprising of capital that wanted back its right to extract revenue and spend it on itself without sharing with society. Just like the pendulum swinging towards Socialism in the early 20th century, its return towards pure Capitalism at the end of the century was most pronounced and most socially destructive in Russia. A savage, dog-eat-dog oligarchic Capitalism that took sway in the country freed itself from practically all burden of social responsibility. It was a tyranny of wealth limited only by the garrotte in the hands of thugs, be they mafia racketeers or bureaucrat raiders.
However, it would be unreasonable to claim that the nature of the processes that transpired in those decades was drastically different in Russia, Europe, and the US. It was a time of large predatory fortunes, scams and profiteering, social polarization, and growing inequality everywhere. Americans and Western Europeans, accustomed to slogans of “equal opportunity,” suddenly once again found themselves in the era of Rastignac, when the only way to get rich – was to be rich. Also, the very notion of wealth had changed: It was no longer a reasonable, comfortable prosperity, but a blatant, tacky luxury.
In The Price of Inequality, Stiglitz describes the behavior of modern American business as “rent-oriented.” Nobody wants to improve real economic indices, nobody wants to make money, everybody wants to live as a rentier off unfounded bonuses, “golden parachutes,” and other forms of self-financing so common in American corporations. Is it that different from Gazprom cleaning women? [1]
At the other end is the growth of inflamed poverty: according to Stiglitz, the life expectancy of US White men with no college education is plummeting at the rate of 1990s Russia. Over the last 15 years, everyone and their mother have talked about the “death of the middle class.” Piketty projects that at the current rate of increasing inequality, Europe will return to 19th century levels by 2050: 10% of the population will own 80% of capital, and 60% of all income.
The society built by the global anti-Capitalist uprising of the early 1900s is becoming a thing of the past, as is faith in market-based self-regulation of Capitalism, allegedly evolved enough to solve social issues. It turns out that self-regulation played no part whatsoever, and the growth of economic equality occurred due to a catastrophe that had wiped out the “old money,” paving way for a unique Social-Capitalist system. Conversely, growing capital concentration, seemingly normal for a self-regulating capitalism, simply reproduces inequality.
A Neo-Socialism is the natural response of a society that enshrines equality to the emergence of a new inequality. Will it be different from classic Socialism? It will be, and rather strongly so.
Destruction of private property and socialization of the means of production proved to be a rather dubious road to Socialism. In practice, they only led to the creation of a new class – the nomenklatura, a decline in individual initiative, logistic and planning errors leading to shortages and even famines. And, in the long run, they failed to prevent the restoration of Capitalism in its most savage incarnation. In addition, small-scale private property continued to develop even if when it all private property was nominally abolished.
The utopia of complete socialization is opposed by the following fact: As material progress unfolds, a human being demands more, not less space for individual existence and self-expression. The ideal of a normal human, as it turns out, is his own house, not an army barracks. Collectivism invariably leads to a tyranny of mediocrity and dooms the societies that adopt it to backwardness in scientific-technical development.
Under these conditions, Neo-Socialism presupposes, above all, the socialization of income and prohibitive measures on capital concentration. The world of future Socialism is a world where all offshores are annihilated and each and every fatcat is subjected to high income and property taxes, with inheritance laws hampering the transfer of super-wealth. This nullifies the magnetic effect of large capital, and most of income is redistributed as wages in the context of free labor and a free market. From an instrument of optimizing income, the market turns into an instrument of optimizing expenditure.
Here, however, the New Socialism faces several classic pitfalls, already singled out by Joseph Schumpeter in the mid-20th century. The impossibility of super-wealth, limiting unfair and imperfect competition, monopolism, and profiteering lead to the waning of that very entrepreneurial spirit that nurtures the Capitalist economy. There will a dearth of those interested in starting a new business to beat all competitors and make a nice buck. And, needless to say, an “inventor and innovator” certificate [2] is a feeble substitute for super-incomes.
The only remedy to entrepreneurial crisis within Neo-Socialism could be a change in business philosophy: Stop chasing big money and instead take pride in the individuality of your business, its attractiveness and social relevance. This, however, only works for small and middle-sized businesses, while bigger enterprises require investments (including non-returnable ones) and risks so enormous that a small-time businessman can only afford it if he is aiming for a super-income. An alternative is a planned, state-run innovation policy, a “Communism of ideas” that will be of dubious long-term efficacy.
A society that guarantees a relative equality of income would be doomed to low economic growth. However, it is precisely the form of economic growth stabilization – especially within the core of the Capitalist system – envisioned by Neo-Socialist economists, Piketty above all.
Another question inevitably brought forward by Neo-Socialism is its relations with globalization. In a Neo-Liberal world, globalization is a world market system that forces the expenses of wealthy and developed countries on the poor and undeveloped by creating “common markets” that stifle economic development. They confine poor countries to the lower stages of technological chains while keeping the rights to ideas and the final product in the hands of developed countries. This is exactly the principle of the Transatlantic and Trans-Pacific Partnerships, modern attempts to cement the eternal commercial dominance of the US. [3]
An alternative to this economic globalism is economic Nationalism; the greater the drop in economic growth and surge in inequality, the more that will it be visible. Countries with independent industrial potential and inner market resources will isolate themselves from the rest of the world as much as they are able to, from imports to economic immigrants, in order to maintain their development level despite in spite and at the expense of others.
This Nationalist alternative is seen as the greater threat to the Neo-Socialist project. Its defenders keep putting a lot of effort into criticising Nationalist and Protectionist ideas and rallying to the defence of Smithian dogmas of “relative advantage” that lead to international division of labor and creation of common markets.
Nevertheless, preserving global markets under a Neo-Socialist policy would require a serious “leveling of fortunes” everywhere on the planet. Wealthy countries, much like wealthy people, would be compelled to spend most of their wealth to improve the living standards of the poor up to a certain “golden mean.” According to modern GDP per capita statistics, it would be represented by the living standards of a Turkey or a Mexico – probably even lower in reality, because rich countries create much of their GDP and national income by virtue of being rich. Were they to be more modest in their lifestyle, much of their national product simply wouldn’t be produced.
Is it possible to downgrade the living standards of rich countries and prop up the poor ones to even slightly reduce global inequality? One may well doubt this, especially considering that for most of humanity, it is the quality of life in the developed countries that really matters, not the tyranny of averages. Everyone in the world dreams of a Lexus, not a Zaporozhets. [4]
And now we re-encounter a fundamental contradiction within the Socialist dream. It is inspired by a global historical trend towards equality and social justice, but the justice in question turns out to be a tyranny of mediocrity, the erasure of extremes of arrogant wealth and abject poverty. But how is the value of this justice comparable with the imperative of development that presupposes certain extremes? To move forward, one must desire to be the best, which is impossible without a certain, sufficiently wide score chart – even if it comes at the expense of others.
Combining the values of justice and equality with the values of development is a task yet unsolved by the New Socialism.
Notes
[1] Allusion to a news item at around the time of this article’s writing featuring a woman employed as a cleaner in the Gazprom office who had reported the theft of her Christian Dior handbag worth $26K.
[2] Allusion to the Soviet practice of rewarding technical and industrial innovators with honorary diplomas and certificates, as opposed to patent rights or other, more substantial awards.
[3] A cheap rear-wheel-drive supermini mass-produced in the USSR (and then, briefly, in independent Ukraine) in 1958-1994 that became a byword for shoddy, uncomfortable, and breakage-prone cars in (post-)Soviet culture.
[4] On January 23, 2017, the US announced its withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific trade agreement.
Translator’s Note
The article was written in April 2016 and reflects the political and economic situation of the era.
Piketty’s stuff is bullshit, imho. I wouldn’t pay much attention to it at all, let alone basing some unintelligible “New Socialism” on it.
Anyway:
It wasn’t any “lower concentration of wealth” etc. It was just a big shiny-new continent to rob, that’s all.
He’s confused. All those “socialisms” are actually the species of corporatism. Neo-corporatism, to be precise, which is, arguably, a form of fascism. All-powerful government playing the role of ultimate arbiter of various groups’ interests, for the benefit of the whole nation. Clearly, it has nothing to do with the marxist idea of ‘socialism’.
What gibberish. He talks of Socialism being “devoured and digested” and then depicts Bernie Sanders and the UK Labor party as the revival of socialism (while calling PRC capitalist!).
Sanders rhetoric about socialism has about as much meaning as his parties rhetoric about US Republicans being Fascist and Racist. US Democrat Party, which Sanders is a auxiliary of, is militantly anti-socialist, one has to ignore its entire history to say otherwise. When Sanders says socialism he starts from a “libertarian” worldview that Capitalism is private property protected by cops and army and that social spending and regulation is Socialism. That USA’s “left” factions think like John Birchers (Eisenhower and UN are socialist plots) is a testament of Marxisms marginal presence in the country, not its rise.
Cordyn might come from the UKs trade union bureaucracy and its CPGB hangers on, but his program (let alone his party) has nothing to do with socialism. Joseph Stiglitz is a Keynesian and Piketty is a neo-Keynesian. Keynes, of course, was explicitly and openly anti-socialist and his work was dedicated to sidelining it. Ironically the same Hillary Clinton mentioned here as a Liberal avatar had Stiglitz as an consultant on economic affairs in the runner up to the 2016 election.
What Kholmogorov misses is that what motivated the Socialist movement (and populatized Marxism as opposed to other ideologies around the workers movement) was not Income but Class. A teacher might earn more money then a street peddler but one is a wage earner and the other a small capitalist (makes living as an owner of property). China might have liberalized its economy as a defensive posture (and it was the dismantling of Bretton Woods in the 70’s that undermined economies of the Red Bloc (then a small % of global gdp) not the lack of Iphones; similarly 2008 undermined Liberalism because Chinas gdp weight didnt allow them to impose a new global deal that rescues their domestic economies) but Chinas economy is centrally planned, its equity is overwhelmingly publicly owned (while domestic capital makes up a small % of equity), its private firms have party cells in them to guide them, and its billionaire class is politically disenfranchised as a class – theres no Democracy in China (one sign of this is how theres no criminal immunity for the rich and entrepreneurs get prison from common malpractice not token fines.).
pre-WW1 world may have been an oligarchic hell with zero social mobility but they all wore top-hats and addressed each other as “my dear fellow.”
I’m not entirely convinced that “socialism” (strongly egalitarian economic ideology) will make a robust comeback. Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are less leftist than mainstream politicians were a half century ago.
Inequality was approximately the same for the entire history of civilization until the 20th century. The only postindustrial event which substantially reduced inequality in that time was the Black Death, at least as far back as records go (about 800 years). It’s reasonable to assume the Plague of Justinian caused something similar, but I haven’t seen any research on this.
Yet there was apparently no socialism–ever–prior to industrialization.
Socialism perhaps was the rest of the unprecedented immiseration produced by industrialization. At the same time, the huge concentration of productive capital which had to be manned by mass armies of workers at the same time gave workers real power that their agriculturist ancestors lacked. Even if offshoring had never occurred, it’s doubtful manufacturing today would account for nearly half of national income in advanced countries or that there would be numerous facilities requiring many thousands of workers.
Both conditions today are largely absent, and don’t appear likely to return. Indeed one doesn’t see any working class militancy at all these days aside from periodic French spasms which may be excused a charming expression of national character. Most of the hand-wringing about inequality comes from intellectuals, and these are mainstream intellectuals and not dissidents prepared to lead a revolution by mobilizing the masses.
Ushankas sound like a fashion upgrade, then.
I am not sure about famines but Brussels’ bureaucracy and US Congress sure as hell look like nomenclatura to me. Same goes, largely, to media and think-tankdom class.
Probably not, but separate elements of it are already in place. E.g. if not for interference of the Russian state in salvaging Russia’s key industries and scientific institutions and gaining a control of about 75% of strategic industries, should it have continued as it was in 1990s we could have been talking about Russia’s disintegration today. So, egalitarian or not, but what matters is who owns. I certainly can judge some of that on the example of say Red Sormovo. There is much more to all this “socialism”, “capitalism” what have you, theories than merely a collection of trivial postulates. Let’s put it this a very primitive way: I know very many Russians who have no problems with Chemezov having a (very large) salary he has, same goes to Rahmanov just to name a few, but most of those people DO have issues with many SOBs who literally robbed and still try to rob Russia based on some “privatization” schemes which are yet to be addressed, even despite Putin’s word that the results of privatization should not be reversed, while in reality this work is ongoing on as I type it. BTW, in Stalin’s USSR in 1950s up to 6% of real GDP has been produced by artels and cooperatives, including production of at the time a really hi-tech products such as TVs and radios.
The Brussels bureaucracy and the US Congress are handsomely compensated – perhaps too handsomely, some will argue – but their incomes and living standards are upper middle class, and by no means elite. They are nowhere near billionaires or even UHNWI’s in terms of wealth.
That was of course not the case with the Soviet bureaucracy, which lived much better than the Soviet average (primarily through their access to luxury goods, or what passed for them in the USSR).
“Neoliberalism” is clearly on the way out for the simple reason that it does not work. Partly this certainly has to do with the rage of the downward mobility of working and middle classes, but it also has failed to even serve the broad elite. In Russia this was so disastrous it was obvious. The siloviki (state nobility) were in danger of being destroyed by “capitalists” better described as gangsters, as actually happened in the Ukraine.
Neoliberalism doesn’t even work for the financial sector since it wipes out the entire banking system periodically.
The effects in the West were less disastrous and more subtle, but the growing dependence on foreign capital, imports, and technology are finally attracting notice. Even President Obama made a genuine effort to increase automobile exports from America, something effectively abandoned by the US government since the 1930s.
In the USA there have long been warnings and grumbling from manufacturing industries and the military-industrial complex, and this is now attracting some of our oligarchs. Donald Trump is the most obvious, but it’s worth noting that while outnumbered he’s not alone in the elite. Most prominently the oligarchs Wilbur Ross (a financier turned coal and steel baron), Peter Thiel, and the Mercer family have joined him.
In Europe BREXIT was supported by much of what remains of Britain’s indigenous manufacturing industry (foreign capital was of course opposed), and in Germany the government has begun blocking acquisitions of strategic technology by China.
The rise of China and their “failure” to converge with Fukuyama’s End of History is shutting the door on the Second Globalization. Collectively we are waking up and realizing the wisdom of President William McKinley:
The future is national–or bloc–capitalism. National development goals, fiscal solvency, security considerations will predominate over profit maximization in trade policy.
This will incorporate some uplift, both from political and economic factors, of the toiling masses as mass mobilization is necessary to displace the senile ideas of globalization.
A fair point, although it still remains to be seen what sinecures are awaiting those law-makers who really-really helped certain corporations. It is not only monetary. In the end, consistent (and sometimes mysterious) elect-ability of a number of US law-makers is rather questionable and very nomenclaturish.
I knew some representatives of nomenclature personally, I am well aware of what was going on there. Their luxuries are simply minuscule compare to the robbery of 1990s. There is somewhere in internet a photo of late Vitaly Ivanovich Vorotnikov calmly walking in Moscow to the bread store–an old Soviet pensioner, still lived in his flat but, being Soviet Russia Prime Minister, he was at the top of nomenclatura. Yet, was known as a good and humble man. I think a lot depended on human qualities. After all, alcoholic, baryga, thief and low life Yeltsin also was nomenclatura.
You’ve gotta be kidding. What “luxury goods”? On very, very high posts (close to the ministerial) they had official personal car, better food, and better medical care.
1) The managers of an at the very top become effect also a political power. They are as great a threat to
liberty as socialist bureaucrats , maybe more so because they believe they rule by their
own virtue or diving right.
2) Running things from the very top is almost always a mistake. There is no wisdom in looking
for a wise man an putting him in charge.
3) Networks of the top level of capitalism tend to collaborate to enrich themselves usually at the
expense of the “little” people. The health care, insurance, government medical , drug complex is an example.
4) It is not easy to bring prosperity to a community by throwing money at the problem. It is
a very very complex problem. Each case seems to be different.
5) Maybe a national culture which is less materialistic and which values spiritual things is
a more satisfactory place to live.
Some things do seem to work.
Suppose, in the US, we had offshore medical complex ships from India or China which could provide high level heath care, and keep the local medical Cabal at bay. I Think this
may work if the cabal has not already skimmed off all the medical dollars already in the name of making it a egalitarian entitlement.
There must be a way for a grassroots rebellion to walk with their feed. In the US the car
manufacturers will forbid foreign innovation in the name of keeping us poor citizens safe.
In housing, building codes stifle innovation in the name of protecting the people from rapacious capitalism. This US endeavor to protect us from capitalism passes as socialism, and it is in reality a meat grinder of interlocking interests to keep everybody in servitude, without enough capital left to vote with their feet, and without any legal avenues left even if they did.
So do I. But I don’t see your point. I don’t think I ever said they were all or even predominantly evil and arrogant.
Certainly, and I didn’t claim otherwise. Within that system, however, they were top dogs in a way that Congressmen and EU bureaucrats aren’t.
@ Mao Cheng Ji,
Access to special shops selling imported “luxury” goods (e.g. any tropical fruits), access to actually good hospitals (for context, some absurdly large percentage of Soviet rural hospitals didn’t have the most rudimentary basics like hot water), foreign travel to “exotic” destinations like Bulgaria.
All beyond the reach of the average Soviet citizen without good connections.
OT:
Mr. Karlin, have you had a chance to view the new Blade Runner? I noticed a reference in the ads to the CCCP within the movie, which implies that the Soviet Union somehow survived in some form(even past an world-wide apocalyptic event, somehow).
I watch about two movies a year. I need a lot of people to pester me to do it.
Karlin modified his phrase with, “or what passed for them.”
Speaking of a nomenklatura family I know quite well personally, in 1980s: occasional visits to Western Europe (resulting in some nice clothes for the teenage daughter); regular and easy access to good food like black caviar, with no lines; jewelry with diamonds; access to the ЦК КПСС dacha which had a very good chef; access to very nice full-service resorts in Crimea and Georgia; pretty much guaranteed entrance to MGU or MGIMO; living in a spacious 4 room apartment with two bathrooms, 15 minutes walk from the Kremlin; being treated very deferentially by cops or other public workers and never being bothered by them. As Karlin stated – this is how a pair of successful surgeons can live in New York (other than cop deference). It’s an upper middle class lifestyle, not a rich person’s lifestyle.
This particular family was not corrupt, but some of their social equals and peers from the 1980s, would be buying private helicopters in the 1990s.
They actually seemed to be comfortable in their skins, not arrogant. Arrogance often comes with insecurity. One thing I noticed is that when in the 1990s they visited places such as Paris, or Italy, and encountered descendants of the White emigres – they got along rather well.
“It was just a big shiny-new continent to rob, that’s all. ”
Except that it wasn’t “robbed”.
Well, obviously your acquaintance was rather more elite than mine, his family’s “range” was constricted to the Iron Curtain. Easy access to black caviar and luxury foods, access to high-end spas within the USSR, but definitely no holidays to Western Europe or diamond jewelry! That the latter two possibilities actually existed (outside of overt corruption channels) is news to me.
It is a no-brainer to call Piketty’s analysis bullshit without showing how that is correct. He advanced knowledge in this area by collecting and analysing a huge data set covering a longer period of time than had been accomplished before. It is difficult ot capture all of the nuances of such a large collection of data and it also is possible to miss trends and possibilities when developing theories based on such material. However, Picketty’s analysis raised the level of discussion from mere opinion and dogma to something more. The question is, how much more data gathering and analysis are needed for a fuller understanding?
I notice that almost all of the data and all of the analysis presented in the above analysis are based on European examples (even those for Russia are based mostly on data from the Europeanized part), and only since the 1800’s. It would be interesting to look more broadly, at other societies and times. What did income equality and quality of life look like in pre-Columbian North America? Amongst the Maya at the height of their civilisation? Amongst the Aztec and the Inca and the pre-Incan civilizations? In Polynesia? Amongst the inhabitants of the Mongol Empire and in the Khanates that spun out of it? What was wealth accumulation and upward mobility like in the Ottoman Empire? Perhaps we need to look at Ummayad Spain as well. This dialogue about inequality and wealth creation is useful, but too focused for me to believe it is the last and best word about this important economic and political issue.
We live in the times we live in and people will argue that European and U.S. data are all we need. Yet, lessons can and should be learned and applied based on a fuller understanding of human society. Continually knocking on a door that no one answers is not the only way to gain access.
I’m shocked: what an unimaginable luxury. Check out Bill Gates’s house.
Anyone had a chance to go to a free resort in Crimea. Anyone (theoretically) had a chance to visit Western Europe, and all that. As for diamond jewelry – every store clerk had diamond jewelry, not to mention the director of a supermarket.
They had the same lifestyle as everybody else, going to work every day, but with more comfort and less everyday headaches. Better life for sure, but hardly a different socioeconomic class.
I call it bullshit, because he, with this r>g formula, makes it look like wealth accumulation is some sort of a natural law.
In reality, all those Rs, Gs, and the rest of the letters are completely political, controlled and manipulated by exactly those who own wealth. For example: when ‘g’ starts going up, the central bank raises interest rates and slows it down. Oops.
So what’s the point of his formulas, or, for that matter, of his suggestions to introduce a global wealth tax? It’s bullshit. People who control the wealth will keep doing what they want. Well, until they are stopped and their wealth is taken from them. By force.
Absolutely!
All these types who claim to be multicultural are nevertheless convinced that they are “normal” and representative of the human condition.
In reality they are, in the words of the great Jonathan Haidt, WEIRD (Western Educated Industrial Rich and Democratic).
A subset of humanity that has existed only for a few decades and only in a small part of the world. Even there they are a minority.
Yet almost all research is performed on this group, from which we then make assumptions about everybody else.
Correct. Except you are missing a precondition for “who owns the wealth” meaning anything.
It is the rule of law. For most of human history it didn’t exist. Wealth grew from raw political power, not power from wealth.
In China for its entire history, for example, no great dynasties of businessmen ever emerged. This is because any guy who started to get really rich was promptly expropriated by the emperor or mandarins. Under their ideology, private wealth could only be gained by exploitation, so it was entirely right and proper to steal his stuff, probably killing him and his family in the process. People at various times gained immense private wealth in China, often primarily by truly spectacular corruption, but seldom if ever kept it for long.
This is one of the reasons, perhaps the main one, true capitalism only emerged in modern Europe, and initially only in a few countries even there, mainly Netherlands and England. For the first time ever, you could get really rich by private means, keep your money and pass it down to the next generation. Without having to hold political power, which is of course in raw form simply military power, to protect your wealth. The rules of society as a whole protected that wealth.
But we take this so for granted we don’t realize how unusual it is in world history. Indeed unique, AFAIK.
I don’t see any great substance in the distinction you’re making between the class of nobility (in the feudal past) and the class of capitalists today. In any society, the laws, the social norms, and the dominant ideology (“the rules of society” in your terms) serve to protect and to entrench the ruling class.
The fundamental problem with most mainstream leftists–whether of the ‘hard’ left like Marx, or of the ‘soft’ left like Piketty–is that they’re so in love with the ideal of globalization that they can’t bring themselves to turn against it, even if they profess to hate all its effects. And so, while they may be good at describing the problem, they will never be able to offer any realistic, workable solutions to it. Why? Because the only real solution to the problem of globalization is nationalism–in particular, national socialism.
Jeremy Corbyn is another good example. Back in the day, he (like his mentor, Tony Benn) was part of the Labour faction that opposed the EU. And now? Well, officially he was against Brexit, and now he professes to be in favor of a “soft” Brexit rather than Theresa May’s (supposedly) “hard” Brexit. But a “soft” Brexit is really just a Norway-type arrangement where the country has to follow pretty much all the EU’s rule, even though they don’t get a vote on them, so in practice, it wouldn’t be much of a Brexit at all. And this is despite the fact that Corbyn is supposedly in favor of renationalizing British Rail, which would be illegal under current EU bylaws. So you really have to question this man’s priorities. But then, that would simply make him a typical leftist, I suppose. Only a tiny handful, like Ralph Nader, seem able to escape this trap.
Strange …
All those “socialisms” are actually the species of corporatism. Neo-corporatism, to be precise, which is, arguably, a form of fascism.
Thank you comrade for making the daily quota for usage of the favorite commie invective fascism.
In any society, the laws, the social norms, and the dominant ideology (“the rules of society” in your terms) serve to protect and to entrench the ruling class.
Correct comrade. The same applies to Soviet nomenklatura.
True Communism™ has never been tried though.
Bolshevism was a right-wing (authoritarian) aberration from Communism and everyone on both sides of the Iron Curtain benefitted from pretending it was true Communism.
watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI
SJWism, too. Embrace-extend-extinguish, that’s what it is.
Bigger enterprises also require special pampering and periodic infusion of capital, both provided by government, to grow at a rate and size analogous to the cancers that they really are. Despite all the advantages granted by government, they still manage to fail which would be fine except that they seem to drag the rest of us down with them.
Arrrgghhh! ( I hope yer being sarcastic, though it’s hard to tell.)
Why does that claim keep cropping up? Sounds like the No True Scotsman fallacy to me.
Was Marxism Communism? What’s your definition of Communism/communism?
I think communism, like democracy, has been attempted, but in my way of thinking, either can only work for brief periods, in special situations, and on a small scale, such as we see in a few religious orders. They also must be voluntary associations as well, I believe.
Communism, as well as all other purported solutions are simply doomed to fail eventually if they have much initial success if any, especially if they don’t meet those minimum requirements. Another key is that whatever seems to succeed not only attracts imitators but subverters and perverters as well.
From my perch, there never have been realistic workable solutions, only temporary expedients, and there probably can’t be. Not only do the goals keep shifting, but all the competing “solutions” kill each other off. Anyone offering solutions is probably no more trustworthy than your average televangelist or any more effective than Christ on the cross.
It’s increasingly obvious to me that we’re stuck with systems that are much less than ideal, at least from the points of view of most of us, and there ain’t much relief in sight. Anyone promising otherwise is probably engaging in a degree of hucksterism at best.
I only know one Brussels bureaucrat and what you say is true about the administrators, but I suspect it may not apply to those at the pinnacles of the hierarchy.
As for the US congress you don’t even think of getting there without being first very well compensated by other means.
I don’t think we really disagree strongly on this point. As I said, the Soviet-era elite lived like upper middle-class Westerners. They had more and better stuff, but still went to work, often used public transportation, etc. The regular Soviets lived (materially) little better than American poor people in housing projects. The distance between a member of the Soviet elite and a regular Soviet was thus comparable to the distance between a surgeon living in a nice flat on the upper west side of Manhattan, and a poor person living in some housing project in Harlem. They might walk past each other in central park. It’s a lot closer than the distance between Bill Gates and a middle-class American.
Quality varied. As it does in the West, between resorts for the elites and places that regular folks visit.
What is a definition of a “top dog”? How this definition varies say for the level of a 1st Secretary of Obkom and 1st Secretary of Republics CP. I know the difference really well, do you? Could 1st Secretary of the Republic’s CP or Chairman of the Soviet of Ministers unleash a war out of own volition and for, largely, personal reasons as McCain did? How can one define a recycling of the good ol’ boys and girls from Ivy League madras in the leading government and media positions? Do you want to say that this is not nomenclatura?
Like I said, it seems hard to classify nomenklatura as a socioeconomic class. Nomenklatura is bureaucracy, the management apparatus. Bureaucracy, as Mr Martyanov noted above, exists everywhere, regardless of the socioeconomic system. The Soviet privileged bureaucracy was relatively small and inexpensive (compared to the Western or modern RF equivalents, especially if we add corporate bureaucracy), and so I’d rather address it as a mere overhead.
Generally agree. I, however, lean more towards mixed economies.
Granted, this was tied to work. The family got a bunch of nice Western goods when the father accompanied Gorby to Iceland. There were also some multinational conferences, access to some official reason to visit an Olympics games in a Western country (not LA of course).
I was told there was a time around 1990 when due to weird supply problems as the system was falling apart, they had to eat black caviar and noodles every day, for every meal, for a few weeks, because there was little else they had access to.
All of it was stolen during a 1990s burglary, an act that was sort of metaphor for the country’s social changes of that time.
Obviously you never heard, which is not surprising, of VTB checks which were widely available to pretty much most people in the Ministry of MorFlot, not to mention that hard currency was “dropping” (kapala) for any ship or submarine leaving territorial waters of the Soviet Union. I, not even as an officer at that time, was paid VTB checks (easily used in places like Beryozka and some other stores) for couple of my remote deployments (Dalnii Pohod) as were all naval cadets on board, not to speak of command corps. I knew commercial fishermen who lived better than majority of nomenclatura. The mentioning of the black caviar is altogether laughable for a person who never lived around Caspian Sea where black caviar could easily be procured pretty much anywhere from Astrakhan, to Baku, to Krasnovodsk–no need to belong to “nomenclatura”, anybody could have it and many, your everyday Joe (or Ivan) did. The only truth in what you said was, indeed, the fact of the access to MGIMO–that mattered. So did the living arrangements but two bathrooms and 4 rooms were mostly features of Moscow, Leningrad etc. Most regional big shots lived in good, I would say, 3 bedroom apartments with somewhat upscale interiors–nothing too special. Per dachas, Tesseli, Foros–BTDT. There were many specialized (vedomstvennye) resorts from MoD, KGB, MID, Ministry of Railroads, MorFlot etc. which were excellent and easily accessible by people working in those organizations. So was true for vedomstvennaya healthcare–one didn’t have to be a part of nomenclatura to get there. Already then things started to emerge which today are becoming in Russia a valid (one of several) foundations for political arrangement–Сословие. But those things, of course, are always below the radar of most “specialists” in Soviet times. Nomenclature shtick came about with the effort of Gorbachov’s “reformers” and this dimwit himself when he needed to rationalize his increasing failures in reforming the country. Yes, there was a resistance from nomenclatura as it exists from ANY bureaucracy in the world. Against the background of FC Chelsea’s owner or the way US lawmakers are bought, sometimes wholesale, by means of all kinds of perks this issue becomes somewhat moot. In the end, once one gets acquainted with Randy Duke Cunnigham’s schemes, as one example of many, in Congress, not to mention Keating Five etc. one is really forced to reconsider.
It is exactly what it is (was). Moreover, I dare to say that many competencies of that nomenclatura were on the order of magnitude better than what most “youth” presents today not only in Russia, but globally. Many people in that nomenclatura were superbly experienced and educated people. That, of course, was not always the case in national republics, where national cadres often were not that good due to also national local cultural peculiarities.
Really existing Communism was a genocidal disaster that messed Russia up in tons of little ways. Without it, Russia would still be just another European country (albeit a peripheral one – IOW just like today.)
For peripheral and 3rd World countries, Communism was, above all, a strategy of self-decolonization and breaking the cycle of colonial dependence. There’s a reason they quashed (invaded, embargoed,…) every secular socialist movement in the 3rd World (Allende, Nasser, Fatah etc) and installed right-wing dictators or extreme social-conservative religious types in their place.
(That said, I believe that globally, industrial society may just be not everyone’s thing for HBD reasons. IOW, even if Nasserism hadn’t been quashed, “our jerbs” would still have gone to China and not the Maghreb or Levant.)
Public ownership of the means of production is a good thing in theory. There’s no reason for someone to own a factory the same way the medieval artisan owned his workshop and tools. Still, there are practical problems.
State support for nascent industries and basic research is a good thing. Businesses alone can’t innovate sh** because that requires lots of fundamental research that may or may not result in profits. America funnelled tons of public money into her budding industries under the guise of the Moon program (and before that, the War effort) when she noticed her businesses made canned food and Nylon but nothing on the level of the Sputnik.
(There’s a reason “structural adjustments” forced by America and her pet institutions like the IMF on peripheral nations just so happen to mandate total non-involvement of the state in the nation’s industry and science.)
Withering away of the state… I don’t know how that’s supposed to work. I think states were supposed to be replaced by some kind of proletarian internationalism or something. However, it seems workers (understandably) DGAF about workers in other nations.
Abolition of money is impractical – the USSR shows that in absence of “real” money its place is taken by all sorts of informal privileges, which is immeasurably worse and morally triggering in a way that simply not being able to afford something for lack of funds isn’t.
tl;dr: I’ve no coherent opinion.
Sure. And melons could easily be obtained in certain parts of the USSR. But getting this stuff at will throughout the year in others parts of the USSR was not commoplace.
Before being upgraded to Moscow my wife’s family lived in a 5 room flat with high ceilings overlooking the central square of an oblast capital in the Urals.
Gorby was actually very bright and cunning (his poor speech masked this). His fatal weakness contributing to the country’s downfall was narcissism, not stupidity.
Narcissism is one of the first signs of stupidity. Truly smart, especially in big endeavors, people are usually very self aware and self-critical–that is the first sign of true intellect. Unless, of course, Gorbachev’s main objective was to destroy the country, which he succeeded brilliantly, I have to say on the merit that the guy is a pathetic loser. He also was patently incompetent in critical national security issues. If that is what defines “being bright”, I don’t know them what is a definition of a dimwit.
It’s a personality trait. There are brilliant narcissists. Gorby would not have maneuvered form the provinces to the leadership of the USSR if he was merely a fool. You are perhaps confusing intelligence for wisdom.
Certainly.
As always with these “translations”, they read like they were written by an American and then translated into Russian so as to be posted under the name “Egor Kholmogorov” and not the other way round. Why, for example, would a Russian describe Britain as being “across the pond”? There is no “pond” anywhere near Russia which has Britain on the other side! Equally, the long, rambling, pseudo-historical discourse is typically American and strikes us Europeans as irrelevant. The idea that the communist dictatorships were “socialist” is also an American belief which puzzles Europeans. Bottom line: there’s nothing “Russian” about this article and I would not regard it as credible. By the way, it would be nice to know who the translator is and why on earth a mere translator would feel the need to conceal his identity.
You could easily buy black caviar in Moscow or Leningrad through many Stol Zakazov, including through many industrial enterprises in 1970s-80s. In 1960s you could by it in Eliseevsky, today you can easily buy it in specialty black caviar only store in GUM building–the store is directly across Lenin’s Tomb on the Red Square, among many other places. Do you know why you could buy black caviar relatively easily?
Historians believe that capitalism is independently arose in Japan, during the Tokugawa Shogunate.
{ Gorby would not have maneuvered form (from) the provinces to the leadership of the USSR if he was merely a fool.}
Well, Gorby was no fool, but sometimes you get maneuvered into the leadership position in USSR, despite yourself.
How did Brezhnev get to the top spot?
How did Chernenko?
From what I remember neither was very bright.
Everyone, AK’s contact information can be found to the right of Unz. Begin Operation Pester!
For a person who claims to be associated with the nomenclatura and writes about it, you are surprisingly uninformed on the fact of Gorbachov being an Andropov’s creature and Andropov, certainly, had his very own views on the reformation of the USSR. Many of those views emanated from, obviously, KGB and were based on conflicting visions by the 1st and opposing 2nd and 3rd Directorates. Gorbachev chose 1st. It was a “pro-Western” project, enthusiastically supported by “creative intelligentsia” and Moscow’s Boheme which charmed a rather primitive Gorbachev to a pretty slippery slope. “Maneuvering” of Gorbachev who had some mighty curators from Suslov to Andropov in and of itself is not necessarily that remarkable. It also was generational.
LolWut.
There is a pond which has Britain and America on opposite sides. Where’s the inaccuracy? By the way, it says “on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean” in the original.
I thought “you Europeans” regarded verbosity as a Continental – German, French – trait.
Why? Because knowing something is Russian gets people to instantly lower their guard?
Also, ask me about the deeper meaning of “sausage pointed at its heart.” No American can know that!
I would not regard you as credible. You’ve got a Masha Gessen-level obsession with Putin and you say “we Europeans” and “we white people” a bit too much in your postings.
https://twitter.com/rooshv/status/918343378517069829
My info comes from personal sources and their impressions, not historians or academics. So it’s only one side of the story. Those who knew him and worked with him saw him as a cunning, ambitious, intelligent man who was also very vain. Contrary to his saintly perception in the West, he was also not above cruelty. Nor was he a simple-minded country fella as some Soviet people viewed him.
Being an intelligent guy capable of scheming includes the ability to find and cultivate the right sponsors, knowing whom to appeal to, as one gets further and further to the top. I doubt Andropov got young Gorby from the provinces to one of the USSR’s top universities, MGU, or through the lower levels of the provincial hierarchy.
This is certainly critically important. There are many levels involved. I defer to you with repect to this aspect. It doesn’t mean that Gorby was some dumb puppet, however. He played within the system very well.
Correct. It appealed to his vanity. He wanted to be a Soviet JFK, and Raisa to be Jackie.
“Soviet-style “Real Socialism” ended in a pathetic disgrace, striking its colors at the sight of a sausage pointed at its heart. ” Sure, lack of sausages variety was a reason good enough to destroy the country and condemned it to demographic, economic and strategic collapse. Is what in Russia now better? I seriously doubt. Is there water in those hospitals? Not only that, I doubt there is even medicines over there as I was told by recent arrivals.
While there were certain issues they were solvable as the most important things were present like free and excellent education, broad healthcare system of which I had personal and positive experience, free shelter , when graduate like me could receive one bed room apartment coming along with job straight after graduation and still bachelor, decent retirement and guaranteed employment, free schools and daycare and so forth so on. Definitely sausages beat all of this according to the author. Regarding consumer goods, I suspect most of issues were in outward design. Japanese stuff was made more beautiful but I did listen to some Soviet made systems that my buddies had and sound quality was better than that of my Panasonic. The horror stories that are presented now as those for the whole period actually started in the end of 80’s. I vividly remember how stores started getting empty and I read elsewhere pretty reasonable explanation as to what was going on. Namely cooperative system was mopping all those dissapeared goods before they got to stores and then sold fro nice profit because prices in state stores were much lower. Basically, it is still up for investigation as to what was going on in this regard just before and especially during Catastroika but elites sabotage against own population is a good starting point.
What happened in 80-90’s is straight out of madman dream.
I see great number of such articles as a sign that people who nicely benefited form the grand theft of people properties are trying not to deflect attention form own very serious failures, hence 100 years of October revolution which took Russia from being basket case towards superpower status and stars while completely ignoring 80-90’s coup which caused massive collapse and lose of status, security, population, manufacturing and frankly future for many, because those who caused all of this are still around, in power and are very wealthy from stolen proceeds.
First socialism attempt in Russia certainly went wrong mostly due to the nature of so called national elites and their betrayal. However, I see no other options for humanity. Capitalism cannot work indefinitely in limited system which is Earth making few extremely wealthy at the expense of the vast majority. It is where it is all headed and is reality now whether in the West or in Russia. .
State support…
reminds me of what has been written about Elon Musk’s companies and the handouts they have received and the “progress” they have made.
OK, second go: not simple-minded fellows usually do not end up being politically, humanly and ideologically completely bankrupt and living out life in humiliation and being a laughing stock of a nation. There is nothing intelligent about that, zilch, nada. If it stinks like shit, feels like shit and tastes like shit than it is, probably, a shit. No other qualifiers are needed. The best way to describe it is: nedalyokii. Now explain to me, please, what is so outstanding in finishing Law School in MGU? Many did it before Gorbachov and many did after him, very many of them from villages. If you would have said that he graduated MGTU with degree in Space Vehicles, sure I would be impressed. But that is the whole point, he was the first, utterly civilian and uneducated on any serious national security or technological issue leader who just proved the point–people without serious military-intelligence background in a leadership role in Russia are a danger. Modern Russian history proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, including through alcoholic Yeltsin–you know who is second Gorbachev? Russia’s PM Medvedev, but unlike Gorby he is controlled by Siloviki and that is what so far assured Russia’s position. I reiterate, I can not see how constant residing in a complete delusion throughout the process of own loss of power and, eventually, a country is any testimony to intellect?
Again, isn’t it a first indicator of a lack of real, not shallow appearances, but internal culture and intellect? You bet it is.
In terms of absolute economic well-being modern Western capitalist countries provide a standard of living to nearly everybody far above what past societies provided to anyone. A welfare recipient in the present US enjoys a standard of living in many ways vastly above that of a Roman Emperor. For example the medical care available to a Roman Emperor was actually harmful. A sick Roman Emperor would probably have been better off not being treated by any of the contemporary quacks. A free medical clinic in a poor section of a US city at least is not likely to harm anyone. Vaccinations against many diseases are cheaply available and modern water and sewage systems prevent an enormous amount of disease and death.
Throughout much of recent human history large segments of human populations did not have adequate food while in the present US obesity is the most important nutritional problem among even the poor and malnutrition is rare.
However the fact that poor people in the US are materially very well off by any historical standards doesn’t change the fact that they are low status. A Roman Emperor might not have air conditioning, refrigeration, aspirin, cell-phones, sliced bread or numerous other goods common among today’s “poor” but a Roman Emperor was a pretty big deal. A welfare recipient in the US today is nobody despite having in many ways a much higher standard of living that a Roman Emperor.
The real problem today is what the left calls “relative deprivation”. “Relative deprivation” is essentially social status. Now social status is a good for which there is a high demand but by it’s nature the supply of social status is totally inelastic. No form of economic or political organization can solve this problem. Today wearing a golden ring with a 24 carat diamond ring might mark the wearer as a high status individual. Such a ring currently costs about $5-10,000. If you can afford one you’re not poor. Now in the future it is conceivable that technological advances might lead to the possibility that synthetic diamonds of large size and perfect quality could be produced so efficently that a 24 carat diamond would have the value of a piece of bubblegum. Then even beggers could wear such diamond rings on every finger. But then of course wearing a 24 carat diamond ring would provide the wearer with no status whatsoever.
Even complete material equality if it could be achieved would not solve the equality problem. In a prison society the level of material inequality among the inmates has already been reduced way below what is practical to achieve outside of a prison. But this does not mean that status differences between prison inmates are slight. In fact they are huge. And those on the bottom of the status totem pole are still unhappy and discontented.
“OK, second go: not simple-minded fellows usually do not end up being politically, humanly and ideologically completely bankrupt and living out life in humiliation and being a laughing stock of a nation.”
Here people are thanking Gorby for their happy childhood and whatever:
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2017-10-12/Gorbachyov-dlya-WP-godovshhina-RSMD
I am not sure Anatoly was born then. Nor was, by the looks of him, Kholmogorov in any position to form any mature opinion on the events of 1970s and 1980s.
I can say that on experience of my family life was greatly improving form 60’s till mid of 80’s. I was born in communalka and in 5 years we moved to 2 bed room apartment. My grandfather was not in nomencklatura neither was my dad who got apartment 2 years later. Living both in Dnepropetrovsk and Tashkent I could see differences and I did not see horrors that are being described. I saw guys who were from simple families getting into elite schools and succeeding there. There was certain number of those from hairy hands but I suspect that costs of education in same faculties now have effectively closed social lifts. I was checking MGU various faculties and 300 000 rubles annual fee is quite common.
Our relatives has been visiting us here and they say quality and taste of local foods in Toronto is far better than where they live in Russia. Sausage cause so to speak. They also say medicare is worse than during Soviet times. We have recent 4 years ago arrivals form Kamchatka and Omsk region. They say they could not even get medicines for their kids when needed.
While during Soviet times I was basically saved due to our excellent medicare system. i spent the whole year in hospitals. Can one imagine what this would do to current Russian family. I see picture of those poor sick kids in Odnoklassniki regularly that cannot afford treatment.
I already expressed my opinion regarding why Russian net is full of such articles. Someone need to keep population brainwashed and docile to avoid losing their massive gains.
Good commentaries;-) A sign of nation getting mentally healthier, I would say.
Thoughtful post.
Maybe it all goes back into human nature. What we are, what we want. Meaning of life.
All those boring topics an average person today has no time/inclination/smarts to get involved into.
I added some 😉
Trotsky also ended up as a total failure. Was he an idiot? What about Khrushchev? Hitler?
Closer to the modern world (and to the intelligence services), Shelepin ended up as a nobody. He never even managed to get to the top of the system, which was his goal, as Gorby did. Yet he was no fool, either. History is full of intelligent people who failed.
Do you think it’s possible for a moron from the provinces to get to MGU? I think all of those from villages who got into MGU must have been rather bright, but none of the others got nearly as far as did Gorby.
Again, you confuse intellect with wisdom. Characterological failures can lead intelligent, cunning people to do stupid things. This was Gorbachev’s tragedy (and that of the USSR). The story was different from that of some Forrest Gump brought to power in the Kremlin and then destroying everything out of cluelessness and stupidity.
What do you think of Alexander Yakovlev? I heard much more positive personal impressions about him as a colleague and man, than about Gorby. He had been a young officer during World War II though of course he rose through power not through military channels.
It is of course your right not to answer, but may I ask your family’s professions?
In that case, the answer is still nationalism. If there is no, one ‘correct’ answer, then let each individual country or civilization come up with their own.
Why? No secret here.
Grandfather Factoriy Director substitute for supplies (Зам Директора по Снабжению ), still had to live in communalka for some 15 years, grandmother pharmaceutic, father Soviet officer major at the time when we finally got our apartment and 23 years into his service with Soviet army including 2 years as private, mother food industry engineer.
Do you understand a profound difference in difficulty between even most complex humanities tasks, from narrating history to writing an essay, even a very good one, even based on the ability to operate with some serious abstract texts, and say ability to design, calculate and then write a manufacturing plan (as an example) of a, say, pylon for the aircraft engine? Or the hull of a corvette or submarine? These are intellectual tasks which are on a different planes of complexity. Again, it doesn’t take huge, some outstanding, intellect to graduate a Law School of MGU. Try MGTU or any serious military academy, say some PVO academy–different universes in terms of complexity. Yes, it is possible for a very average dude to become a lawyer, it is the same way possible as a demagogue such as Dugin to drop out of MAI (Moscow Aviation Institute) in the first year since he couldn’t handle calculus and physics, and then go zaoochno to some agricultural backwater institute in Stavropol (coincidence? LOL) just for the sake of a degree. After all, “great” Russian geopolitical “thinker” has to have some formal education, LOL;)
But that is precisely my point, since Gorby had no freaking clue about key technological issues of the Arms Race, even despite great Academician Velikhov explaining to him (on fingers, I recon) that all this Star Wars was a huge fraud, among many other things. Forrest Gump he was not, but, OK here is another Russian term: Ограниченный. Again, you are not going to impress me with all those degrees in Law and Economics–wanna see how this whole world of “managers” and “political scientists” with lawyers is collapsing–look no further than the US. Most of it is a sham.
Blah, blah, blah.
I didn’t notice that today’s socialists have found a solution to the irrefutable criticism of “socialist economics” posed by Mises almost 100 years ago.
Without private ownership of the means of production there can be no market-based price system to rationally allocate resources. Without prices, it’s impossible to compare the innumerable apples to oranges kinds of decisions that must occur at all times and all places.
If we have “Single Payer” medical care, who decides how many hospital beds are worth how many MRI units? How many orthopedic surgeons are needed vs nurses vs X-ray machines vs dentists?
None of this can be sorted out without PRICES. And since “how many needed” varies all the time, you need a market to tell you (by rising or declining prices) WHAT HAS CHANGED.
Calling today’s corporatist capture of political systems “capitalism” is, in my view, the most naked lie in the study of the political economy.
Thanks to you, Anatoly, for posting this very interestimg article by Kholmogorov (and I am agreeing with much of the substance).
To digressing, I am wondering what Genaddy Zhuganov and the CPR would have been doing.
Anyone who can read is knowing that he and his party would have won the election against the drunken traitor Eltsin, except for intense USA intervention, much money and ballot-cheatimg.
So a well-educated, established family with good positons and careers were forced to live in a 2 bedroom apartment, like lower-class westerners or university students. This is impressive by the standards of Africa but not for those of the West, whom Russians resemble. It shows a very inadequate system in terms of providing for the material wellbeing of its citizens.
Many interesting stats about the late 1970s USSR:
In 1977 16% of urban housing stock in the Russian SSR wasn’t connected to an internal sewer system, half had no hot water, 28% didn’t have gas or a bathtub. I find these figures hard to believe, I suppose they include small towns.
There were about 4 times as many phones per capita in the USA as in Russia in 1977.
The Soviets prioritized television production. In 1976 there were 223 TV sets per 1,000 people in the USSR compared to 571/1,000 in the USA. But the USA had 100 million personal automobiles compared to 5 million in the USSR that year. The poverty and inability to provide private transportation explains the USSR’s excellent public transportation. But Soviets travelled such less than did Americans, so the public transportation didn’t compensate for the lack of private transportation. In 1976 Americans travelled per capita 10,780 km between cities, Soviets only 2,584.
Here we see that in 1980 20% of urban Soviets still lived n communal flats! From that source, infant mortality rate rose 36% from 1971 to 1976, to nearly double that of the USA.
Lenin was as brilliant as he was malevolent. He had no technical background.
Here is a list of average IQs for various occupations:
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx
Law, Natural Sciences, Electrical Engineering, and Medicine are basically tied at the top.
I doubt it is possible for a very average dude to get to the country’s probably best law school (and then rise to power over the entire country).
It collapses (perhaps) with them it charge, but was also built by them in charge.
Nobody argues with the fact that US lived much better than USSR. As well as that Soviet consumer market suffered with perpetual deficits both in gastronomic and other consumer fields. But you, which is expected, forgot this:
http://www.old-yankee.com/writings/images/Figure19.jpg
And the fact of in what shape the US existed WW II. This is not accidental from you but this factor, together with endemic inefficiencies of Soviet system, not least through well-known retail mafia, which played a crucial in precipitating those deficits, plays a huge role in comparison.
I think we have to stop here. The table on IQ professions you introduced is a complete BS for the consumption of the products of an American “education”. I would love to observe some Ph.D. in Law dealing even with the basic Laplace Transform. Lenin’s argument also is completely flawed because (apart from knowing 8 languages he fits the profile of what generally is considered a genius), yet, even the Civil War for him on strategic and operational level was won by such people like Michail Frunze and Stalin. All this Social “Science” crap is a complete sham as performance of the US which is run by precisely this cohort of people is dismal from military to technological to geopolitical fields. This is the price, a long term debilitating effect, of US killing own public education system.
With private ownership, in a modern capitalist economy, there is no market-based price system either. Try to haggle at a supermarket or departments store. Prices are assigned by bureaucrats, just like in the Soviet system. Contracts between companies signed long-term. Where I work, the outsourcing contract has just been signed for the next 5 years.
Market-based prices you’ll find at a yard sale or flea market. They may also exist at a farmers’ market, assuming the vendors didn’t collude (not very likely). And I’m pretty sure there were more flea markets and farmers’ markets in communist countries.
The dialogue is focused because the invention and perfection of the steam engine (and concomitant machine metal working) was the single most dramatic event in recorded human history; as important as the use of fire and stone tools–an extension of them really.
What’s the point of studying grazers, herders and subsistence farmers? They had their problems and we have ours.
Good point. Of course, everyone should now be aware of Charge Masters in US Hospitals and other HMOs, where they pull prices for everything out of their asses or because they have a bad mood, but I agree: in serious industries the contracts are long-term and with fixed prices which fluctuate somewhat during bidding process. Having said all that: this doesn’t apply to US military-industrial complex where fleecing is in the very foundation with even a modicum of military capability having the highest price (per capita) in the world and by a gigantic margin. But don’t try to convey this to Ayn Rand worshipers and other libertarian types, they still drink this Cool Aid and believe in the “free” market.
OT.
I’m with Him: http://theduran.com/bannon-declares-war-establishment-cut-off-oxygen-mcconnell/
You should understand that before communalka my grandparents were living in far worse conditions. Conditions were constantly improving. My dad due to nature of his job was moved every 5 years to different locations hence we got permanent place to live only when he got settled. Overall, despite deficits which were real we lived happy and fulfilling lives. Also, you should not ignore the fact that we paid basically nothing for our apartments. Monthly payment for grandparents 2 bed rooms of frankly very good size was just 22 rubles, with my grandfather salary being 330 rubles and that of grandmother 240. My father paid even less 15 rubles while having larger salary. Having similar apartment here in Toronto now costs arm and leg and I am not even going into houses. People in the West live mostly due to huge and increasing debt. I suspect modern Russia has own issues, basically I wonder if the quality of food stuff in stores, content of real meat and milk there and plastic fruit and vegetable compared to organic ones in Soviet times with far higher prices is not creating illusion of plenty… I was told that quality of many of produce is far below Soviet times.
Basically, I think along what Andrei told about those mafias. As a rule , I have never seen sausages in stores in Tashkent, but we had huge choice in many excellent Tashkent markets where one could buy everything needed of far better taste and quality than modern supermarket. We were well fed and did not suffer.
Pathetic disgrace?
Read the Gulag Archipelago.
Paying nothing to live in lower class conditions (by the standards of other northern hemisphere people) is nothing to brag about. You could decide not to work, have some kids, and get free housing in the projects now. You’ll also get food stamps and free healthcare.
Request to ban this commenter and all other libertarians from this blog.
It’s completely unacceptable to still be a libertarian in the current year.
Joking, of course. I shouldn’t debate religious fanatics, but here goes:
Socialist economists in von Mises’ own day proposed market socialism as an alternative. The USSR itself set prices based on input costs of goods. Various efforts were made by the planners over the years to improve the accuracy of this.
In reality, as opposed to the fantasy land you inhabit, socialism in practice didn’t collapse into chaos as a result of non-market prices. This was studied empirically (you know, that tradition of inquiry you lunatic rejects) after the USSR collapsed: https://nintil.com/2016/11/07/the-soviet-union-productive-efficiency/
Note that the author of the above piece is a self-described libertarian, though not of the ISIS-like Austrian splinter faction you inhabit.
Even if we accept the premises of von Mises’ argument the problem could be solved with linear programming and sufficient computing power. Late Soviet economists were in fact working on this.
This is a tautology. Go figure you can’t have market prices without a market. Duhhhhhh.
I realize this is probably futile on a religious fanatic like yourself, but you’re faced with the problem that real, existing socialist economies routinely did this for decades. The Five Year Plan for instance is a mechanism to allocate investment.
In a single payer system these decisions are by hospitals themselves, as single payer simply means the government pays providers. Examples of single payer medical systems include Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, France, and Switzerland.
You’re thinking perhaps of the Beveridge Model, such as in the United Kingdom. In that case decisions are made by bureacrats working for the National Health Service.
Empirical reality, which again von Mises and his disciple Rothbard (both Jews incidentally) reject, shows that in fact it can be sorted out. And it is being sorted out every single day. Furthermore, most non-market systems do in fact use prices and often (but not always) incorporate market elements.
This is nothing new incidentally. In a major war how does an army decide which fronts get reinforced with more troops and shells? Certainly not by market prices.
It’s not your view at all. It’s regurgitated garbage from Lew Rockwell and the gang.
You do realize that the term capitalism was created by communists?
Just because YOU religious fanatics insist that capitalism is a synonym of libertarianism doesn’t mean the rest of us need to agree.
It’s embarrassing and outrageous that you people still exist.
And an engineer probably wouldn’t be able to draft a simple will, not to mention make some complex and convincing legal argument based on properly applied and integrated precedents. And neither a lawyer not attorney would be capable of the correct diagnosis and treatment of some specific neurological disorder. So?
Lenin – lawyer. Stalin didn’t have a technical background either, he was a seminarian and then publicist/revolutionary.
This same “cohort of people” were running things when the USA was successful too. FDR studied economics and law, for example.
America had a president who studied at both the Naval Academy and from a top-tier technical university – Georgia Tech. He was Jimmy Carter.
Well, if there is demand for something it is sold, and at a higher price (but not so high that people won’t buy it), things that people want less are sold less often and/or for a lower price. Sellers-producers adjust to consumers, while trying to influence them through marketing. You think that market-based pricing means on the spot pricing at a physical market?
“Just like in the Soviet system.” 🙂
Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer of considerable renown, and his university education was in geology.
Hoover, much like Carter, was generally well regarded for his efforts outside of the Presidency.
Well, at least you wouldn’t be seeing that in Soviet propaganda.
Yes. In terms of today’s US dollars, average living standards in most places have been less than $2000 per person for most of recorded history (see, e.g, Angus Maddison’s website). In terms of social harmony, check Pinker’s summary; primitive life was generally very violent.
Modern life is generally at a higher material level and less violent. But people fail to realize that, in line with behavioral genetics, happiness is not so much a product of a good economy as a dispostion which we have or do not have from birth.
@ Andrey Martyanov,
No, but I don’t recall McCain unleashing any wars either. (Though, of course, he contributed well beyond your average Congressman).
My mother’s family, as members of what one might call the “lower nomenklatura”, could indeed get black caviar in Moscow, in bulk and at absurdly low prices. My dad’s family and relatives 120km outside Moscow – fuhgeddaboudit. It was a good day when sausage was in the stores. Popular riddle from the provinces that I’m sure you’ve heard: “Длинная, зеленая, пахнет колбасой? Электричка из Москвы.” (Long, green, smells of sausage? A train from Moscow). People from beyond Moscow would travel into the city just to stock up on sausages.
I can guess why you could buy black caviar easily (if you had the right documents and/or lived in the right place). The USSR overfished black caviar (environmental protection wasn’t its forte either) so catches were on the decline since around 1980. The unrestricted poaching of the 1990s did it in even further.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/files/asymmsturgeonchangedasymgray.jpg
So something that was once available by the bucketfuls to some is now an elite luxury product, which anyone can buy (if he has $$$).
In addition to AP bringing up Linda Gottfredson’s famous chart, there is also this:
http://i.imgur.com/WqcTn4V.jpg
There is indeed a significant gap between social sciences and the humanities, but it isn’t a yawning one. Philosophy is at around the same level as math and engineering; so is economics (which, incidentally, is extremely quantitative at all the respectable schools).
If it’s a PhD from Harvard who absolutely had to master them for whatever strange reason then he’d probably be able to come to that level within a year of concentrated study. (Less if he’d done math to the end of HS, or taken math electives at university, which is not uncommon since American higher ed, unlike most countries, encourages students to diversify).
There’s two rather strange ideas that you seem to be operating from:
(1) That mathematical and verbal intelligences are highly separate things. In reality, they highly correlate with each other, as Charles Spearman found more than than a century ago. The top mathematician in a class of schoolchildren will be almost certainly way above average in English, and vice versa.
(2) That verbal intelligence is “worth” much less than mathematical. This viewpoint is even harder to comprehend. I mean, the vast majority of jobs, including elite jobs, have absolutely no need for you to know how to solve differential equations or do Laplace transforms. (Besides, there’s any number of guys who can do that whom you can hire for peanuts on the dollar in China or Eastern Europe).
It isn’t at all obvious to me how the US is less geopolitically competent than Russia. Yes, Iraq, whatever. Meanwhile, the geniuses in the Kremlin have managed to lose what was long one of Russia’s core territories for the foreseeable future, probably forever in all likelihood.
Also link to Saker comments.
In the USSR, this would have happened regardless, but without public attention and the associated possibility of charitable do-gooders helping out.
The USSR has the dubious distinction of being the only industrialized country to see a sustained increase in infant mortality outside of wartime. Infant mortality under Putin has decreased by 2-3x times and has for the first time ever no longer an huge outlier relative to Western nations.
I don’t know about Toronto, but my impression is that food in Russia is better than in the US. It isn’t corn-drenched and uses less chemicals. (Speaking of raw food, not processed).
Yes, there’s a lot more debt in the West, but incomes are far higher and the median American doesn’t fall into debt even after most take out a mortgage once they start their families and take out a mortgage.
http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/median-net-worth-by-age_large.jpg
Incidentally, I also want to address the housing question at greater length.
So here’s some statistics: http://rusfact.ru/node/28
http://www.rusfact.ru/sites/default/files/images/47465_original%282%29.jpg
First, we see that urban square meters per person steadily rose through the entire 1914-today period (except the massive Revolution-to-1950 stall that was observed in consumption generally). So housing construction as such wasn’t a uniquely Soviet achievement.
Second, now relative to other countries:
USA – 70 sqm
Germany – 42 sqm
Canada – 40 sqm
France – 40 sqm
Greece, joint-poorest country in old EU – 30 sqm
Russia – 25 sqm
Famously overcrowded Japan – 22 sqm
Russia in 1991 – 16 sqm
And we see that it is, in fact, a gigantic failure. Westerners get far better, far bigger houses than Russians did in the USSR, nor did most of them go deep into debt for it (almost everyone had climbed out of it by retirement, with plenty of surplus). Soviets got the equivalent of Western public housing for free, which even now isn’t even worth all that much outside Moscow/SPB, and feel proud of it for some reason.
I would argue that the more math content there is in a field of study, the more g-loaded it will be. For instance, highly intelligent subjects often (but not always) distinguish themselves with a rich, precise use of language, but someone less bright can also attain satisfactory levels through effort.
Not so with mathematical skills. If at a certain level in math you’re struggling, protracted study, interest and discipline will only bring about meager progress. This is why so many bullshitters indeed find a refuge in humanities. Imo, the best and ultimate measure of someone’s intellect won’t be measured by an IQ score (many may have gamed their high score, Langan comes to mind) but how mathematically accomplished the person is.
Some thoughts. Researchers found a positive correlation between estimated Presidential IQ and Presidential leadership performance as assessed by a panel of historians. This is not surprising. It would be interesting to incorporate educational background (“soft” vs. “hard”) and see if that has any additional explanatory power.
Might be relevant today since national elites differ in this respect quite a bit. As I recall you commented yourself in the past, the CCP Politburo consists mostly of engineers and scientists (Hu Jintao is himself a hydraulic engineer) – and the Chinese are usually lauded for this. But since, if anything, they might have poorer performance than lawyers – whatever problems lawyers might have in understanding some narrow and probably irrelevant technical issue, they’re far better at finagling than the engineers, and that would seem to be a much more useful skill in things like international relations.
At least the school Hu Jintao went to (Tsingtao University) is the best in China for Engineering. Don’t know if that’s typical or not for the Politburo as a whole.
The threat of the USSR put the fear of God into Western elites. That, in large part, is why they behaved themselves.
“In the USSR, this would have happened regardless, but without public attention and the associated possibility of charitable do-gooders helping out.”
I would say there were regional differences. Medicine in European part was considerably better than say in Uzbekistan. Under Brezhnev though there was order but still not same level as say in Dnepropetrovsk and not same quality. By 1985 things really went downhill in Uzbekistan hospitals. Let’s say I had Hepatitis A in the fall of 1984. There were 10 people in our room for 4 due to very high number of sick. Not only that but we had cockroaches in our beds with one of our pastime being knifing those under the mattress. No shower and crap all over the place in washrooms and profanities in Uzbek being written with said crap on the walls. It is exactly what Andrei mentioned regarding local peculiarities.
Nevertheless. I had very serious complications back in 1979-1980 and was taken great care by the system firstly in Tashkent and then in Dnepropetrovsk ultimately got cured. There were lots of kids with various severity of similar cases and we were taken great care off. At the end there was sanatorium for kids where we not only were treated at the end but also studied. I will stress again. There were lots of children and we were taken excellent care.
“I don’t know about Toronto, but my impression is that food in Russia is better than in the US. It isn’t corn-drenched and uses less chemicals. (Speaking of raw food, not processed).”
I was going to USA some 14 years ago and had to buy food in local supermarkets mostly in North Eastern states. I would say food in Toronto seems of better quality but I cannot say for sure as I do not buy food everywhere in Toronto but in certain places where I know food is good mostly Russian stores and Italian supers. I know what to avoid. I remember i tried baked chicken in USA and could not finish it. Chickens seems better here in Toronto.
I think you should take into calculation that Soviet Union had to rebuild itself form basically ground zero condition twice in 20th century. One more thing. My father in law is retired senior construction engineer. So, we have been driving around here a lot and he always was paying attention to construction sites and noted that houses here even in Toronto area basically are shadily built and a lot less materials are going into construction here than in Russia. He said such houses would not stand a chance in Russia, which i knew all along myslef. It is much cheaper to build houses here and especially in USA and Europe than in Russia. Overall, Russia is far more expensive energy and materials wise place to live and built everything than those countries you mentioned.
Lol. This is gay
“The ratio of capital to national income fell from 6:1 under the old regime to 2:1, i.e. the entirety of concentrated capital (be it in the form of real estate, shares, or foreign assets) became equal to only two years’ worth of national income.”
very interesting.. Does this mean that real incomes were greatly improved and basically due to productivity gains? I think so, Hence the efficiencies of capitalism, large markets, and education (to some degree).
“The revolutionary role of Russia, whose bourgeoisie was sacrificed at the altar of transformation, consisted not so much in socializing property and launching the Socialist experiment as in crashing the world rent. The enormous Russian debt that had fed millions of rentiers all over Europe turned into dust in the blink of an eye and doomed the rentier civilisation to extinction.
From the 1920s to the 1940s, the level of capital concentration in the world capitalist system continued its decline.”
I do not understand this. Debt may have been canceled in Russia. That I understand. Was it?
Russia was not the only country with rentiers. That, in and of itself would not collapse the rentier regime in general.
Then the above “capital concentration” in “decline” is not clearly stated. If it was only in decline via a vis general incomes share, then the argument losing ground.”
continue later if acceptable..
Joe Webb
That’s neat, Priss. I’m a fan of Cleese’s, but it leaves out a pretty salient fact – population density.
Yeah, we’re all crazy (to wit, most of the comments above), but we’ve always been crazy. The big difference is that we can’t get away from (or wall off) the “nutsos” any more.
Human beings have always been at odds with each other. Formerly we killed each other at the borders. Now the fools mix us all together and tell us to get along.
What could possibly go wrong?
Nice rhetorical “low blow” there, Thor, pointing out that both Mises and Rothbard were jooies. Anything promoted by jooies is bound to be self-serving and detrimental to nearly everyone else…..explaining why both the masses of asses and the wasp cognoscenti instinctively avoid libertarian ideas.
That’s great. But the data speak for themselves. Scroll to Table 4.5:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124/cf124.chap4.html
Compared to the USA of 1989, Russia of 1980 and 1987 had much higher death rates from almost every medical cause.
Consider, Jacques, that it may be a dynamic system and that stasis has no relevance beyond the dreams of men.
The bell curve(s) are real, but neither extreme represents and ideal state. If the “better” gain the advantage and impose oligarchy, they might, by nature, abuse that advantage until the system becomes unbalanced. Once the system becomes too unbalanced the less fit revolt and displace their supposed oppressors.
The less fit, by their nature, cannot impose even a temporary stasis and are displaced by the “better,” the man on the white horse, who cannot maintain autocracy and yields to oligarchy.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Evolution carries on.
Take care of those you love, but don’t spread your love too thin.
Finally a relevant comment under this article. I have learned already that apartments in the SU were small and toilets were shared between families and that there was plenty of caviar and vodka (Karlin always attracts many Soviet deadenders) but nobody pointed out to the fact that the planned economy can actually be administered better now than it was in the SU because we have much better IT tools and ability to collect and process data almost instantaneously. Stores and suppliers can be run like Walmart with instantaneous feedback which product is being sold and how far away is the supply in the truck on the road. Isn’t Walmart actually the planned economy mini empire? And also we can control better who is stealing, so we may know right away if a store clerk in the butcher shop is not stashing away meat to be resold outside at black market prices.
You are absolutely right about libertarians. Libertarianism is a psy-op invented to demoralize the youth, mostly young males. It does not have any other purpose. Ayn Rand, Mises, Rothbard, Rockwell (yes, all of them Jews) are responsible for spreading the anti-gospel of libertarian ideology that is totally devoid of reality but it seduces young mind to avoid engaging in more complex thinking that society is actually a very complex self-organizing effort by people and their government that requires constant renegotiations and interactions between various groups. That people are not and do not want to be competing animals at each other throats. It is not the La La Land ruled by the Almighty Invisible Hand that can only be tweaked by few parameters like interests rates and tax code or not even that according to Libertarians.
For TPTB the libertarianism certainly is a very useful delusion to infect young (mostly male) minds with and render them at least harmless if not cheerleaders for the neoliberal NWO paradise. The paradise for the uber rich class, the oligarchs. Ayn Rand books created greatest devastation in young Americans minds and psyche. If she was the product of CIA or NKVD she would be one of the most successful psyops they ever conducted or dreamed of.
Does libertarian ever feel a moral outrage at excesses of the rich and oligarchs? No, his answer is always the same: not enough freedom, not enough competition, deregulate or tough luck it’s your fault if you were ripped by somebody smarter than you, or people are not developed enough for the libertarian paradise. The latter you could hear in the SU as well.
I wonder if somebody did look at libertarian activism and how it correlated with the job Thatcher started in 1970s and Reagan continued in 1980s to bust unions, destroy the rust belt, send companies first to free-to-work states in the South and then to Mexico under Clinton? And what did you hear from young people then? We do not need unions or industrial jobs, we will work in service economy where the invisible hand will take care of everything and government is bad and only bad because it regulates. Guess what, the regulating power of government was greatly diminished since then and what did we get for it? Ask the billionaires and millionaires what did they get from it. They know.
These calculations do not include “дачи”. A normal middle class family in the Soviet Union lived in a city apartment, but had (or rented) vacation home “дача”, where the family spent the summer vacation.
https://cdn5.img.ria.ru/images/49853/76/498537655.jpg
Yes; wasn’t it clear from my comment? If it means that prices are assigned by experts and inflexible, then labeling it “market-based” is misleading, and the whole line of reasoning about inherent superiority of the ‘market’ system because of its price-formation collapses.
In fact, massive advertising and marketing efforts add to the problem, making the claim of ‘rational allocation of resources’ even less convincing.
In fairness, the differences in life expectancy/death rates were primarily attributable to lifestyle factors, not healthcare. (Of course Soviet vodka policy would be another matter to dissect).
Best for comparing healthcare systems:
Death rates from specific diseases at specific stages (e.g. Stage 3 lung cancer). Problem: Difficult to collect, not sure there’s good data for Russia even today.
Soviet infant mortality rates by the 1980s were about equivalent to Argentina (i.e. best of the “Third World”), but lower than everywhere in Western Europe, including Portugal, etc.
Okay, that’s a good point, I had forgotten about dachas.
Though not sure they’d raise the total by more than 25% (I am assuming the green line would mostly be dachas).
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/genby/30544598/802877/802877_original.png
It was a rhetorical question, mocking this idea.
Prices are based on the consumer market, and are flexible, just not-on-the-spot (though AFAIK store managers are sometimes given leeway). Though as I mentioned, great efforts are made to influence the consumer market, through marketing. Elections are run the same way. People choose and their choices are the ultimate arbiters, those who are chosen by the people (be they producers of goods or services, or would-be political leaders) have to work to earn that choice.
This is completely different from a strict command top-down approach.
*Naturally the system is imperfect, there is much trickery involved. But comparing the Soviet squalor with life in the West makes clear which system was more imperfect.
Also, most dachas were probably not like the one pictured, but very primitive. Actually, even the regular housing was primitive by Western standards. Few places (in warmer parts of the USSR, like Ukraine and presumably southern Russia) had air conditioning despite low ceilings, no elevators in most buildings up to 5 stories, I already posted about lack of hot water, gas, etc. in a large % of Soviet apartments in the late 1970s.
I hope you know that GULAG Archipelago is a fiction literature? No? Well, as much as local fighters with communism would love it to be a “document” but the full title of GULAG Archipelago is this: GULAG Archipelago. The Experience in Fictional Study.
http://www.pravmir.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Solzhenitsyin-A.-Arhipelag-GULag-02.jpeg
This is not to mention that most actual descriptions of GULAG, which did exist and there were crimes committed, no doubt, was stolen by Solzhenitsyn from real GULAG writer, Varlam Shalamov. As Shalamov himself wrote, and I give a precise quote from his diary: “No bitch from “progressive humanity” should be allowed near my archive. I forbid writer Solzhenitsyn and all those having thoughts similar to his have acquaintance with my archive.”(c)
New Book: Reminiscences. Notebooks. Letters. Investigations. Notebooks of 1972. Varlam Shalamov. Exmo, 2004. Pages: 342-345
Most, not all, what Solzhenitsyn wrote in GULAG and after, from statistics to geopolitical “assessments” is, basically, a made up shit. So, there is no surprise then, that so many Solzhenitsyn’s fans (apart from lacking a general culture and intellect to see Solzhenitsyn for what he was–a mediocre writer) both Russian and Western are constantly confused about anything related to Russia–one is bound to be when uses Solzhenitsyn’s writings as a foundation for the worldview. You want to know real numbers of GULAG and what real crimes were committed etc. Start with Zemskov and then slowly, possibly with the use of antidepressants, go towards Thurston’s very good treatise Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1934-1941. just for a good primer. But primarily, if you want to really learn anything about that start communicating with everyday Russians, not some “intellectuals” or “intelligentsia”, which has nothing intelligent about itself, and while doing so, try to ask how many of those Russians had people in their families taken to GULAG–you may be surprised with the answers and it will help you to understand why during Solzhenitsyn’s funeral in Moscow in 2008 there were so embarrassingly few people attending it. All Russian TV Networks reported that, while NTV even stated that it is still not the end of the day;-)
LOL.
Anatoly, try to calculate “correlation” between Mr. McCain’s 2008 Presidential bid and 080808 events.
Anatoly, learn a simple skill–not to express your opinions in the fields in which you are utterly unqualified, especially engineering field of which you, frankly, have no idea. Soviet-educated engineers are still sought out by leading American corporations and there is a reason for that. Western technician level is the level in Bachelor of Science in all kinds of engineering fields from any US engineering school, where those students approach from the pathetic level of STEM in US public schools and then dragged for four years 5 days a week. Soviet educated engineering field required 5 year intensive program in the field (6 days a week–exactly 6 academic years) and this is from the extremely high level of Soviet Public public schools (even today) in STEM. Just to give you some taste, a little summary:
As per level of engineers who went to work in Soviet and continue to work in Russian military-industrial complex, I don’t think that we have anything to discuss with you here. As I stated, you have an agenda and it shines through.
Yeah, tell it to the publishers of the Kelly’s Blue Book–a bible of all car dealerships in the US.
Is it better now? Was it better in 90’s-2000’s after Soviet system was no more? America in every respect is much easier place to live. Also I wonder how did existence of many hurt from WW2 and other aspects left from that war affected this issue…
What’s “life in the West”? If you compare, say, West Baltimore (from The Wire), or Appalachia (from Deliverance), with the center of Moscow in the 1980s, you’ll come to the opposite conclusion. Also, it only makes sense to compare places with similar history and other conditions.
In any case, this has nothing whatsoever to do with my point about price formation not being a convincing argument for declaring superiority of the capitalist system. Corporate/capitalist price formation is (in most cases) a bureaucratic process run by experts.
A friend of mine who is a manager at an engineering firm just hired one. He is certainly pleased, but it’s not like the Soviet-trained guy is better than the other ones he has hired.
In medicine, ex-Soviets do well in the states but it is not as if they are some kind of giants among midgets.
Correct, basically. Here is physics at the end of high school:
https://nces.ed.gov/timss/timss2015/timss2015_table55.asp
Slovenia actually beats Russia significantly. But USA is far behind Russia (I am shocked that France is so far behind even the USA). The American educational system improves with students’ age. Undergrads close the gap somewhat but not completely, but by grad school America takes the lead. And this is the most important level. My nephew chose Mexmat over any American school for undergraduate study, but is hoping to eventually attend Princeton or MIT.
Here is one such “dacha”, village area today–a lot in it (a very average PGT in remote Podmoskovye), of our relatives, with the older dacha, smaller but still nice (built in late 1980s-early 1990s) still on property. Around most major Russian urban centers this becomes a rule, not an exception. The whole “dacha” argument is valid only when regular village houses of, usually, grandparent are accounted for. Those, usually, do not go as “dacha” but are still inherited, sold, rented out or lived in all the same. I am not going to expand into the whole renovation industry for older, classic village housing.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vL-5fBSOrBs/WeDFo8hFKXI/AAAAAAAABLg/nsUrzZNKcCgz9iLvUoYm152Rx_smBf_iwCLcBGAs/s320/DSC00033.JPG
Having said all that, all this discussion makes no sense whatsoever without consideration and catastrophic damage which was dealt to USSR in WWII, not to speak of an initial, starting, conditions. Obviously, initial consumer patterns, which define the economy are completely omitted here, which is not surprising considering personalities of debaters here. IIRC last post WWII restoration program in West Germany (FRG) was closed sometime in late 1980s.
Yes, you can cherry-pick the absolute worst parts of the USA and find that they will not be as nice as the absolute best parts of Russia. While you are at it, find a nice enclave in Lagos and compare it to the worst part of the USA to make some silly conclusion about Nigeria.
They guess what people will be willing to pay. If nobody wants to pay that, the dealer will sell for less than the Blue Book value.
Debatable, at best. In humanities–it is a catastrophe. STEM on the level of M.S. yeah, more or less. One my Russian good acquaintance (A chief of Physics Research Lab in one of the really major US universities, I deliberately omit the name) had a very low opinion on US students in math and physics. My other acquaintance, Armenian from Baku, who finished his math Ph.D. and taught in UCLA, was very blunt–half of students had difficulty solving quadratic equations or reducing rather simple polynomial. Per medicine, I am not going to discuss it here–not exactly my field, but both times in my life in US I was immediately afforded a position (on one–I started the business) once people heard my background. I am in charge of laboratory in aerospace firm, I was hired immediately by my boss–a former senior naval officer. He knew what he was getting. But, of course, Anatoly knows all about it;)
I think Anatoly did not study in Soviet school. The study was very intense and university exams for all good faculties were extremely tough. I remember studying for 12 hours a day for entry exams so did my cousin who went into engineering. I am very worried about my son education here in Canada after seeing what and how they study. We started basic math education at home and send him to school outside of public school and he says that he is very bored at school as it is simple and old. It doe snot look like what we studied back in USSR. I would also point that the whole atmosphere in local public schools is that of fun instead of serious atmosphere with accent on study and development we had at school. I had many friends studying at TVOKU , studies were extremely tough and included all you mentioned and Sopromat and other math related stuff.
For him only material side matters. I wonder how would he explain a great number of people on various drugs medications to just allow some relaxation and sleep. We did not feel ourselves miserable and we lived full happy lives. Does it matter when one has larger house but is unhappy.
I also noticed that living space wise local houses not bigger than our apartments. These houses has a lot of space for basically other stuff but rooms often are smaller than what we had back in USSR in newer apartments. i do not mean Krushevki and I am not talking high end mansions but average dwellings.
Anyway, my point is, man doe snot live by bread alone.
Sorry, I’ve never been to Nigeria.
So, since you chose to defend the libertarian worldview here, how come market-based prices failed to create capitalist paradise in Appalachia?
I may at some point present the transcript of my degree, when I have the time. Gyroscopic and Inertial Navigation Systems (a subject on guidance, including weaponry) alone, especially the way it is integrated with weapons systems–that may blow some minds. As per Sopromat or Theoretical Mechanics–goodness gracious, what a fun, LOL.
Maybe, but I have the impression that he’s just aggressively opinionated/dogmatic. He’d switch to ‘spiritual’ arguments, if necessary. But then most of the people commenting on blogs are like that, it’s nothing special…
I sense irony 😉 Everything is being learned by comparison. Still, the level of Soviet military schools was very high. And once they even used to teach dancing and proper dinning manners! That was definitely tough to pass .
I am reading for comments by a few. I am trying not to comment on things I have no clue about. Living in USSR I do have some clues about our lives then. I can only describe my family as being happy and so my friends. Did it matter that I had fewer meters per head than some Bob in NY? No.
That is not the point. The point is the values ARE defined and Blue Book is constantly used as more than just the reference but preiskurant. So much for “free market”, some minor price wiggling changes very little.
Here’s another indicator: Bauman has a 0.15 rating on the WFC scale on the Nature Index (weight of contribution to articles published in Nature, the world’s premier scientific publishing outlet).
King Saud University: 3.20.
So seems fair enough.
The Soviet engineers from a handful of top schools who were, additionally, bright and resourceful enough to successfully immigrate to America – sure.
What percentage of the Soviet engineer pool do people with such qualities constitute? 0.1%?
People close to McCain gave Saakashvili misleading hints that they would come to his support. Saakashvili also grossly underestimated the Russian Army and overestimated the Georgian one (thank you Pavel Felgenhauer). The person who “unleashed a war out of own volition and for, largely, personal reasons” was Mishiko, not McCain.
Only? Take a drive on 101 on the West Coast and drive through such places like Ukiah, or visit (well armed, preferably) Tacoma, some of which looks like a shithole. Aberdin, may altogether alter your whole idea of America–no wonder Kurt Cobain who was from there blew his brains out, who wouldn’t suffer from mental illness living in Aberdin in chidlhood. Even this very well-off US West Coast is packed with places like that. I am not talking, of course, about some former logging communities–they can give Appalchia a run for its money. I lived long enough in the US to see an overall decline in living standard through several major indicators.
Here you go: http://anepigone.blogspot.ru/2006/11/white-iq-estimates-by-state.html
Nonsense. The material side is the most easily measurable, and you were the one boasting about how in the Soviet Union people moved from communal to 2 room apartments. So the Soviet system was a failure from the material perspective.
Well, in 1980 Rusisa’s suicide rate was 3.4 times higher than that of the USA in 1989:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/CF124/cf124.chap4.html
I suspect Russia’s massive Soviet-era alcohol problem wasn’t a reflection of societal happiness.
Currently the happiest countries in the world (in order) are Costa Rica, Mexico, and Columbia:
http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/index-ranks-mexico-as-2nd-happiest-country/1
This on a survey that directly asks if people are satisfied (some b.s. surveys rate happiness by stuff like healthcare access and rate depressive Scandinavian counties as the world’s happiest).
The happiest places are the ones that are more religious and less modernized. One of my grandfathers was a peasant from outside Kiev. He said people felt happiest before the Revolution.
Nothing new in this observation. Here is Ernst Junger:
“What they had done in their youth, and what for milleniums had been man’s vocation, joy, and pleasure – to ride a horse, to plow in the morning in the steaming fields, to walk behind the oxen, to mow the yellow grain in the blazing summer heat while streams of sweat poured down the tanned body…all this, praised by poets since time immemorial, was now past and gone. Joy in labor had disappeared.
How can one explain this trend toward a more colorless and shallow life? Well, the work was easier, if less healthy, and it brought more money, more leisure, and perhaps more entertainment. A day in the country is long and hard. And yet the fruits of their present life were worthless compared to a single coin of their former life: a rest in the evening and a rural festivity. That they no longer knew the old kind of happiness was obvious from the discontent which spread over their features. Soon, dissatisfaction, prevailing over all their moods, became their religion…”
:::::::::::
Soviets sacrificed happiness for materialism, and failed at materialism.
Anatoly, I have some background in Operational Theory (it was a mandatory subject) and in how to deal with weighted values, especially when weapons are involved. Most of this “statistics” and indices are sham. Or crap, or what have you.
Yes, and from here, in the US, they created best weapon systems in the world, continue to maintain best piloted space program in the world, run GLONASS, build state-of-the-art aircraft, engines and other things–all because they “immigrated” to America, right? LOL.
“Nonsense. The material side is the most easily measurable, and you were the one boasting about how in the Soviet Union people moved from communal to 2 room apartments. So the Soviet system was a failure from the material perspective. ”
Let’s make an experiment. Let’s destroy to the ground USA most populous part comparable to the size of Soviet territory destroyed by 1945 and then see how USA will be moving form underground dugouts into mansions. Dugout is where my grandparents started after the war like many others. Immediate task was to give huge numbers of people decent place to live in shortest period possible. Then people started gradually moving into better and better accommodations. USA never went through anything like this hence in reality Soviet project was huge success. Getting up so quickly after such blows that USSR received in 1941-1945 is a fit not easy to repeat and not under system that present in USA.
Who cares. Far superior to word salad that uses phrases like ” barbaric liberal reforms in education.”
You seem to be misinterpreting what I said.
Let me try to clarify. The USSR did produce some very good engineers (scientists, mathematicians, etc). The better (and younger) they were, the more likely they were to have decamped to the West – virtually all the Russian scientists of any global reknown, the sort who have a chance at a Nobel or a Fields, work in the West. I hope that much, at least, is uncontroversial. This segment is demographically tiny.
Then there was a larger upper core of engineers, the vast majority of whom stayed, who can do things like run GLONASS (as can the US, China, and the EU) and man aircraft design bureaus but aren’t going to be making fundamental breakthroughts. Those few of them who ended up in the West typically do well for themselves in the private economy, though not better than graduates from respectable American universities.
There, there is a huge mass of “engineers” who would have been simply been classified as “technicians” in the West (“doctors” who would be “nurses”, etc). The USSR didn’t do because it had a narcissistic need to “prove” itself better than the capitalist world and “world’s highest number of engineers” sounds impressive (its vast numbers of hospital beds are another prime example).
West Germany did much better after World War II. So USA stayed ahead while also building up western Europe.
USSR was falling further behind in the 1970s and 1980s, long after World War II.
Anatoly, for a person who has a fanatical belief in IQ you exhibit a very strange ignorance on the issue of synapses which are developed and stay with you for the rest of your life even if you do not have to solve differential equations every day. Yes, “verbal intelligence” is worth much less, especially when one observes those dramatic strategic and operational “achievements” of US neocon elites who all, without exception, have high IQs and superb “verbal skills”. Yet, somehow, anything which comes out of their mouths and pens is preposterous, anti-scientific and radically anti-empirical. Again, you exhibit a complete lack of any understanding of the abyss which separates a complexity (and abstract requirements) of a “verbal” skill and an ability to make serious weighted and competent decision because in all your arguments you are missing a key factor–knowledge. I will give you a definition of it again: knowledge is a fullness of information fitted into the rigid framework of causality. No verifiable causality? I don’t care what IQ anyone has or what are their “verbal” skills–they remain ignorant and useless, as last Presidential Elections in US dramatically demonstrated for the whole “statistics” industry in US. All you statistics is sham, since can not create (and neither can you) a reliable connection between cause and effect. I can easily prove to you what a load of BS is most of your data you use without causality–easily done on the review of operations of, say, Patton’s 3rd Army in Lorraine and Bulge. Statistics without knowledge–is a BS.
Marshall plan. Small compact territory. Much softer climate. No need to spend huge amounts on military and other developments , like space program and nuclear programs just to mention a few.
Any idea why Western Europe and japan prefer to let USA spend itself on military into oblivion while keeping own expenses as low as possible…?
All this talk of “education” is embarrassing. Schools are simply prisons for children that employ parasites unable to perform actual productive jobs.
Britain didn’t even have engineering schools until 1898–all engineering training prior to then was apprenticeship training.
To this day I get sad and angry every time I see a school bus.
Do you have children?
Soviet Diploma of Engineer-Specialist from any good level Soviet University (Institute) would prevent them from “being classified” as “technicians”, even after the lucrative and preposterous business in US was concocted in “translating” all these degrees into the Western Standard of Bachelor’s, Master’s etc. A complete fraud to start with, especially once one begins to look at traditional in the West “selective” courses (how about photography and dancing?) not to mention ridiculous “credit” instead of “program units” system. Moreover, you again are missing a crucial factor–Russian and American average public school programs in STEM are not-comparable. Again, in most US public schools Physics even doesn’t exist as a coherent separate subject being substituted with a generic Hodge-podge collection of random scientific facts and known a Science. There is no such educational subject as “Science”, even in Russian schools today it goes under titles of Physics, Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, Botanic and later Biology and Astronomy. All US standardized tests are IQ-driven (patterns recognition and “agility” and similar crap) but even EGE in STEM in Russia is still knowledge-driven and even in the standard form presents many problems without multiple-choice answers. Students literally have to write the solution.
Yeah, try to teach a high-school graduate to run a combat ship or calculate stresses on the wing of aircraft through apprenticeship. Better one yet: do the circuit design for telemetry units. I am sure it will be just fine;-)
Well, America spent so much on Marshall Plan, aid to Japan, etc. etc. plus on its own military, yet kept improving relative to the USSR the entire time.
Just like this 😉
Again, you forget about Russia being destroyed twice in 20th century while USA suffering no such calamities ever. Do you really think USA would be anything near that level of affluence while being raised to the ground regularly ? You seem not to understand this simple fact. USA is extremely lucky nation and USA location safe from invasions, climate, geography and plentiful resources easily available have everything to do with that affluence. In any case, while lagging in material part behind USA , USSR was basically on par in many other aspects and was gaining fast. It is still amazing as it was all done under very unfavorable conditions unlike those of USA.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Bison_skull_pile-restored.jpg
In what? Mind you, I do not deny very real problems USSR faced, some of them unsolvable (national fringes), but prey tell how did US “improve”? By the end of Reagan’s term US was de-industrializing with ever increasing speed. US education, it seems, is in perpetual and quite real crisis. What so “improved” in US, apart from some important scientific breakthroughs in medicine, say from 1986 through 2017? Since early 1990s, to my undeniable regret and, sometimes, horror, I observe how country slides more and more towards Second World, while in some and many places begins to resemble full blown Third world shithole both materially and politically.
Are those buffalo skulls? Easy come easy go. Pretty much good display of American national psych.
No. I plan to home school. Would consider a prep school for high school if any traditional ones still exist, but my assumption is that they are now all pozzed.
Will send sons to university provided they commit to studying appropriate subjects, which contrary to Andrei Martyanov includes more than just STEM.
Any daughters of course will never be sent anywhere near a university or even high school.
My comment was of course tongue in cheek, but actually I’m not sure why any of those examples could not be taught by apprenticeship. In fact one of the electrical engineers who works for me has no college training (though all his colleagues do). I won’t deny the merit of formalized tertiary education and do in fact support it where appropriate, but “education” has become a kind of cargo cult for anti-hereditarians.
I was in business of teaching homeschool students, among many, for 15 years. Among my math-physics students who went directly from home to higher learning institutions are several graduates of US Naval Academy, Embry-Riddle, WUSL (one of them went to work for Musk immediately and then ran like crazy away from this “organization”), just to name a few. I am keenly aware of the “level” of US home school community and it is not very high to put it mildly precisely in the field of the precise sciences. For homeschoolers who wanted to make it STEM I was hired full-time sometimes. Most made it. I have nothing against homeschooling when it is done, as conflicting as it sounds, professionally well. Otherwise, US already has a gigantic oversupply of musically educated kids, as well as of good essay-writers etc.
Home schooling doesn’t preclude hiring outside tutors where appropriate. I’m very fit to teach certain subjects, but beyond a certain level I’m not competent to teach most STEM subjects.
The purpose of home schooling isn’t so much to provide your children with superior education–though that is a desirable result–but to keep them away from the degenerate, Satanic garbage that infests mainstream Western culture and especially the education system.
If we had traditional schools of the sort which were predominant nearly everywhere before the Second World War (or perhaps even earlier–coeducation was widespread even before the war, and IIRC the “whole word” language learning method was in use by the 20s) I would have no objection whatsoever to sending children to school.
But as it is today the system is an evil monster that must be destroyed.
I hear you and am sympathetic to your position, in many ways I share it. American children were given a raw deal, they were cheated, despite the fact that there are many wonderfully bright and capable kids, many already good people too. Good luck with your endeavor.
Germany did quite well. True, it was rebuilt by the Americans. But this shows that Americans were rebuilding much of the world while still experiencing dramatic increase in prosperity.
In education up to but not at the elite graduate level. Not in healthcare, entertainment, etc.
It was gaining fast in the 1960s but was falling further and further behind from the late 1970s.
Also, Soviets are not quite blameless for the extent of destruction twice in the 20th century. This argument is sort of akin to a guy who burned his own house down twice saying to his more prosperous neighbors – of course I don’t live as well as you – I had to rebuild my home twice!
Measures such as life expectancy, living space size, income, etc.
It’s industrial production was stagnant (and at a high level), but not declining:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/industrial-production
It was just becoming smaller relative to other sectors of the economy because they were exploding.
This factor is completely removed from pretty much any discussion in the US and, of course, by Russian “liberals”. Yet, it is a defining factor in all this “statistics”, including a massive demographic hole with half of 1918-22 male generation wiped out. Here, however, how US Fed. reported US “hardships” in WWII in terms of recovery from Great Depression.
For reference: Recession of 1937–38, Patricia Waiwood, http://www.federalreservehistory.org
No, the real output dropped catastrophically. You don’t trust me? Visit any Walmart. But better calculate non productive sectors from US (for the lack of better sources, still convoluted) BEA
https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=51&step=1#reqid=51&step=51&isuri=1&5114=a&5102=15
Share of productive sectors in US economy is around 18 percent. The rest? FIRE, services and government. Just to give you some heads up–modern day Russia’s productive (manufacturing) sector is at least twice larger in percentage (share) of GDP. I will open you some small secret: only producing nations are real competitors in this world. But here we have to get into more serious geopolitical and geoeconomic issues.
Amazing. Talk about benefiting from others hardship. What’s more amazing that by Perestroika not just proto liberals but many common people forgot about what we had to go through and rebuild. Of course there were issues but many were due to necessity to rebuild.
I also remember you posted in your blog work by former Soviet officer regarding Soviet leadership overestimating USA capabilities and spending far more then necessary on military and obviously on the whole A group neglecting group B. Still, I wonder was not there the plan to undermine moral via deliberate deficit creation. You also posted something bout conflicting plans by different KGB directorates about possible ways of USSR reforms.
Well…..a lot of talk about USSR/Russia. That’s fine.
For us more interested in the idea of ‘socialism’ (in some form), well, can anybody actually define what that is?
If 5 seconds Googling can give;
‘a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”
the obvious problem is impracticability.
You can’t have complex systems regulated by community.
WHO are those chosen/elected/appointed to make decisions is the crux of the system. Any system when you think about it.
Power corrupts. Masses are, fundamentally, dumb and intellectually/morally lazy (of course you can’t tell them that).
It’s obvious that the current system in West (and regardless what Rusophiles/Sinophiles/whatever say, too) doesn’t work well for more than half a population.
It works perfectly for 1 % and rather well for, say, 19 % more. The rest, from not that well to really bad.
So….we try to find a better system.
People in a Losing Group (PLG from now on) in West are trying to, somehow, vote back those years when things were better for them. Doesn’t work, obviously. Nobody really wants to go deep into that.
Just:”give me back those nice years”.
PLG in Russia, apparently, also want those ‘nice’ years back; or at least what they remember as ‘nice’. There is a thing with human nature that we remember good things better than bad.
Islamists want also their ‘good years back’. At least they offer a full package so ‘downtrodden’ flock there.Full package as spiritual part there too. A man lives not by bread alone.
NOBODY has a practical solution for the current paradigm. Nobody from and for PLGs that is.
The smartest in that group just want to join those 20%.
Dystopian future of Brasil type is the most likely.
Not as crude as in Brasil of course. Better carrot and much better stick.
Until some visionary finds practicable solution for PLGs. Maybe never.
So speaks the champion of dialectical materialism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management
If you think that the prices of tires, engines and car seat cushions available in stores are set by bureaucrats, I have a bridge to sell you.
(Facepalm.)
Go back and read Leonard Reed’s “I, pencil.”
You’re far, far too short for this ride, if you think market-based prices is a monopoly within libertarianism.
You deride market prices and then, five lines later, suggest they are used by this hybrid system you embrace. Okay. How’s this? Who decides how much each hospital gets to divvy up between its adminstrators’ pet projects? Who decides how much hospitals get, vs schools, vs. universities, vs welfare payments, etc.?
And here I get accused of being an ideologue….
You guys and your “we can improve on that” bureaucracies. You put the bureaucrats at the DMV in charge of all people’s lives. We don’t thank you.
Maybe the former but judging by my experience of reading undergrad philosophy (and other) papers certainly not the latter.
Crimes were committed?
Oh, my!
Yeah…..
Nice theory.
A bit worse in practice….especially that Yugoslavia thing.
Oh, yes….didn’t work because the big bad capitalists/reactionaries/Americans/any bad guy didn’t allow those …’examples’….to flourish.
Sure.
I mean, if that’s the best ‘downtrodden’ are hoping for, I am definitely getting ready on ‘Brasil type’ 20 % in lording over all of us.
No way around it.
Huh? I think you quoted the wrong comment.
I hear what’s going on in recent years in a fourth grade classroom. If you think it’s bad now, wait a few years.
Our fine folks who brought us the current Medical Cartel (Single Payer in all but name, given how much Corporatist control exists top to bottom…Mussolini would be proud) also brought us recent innovations in K-12 education, for example, putting (literally) 58-IQ students in the regular ed classrooms of grade schools.
I guess this is what Thorrfinnie thinks is a great “hybrid” market, where taxpayers pay, bureaucrats design and parents who can’t afford an alternative are stuck with the tax-paid monopoly that results.
How much longer do you think Medicare/Medicaid will last, given their compounded annual cost increase and the apparent end of the bull market in bond prices?
I have to admit, I’m going to have a lifetime supply of popcorn available to sit and watch you folks realize that the last 36 (or 54, depending on your choice of starting point) years are not actually sustainable. This was the most Extraordinary Popular Delusion ever recorded.
Declining interest rates plus freely-floated monetary systems plus a secular social mood mania created a perfect set of conditions: Debt was piled decade after decade, and governments the world over realized that there were no limits on how much they could borrow and spend.
Serious question: Do you think the world can keep issuing IOU’s at compound growth rates of the last 30 years? And if, for instance, the US central government slows or stops borrowing, what happens to all those programs now addicted to monster budgets?
Yeah, I know–it is so disappointing that those damn Russians for some reasons refused to confirm Solzh’s or his favorite “statistician”, so called prof. Kurganov (former White Army emigre and Nazi collaborator), numbers and refused to die in tens of millions, nay in hundreds of billions in GULAG. How arrogant of these damn Russians to open their archives but maybe, just maybe–hear me out–there is something else behind it? For example, can you explain to me why poplar Russian Orthodox Priest Alexiy Moroz (among many people of faith) states this:
Also, how come that since 2012 even in “liberal” (Levada-center, for example) polls, time after time Stalin comes as the most important historic figures in Russian history, trailed by Pushkin, Gagarin, Peter the Great and Putin himself? I’ll give you a hint: as American-Canadian Russia “scholar”, Ph.D. in American (and Russian) History, John Robson stated in the editorial in Ottawa Citizen in 2000:
Do you get my drift? Warmer? I just gave you a small opening in the “nature” and “level” of most (not all, I admit–there are some few exceptions) American (Western in general) Russia “scholarship”.
I’ve read the essay. Like much of the alt right I too was once a libertarian. Something clearly went wrong in your intellectual development in that you still embrace the libertarian religion.
You’ll note that the Soviet Union produced pencils as well.
I am not, and I don’t think anyone else here is either, an advocate of central planning.
We’re simply not religious fanatics who reject empirical reality in favor of the shibboleths from your high priests Mises, Rothbard, and Rockwell.
This is such an incredibly stupid question. Broadly, the political leadership does.
The DMV in my town works just fine. No lines and quick, friendly service. Probably because I live in one of the dwindling all-white areas of the country.
I am appalled not only that you exist but that you read the same website I do.
Great saying in finance–if something can’t go on forever, it eventually stops.
Medicare and Medicaid will continue to exist so long as political will to maintain them exists. Since most people feel like healthcare is a human right, I doubt there will be any move to abolish them.
Medicare will eventually require taxes to be raised, benefits reduced, or some combination thereof. This isn’t an impossible challenge. Many countries with national medical systems have done similar things. Japan used to not have a deductible, but now they have a 30% deductible (I don’t recall the ceiling).
If debt levels exceed the ability of debtors to service them, then interest rates will rise and there may be some defaults. Big fucking deal. But of course you libertarian whackos are convinced that the global economic system is DOOMED since gold is no longer used as money. Real Soon Now the big collapse is coming…
Yes; the comment-reply system seems to be screwed up slightly when posting from the comment page for Karlin’s blog.
(This is a reply to #165).
Thanks for the reply though.
EDIT:
The first time I tried to post this it was left as an unlinked reply. Paging Mr Unz…
Sergey and @Andrei Martyanov….I must commend you on your superb and informative series of comments on this thread.Excellent
The period of 1945-1975 in the Soviet Union was the most successful and most impressive on any country in history. 75-89 wasn’t too bad either
The table you linked to showed increase in industrial and manufacturing output.
Share as % of GDP may have declined but the actual output didn’t under Reagan. The other sectors just grew a lot more. You might be confusing number of jobs (which has declined due to robots) with amount produced.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-output-has-doubled-in-three-decades-2016-03-28
Here is US manufacturing output:
https://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2016/03/25/Photos/MG/MW-EI733_output_20160325121729_MG.jpg?uuid=12753a28-f2a5-11e5-908d-0015c588dfa6
The photo just happens to show buffalo skulls, the skulls of the people of First Nations of North America slaughtered by the White from the old continent of Europe will make that pile of buffalo skulls look like mole mount, but again the skulls of the people slaughtered by the American and European around the world will make the pile of West Indian’s skull look like mole mount too; but the American believes whatever USA does is necessary with the best intention, this is the real display of American national psych.
Are you saying in democracy the rich and powerful are above laws? Government is not “of the people, by the people, for the people,” but “of the rich and powerful, by the rich and powerful, for the rich and powerful?” It seems you are either confused democracy with plutocracy, or trying to legitimize plutocracy with democracy.
Perhaps you have forgotten United States Declaration of Independence starts that all men are created equal, and no additional rights are given to anyone because they are rich and entrepreneurs who can be free from being jailed even they commit crimes while others are not. You should know only in the caste system and feudal society that the rich and powerful are above laws.
I have to disagree with that. The Yugoslavia thing was quite successful, and for a non- trivial period of time, 30-35 years. That’s a meaningful historical event, imo. Certainly more definitive than the 1930s anarchy-syndicalist experiment in Spain.
By the way, when I say that neo-corporatism can be viewed as a form of fascism, I don’t mean it in a demeaning way.
I lived in Switzerland for many years, and I consider it a very decent socioeconomic arrangement. Their fascist features are annoying — punishments for flashing the toilet after 10pm, for making a small mistake in their recycling rules, speed cameras on every fucking light pole, constant surveillance, mind-boggling bureaucracy, and so on.
But once you pass that, you see positive aspects of neo-corporatism: $25/hr minimum wage (in the locality where I lived) is a big deal obviously: every (full-time) janitor lives like a middle-class American. Mandatory wage increases, no unemployment, very strong economic nationalism. If you apply for a business license, the first thing they ask: ‘how many Swiss nationals are you going to employ’? It works.
I lived in Switzerland as well but never occurred to me to think of the flashing toilet at night issue as fascist. It was reasonable to enforce and teach courtesy to people to whom it does not come naturally particularly to immigrants from strange lands. I found things there very sensible and reasonable and I liked the local cantonal democracy system. It beats any other systems I know. That things work so well certainly has something to do with their Calvinist and Zwingli tradition but also with the fact they mange to keep their population well educated.
I never understood what really was supposed to be wrong with fascism. It became commies’ favorite invective and still is. It sounds hollow and has no meaning. But still very intelligent people like Chris Hedges or Noam Chomsky keep throwing it around at whatever they do not like.
Mussolini improved standards of living, made trains run on time, locked up mafia, was good to Jews and Zionists and was pushed into Hitler’s arms by Brits. I think I would not mind living in Italy then.
Yugoslav’s worker’s self-management was well-conceived, its implementation was badly designed and badly executed. The Yugoslav ‘thing’ (the economic development) was truly successful only up to the beginning of the 1970s. Afterwards, if you’ve seen something good, it was a fallout from the previous period. The state became captive to private interests.
Useful link: https://archive.org/details/BrankoHorvatWhatIsSocialism1989
From the original Doctrine of Fascism, co-written by Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile:
Well I guess as states expand beyond their frontiers, they either do so in empty space, or they come into mutual conflicts, not excluding war … Italy committed massacres in Libya, Ethiopia …
Is this a bad thing? The world would be objectively better off if Libyans and Ethiopians were replaced by Italians.
A more serious problem was that fascist states, in particular Germany, didn’t confine their ambitions to territories populated by half-savage populations.
Some things are hard to scale, but I remember just last month, TV stations broadcasting live the arrival of McCain to Washington, just in time to sink Trump’s proposed healthcare law.
I actually remember Senator Kennedy skipping Obamacare debates, as he was dying in Cape Cod. One day, he felt he was sicker, and he was flown in to a Boston hospital on a helicopter. I mean, he knew he was dying, but why stay in a hospital with the plebs? And why go to work like the plebs? Oh, Obama didn’t have enough votes to pass the law? Tough luck, the dying Kennedy won’t resign, won’t go to work, and won’t even stay in a hospice with the plebs. (And this was supposedly one of the most caring leftists in the Senate.)
If you think McCain paid for his charter or Kennedy for his chopper out of their salaries, you are deluded. There’s a video with a younger McCain explaining how he handed out envelopes with cash on the Senate floor, on behalf of big tobacco.
And this not just the Senate. Have you seen Bloomberg going to work?
If you believe American propaganda about their “humble” nomenklatura, at public’s “service”, it’s hard to see anyone immune.
Tight government control of everything, is what I mean. You can have a ‘gated community’ in the US with these sorts of rules, but they won’t be enforced by the local PD.
‘Fascism’, as you noted, is a loaded word; it means different things to different people. I suppose people on the left dislike it because it was (arguably) conceived as a nationalist substitute for (and destroyer of) internationalist marxist socialism; essentializing ‘the nation’ instead of marxist ‘class’. It’s understandable.
Post-war softening and rebranding made it acceptable. I’m pretty sure Leftists (a few that still exist in the West) have nothing against the ‘Scandinavian model’.
I have the impression that as a whole it was a successful experiment throughout. Anecdotally, at least, people remember it quite warmly, and regard the disintegration/civil war period as inconceivable insanity.
You are also a fan of the Soviet experiment and of Maoism.
Yugoslavia was not as bad as the Soviet system because it was less total in its socialism.
This description of ideas of the Ukrainian OUN ideologue is another good description of fascist thought regarding government. It is less poetic, more “practical”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykola_Stsiborskyi
Stsiborskyi was the principal theorist of the OUN prior to its split into the hostile Melnyk and Bandera camps.[1] He believed that the idea of democracy that began to spread throughout the world following the French Revolution had reached its high point prior to the First World War and subsequently came into decline. He wrote that democracy and capitalism were inseparable, and that the two systems helped bring about much material progress and innovation throughout the nineteenth century. He also saw them as fundamentally flawed. Stsyborsky felt that democracy and capitalism required equal rights and freedoms while, at the same time, nature was inherently not equal. With time, the weak were bound by the capitalist system to become enslaved by the strong and the democratic slogans of universal brotherhood were considered by Stsyborsky to be merely sentimental and empty phrases. The reality in a democracy, according to Stsiborskyi, was that political rights and social control existed in direct proportion to economic power. Democracy thus became a playground for competing groups, each promoting its own interests rather than those of the nation as a whole. These interests vie for votes, and employ bribery and corruption. For these reasons, Stsyborsky felt that ultimately the most creative, talented, and best elements in a democratic society retreat from politics in disgust.[4]
Stsiborskyi considered socialism and communism to be identical in their theories and worldview, and wrote that both were flawed reactions to democracy’s failures. He rejected their emphasis on the Proletariat (working class) and claimed that socialism, as well as communism, inevitably leads to a dictatorship in favor of one social group at the expense of others in the nation.[4]
In opposition to democracy, socialism and communism, Stsiborskyi admired Italy’s fascism. In contrast to Democracy’s “liberty, equality, fraternity” Stsyborsky praised Fascism’s “duty, hierarchy, discipline.” Stsiborskyi wrote that society should be organized according to the principles of National syndicalism, a socioeconomic system adopted by Benito Mussolini. Instead of competing political parties or social classes he proposed that an authoritarian one-party government should harmoniously unite all social groups under its control, which would prevent exploitation of some classes by others and would focus all of the nation’s social elements onto the goal of national development rather than on the development of particular groups such as social classes. Stsiborskyi supported a fascist dictatorship which he claimed represented a “cult of creativity” in opposition to democracy’s “cult of numbers/votes.” He rejected the old traditional elite in favor of a new one, arising from the people, characterized by its genius and willpower.[4] Stsyborski’s major work, Nationcracy, included a chapter criticizing Hitler’s dictatorship.[5]
Not sure what you mean by this. Are you saying you go a store, see a car seat cushion tagged as $19.99, approach the clerk, offer him $17.78 for it, and wait for his offer? And who, do you think, came up with the $19.99 price in the first place?
Thank you Gerad, but you are probably the only one who thinks
Not sure if trolling or just stupid. The translator takes this as a compliment, however, meaning that the his (non-native) English is idiomatic enough to pass for that of a native speaker.
What if I told you that, for the purposes of international travel permissions in 1960s-80s USSR, Yugoslavia was treated as a Capitalist country?
Well….
The argument
can be applied to all things not working as advertised.
The question, pertinent to this thread, would be:what we, today, could (re)use from the “Yugoslav experiment” in that self-management thing?
Or, better, what is that which makes well conceived unworkable in practice?
Either way one cuts it, I believe it boils down to elites get corrupted.
Power corrupts.
Equally important, massed being simply…….well…what masses actually are.
Dumb and intellectually/morally lazy.
Again, we can discuss ad nauseam ‘ism’ this, ‘ism’ that, but, at the end of the day,what really matters, we do not have an alternative to the current system.
Practical alternative that is.
Our problem is that we care (masses don’t….) but…haha….not quite smart and sold out to belong to those 19 % implementing the system. For those 1 %.
Bummer.
I’m pretty sure Leftists (a few that still exist in the West) have nothing against the ‘Scandinavian model’. – Immigration and diversity will destroy this model because it can only work nonhomogeneous society with high degree of social solidarity. The Leftists that push for the diversity there are not aware that they are the useful idiots of the neoliberal NWO which has no room for the “Scandinavian model” anywhere.
And who, do you think, came up with the $19.99 price in the first place? – The Invisible Hand of course. The libertarians are really something. (see my comment #102)
The difference is not whether there is a ruling class, it’s what that ruling class is and how one gets into it.
The feudal nobility pretty much inherited their position.
The mandarins of China got their’s by examination.
The businessmen of the last few centuries in the West and its imitators acquired their wealth and power by providing services and goods others want to buy efficiently enough to turn a profit.
In all cases corruption and working the system affect the results, but it seems crystal clear to me that there’s a huge difference in the society created by these three ways of determining who enters the ruling class.
@Logan
Feudal nobles inherit land.
Farming is a business. Nobles who mismanaged their inheritance could and did lose their position.
Enterprising men were perfectly free to acquire land, and it wasn’t unusual for gentry to become nobility.
Composition of the elites and their dynamics was analyzed (not sure how adequate) by Pareto in Circulation of Elite. But I would say that causation is the opposite here: the elites (‘superstructure’) are formed by the societal basic structure (‘relations of production’). Standard marxist concept: base and superstructure.
You said in 24 that for most of human history the rule of law didn’t exist. I disagree with that. In every case there was an elite, and there was the rule of law and ideology designed to justify and maintain the existing structure.
The current (capitalist) structure seems most natural to us, because it’s the only one we experienced, and because its dominant ideology has been instilled in us from the childhood. But two hundred years from now, people living in a (hypothetical) socialist society will probably dismiss our current structure as completely ridiculous – the ruling elite comprised of the most greedy, most sociopathic individuals?
The rule of law is not just the way a society works, which as you say every society has.
Wiki: The rule of law is the legal principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by decisions of individual government officials. It primarily refers to the influence and authority of law within society, particularly as a constraint upon behaviour, including behaviour of government officials.
The difference was crystal clear to the ancient Greek and Roman republicans. They had plenty of injustice and oppression in their societies, but they directly contrasted their own societies with their (often theoretical) devotion to “rule of law” with the absolutism of, for instance, Persia, where the whim of the King WAS the law.
The most powerful nobles of Persia openly and proudly called themselves the slaves of the king. And they were that, quite literally. Because there was no Law other than the king’s will.
Meanwhile, the Spartans, with all the appalling aspects of their society, were ruled by laws, not men.
“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”
Same was of course true of China, where there was little law in the usual sense, mandarins creating law by applying their own sense of justice as informed by Confucian ethical codes.
Magna Carta is one of the first examples in western history of an attempt to create rule of law. To impose a system where the King himself was not above the law. Even the King, who was in theory at the time the source of law, could not disobey that law himself once it was made. Under feudalism, of course, this rule of men was brought down to the village level.
“Rule of law,” in a modern society also implies equality before that law. However imperfect that equality may be in practice. As opposed to most of human history, in which unequal treatment was embodied in the law.
Of course there was law; the king wasn’t adjudicating every dispute among peasants.
As for the king’s will, it’s always the case that authorities have discretion. They make decisions, they exercise their judgement, their will. The discretion can be unlimited (in absolute monarchy) or limited (in a republic), but I don’t see how this is such a crucial difference. American president can’t do some things, but he can pardon anyone or order a military strike on a foreign country. That’s a lot of power unrestricted by Law.
Yeah, I know. As one French guy said long time ago: “In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.”
Also, everyone can be elected president, and honest hard work will eventually make you millionaire. It’s the standard ideological narrative, and you’re buying into it.
I was just chatting and making some brief description. If I were asked for arguments in favour of self-management, I’d start with a list like this:
Management by results and self-control from “The Practice of Management” by Peter Drucker (1954)
Maverick by Ricardo Semler (1990s)
The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company by Beyster (2007)
Turn the ship around – a true story of turning followers into leaders by Marquet (2013)
I see.
Pity the elites in Yugoslavia weren’t able to read those last three.
Probably missed the important parts of the first one, too.
Next time, perhaps.
This exchange started with peterAUS ‘ claim : “You can’t have complex systems regulated by community.” – October 13, 2017 at 6:13 pm GMT
After he was faced with evidence that he is flat out wrong, peterAUS moved the goalposts using a straw man and sidetracking the opponents with ridicule.
That is some very interesting information in the summary. What is the source of that? I would like to read more about this topic.
Could be.
It also could be that proponents of that Yugoslav experiment and all that “self-management” theory can’t prove their…system….works in practice so they attack a critic.
That’s fine.
So, while we unhappy with the reality around us ‘debate’ and feed our egos on the Internet, the powers that be keep implementing their system.
Lucky us.
For that you will have to buy my book (summary is a very raw, unedited piece from one of the chapters of this book) when it comes out;) But per bibliography of this small piece, here it is:
hahahahaha!!….3.4 is a total bollocks lie you lying cretin. It was closer to 2.4. Take out of few anomalous high suicide rates in afew regions in areas of severe cold winters and or shortened days during the winter and you will find that the suicide rates in the USSR were entirely similar with the Americans . Probably much lower than the Americans when you weigh in all factors. America genocided the natives more likely to be involved in suicide, especially in the northern areas…and the negro, whilst clearly suffering from severe social decay imposed on him in the American system……is not as agreeable to suicide as many different ethnic groups are. This is similar to the type of stat you have now where the life expectancy living in Moscow is about the same as that in New York….it is a few ethnic republics in the north and past the Urals with various cold,daylight and monoindustry town decay that is correlated and brings the life expectancy down. Overall I would suspect that slavic,Tatar and most of the Kavkaz races had lower suicide rates than Americans
Then take into account the number of Americans prevented from indulging in suicide because they have an incredible high amount in a “prosperous” nation on drugs for treating psychiatric and psychological conditions . Also the disgusting levels of obesity is not a sign of wealth but of big, shameful mental illness during the time of the cold war.
The shameful amount of murders in the US during the 80’s, significantly higher than in the USSR at the time was not a sign of “societal happiness” you dimwit.
Those Soviet 2 bed room apartments were highly desirable and advanced. A higher concentration of heavy industry jobs ,heavily centred on a city among a vast area meant a much higher number of living spaces to be provided on what would be prime pieces of real estate for any country. These were the greatest series of living spaces ,living conditions for this high a number of factory workers in Europe you cretin….much better than those offered in the city for say, heavily industrialised jobs in France of England. The architecture for these living spaces, for the time, were considered groundbreaking and heavily influenced western architects for similar urban projects.
a ‘problem’ that occurs throughout eastern Europe to this day you idiot. Americans in general drink much lower strength and crap quality Beer, Californian wine and Bourbon as opposed to the hardcore spirits commonly drunk for a long period in Eastern Europe so it is an entirely fake comparison, obviously alcoholism is going to be more of a problem….not least because American society is that weak the age of being legally able to drink is a ridiculous 21…..and the abysmal failure of prohibition in the 1920’s
Ignorant spamtroll cretin lie. A Soviet society and culture was rich,diverse in opportunities and was more of an outdoor society than any country in the world. You’re that stupid I can’t rule out that you think “materialism” is contact with things made of plastic
Even if true, this is not entirely successful as a proud boast.
Even by your deranged “standards” that is a seriously thick comment. A civil engineer has to write reports and provide solutions in design …..and in methods of construction……
and in future maintenance …..working within a vast series of codes, some hard, some not so hard…but none of them trivial- like many of which a solicitor has to know of. Despite the high degree of technical creativity allowed he still has a very strict legal framework to work within…that frequently requires for him to justify his applied thinking based on precedents from complicated projects encountering similar issues -in his country….or from around the world.
He then has to justify,verbally and in print via report of his decisions, prior to acceptance by a potential client, based on economic,legal, socio-economic, health and safety for the end user & construction worker,environmental and even cultural or artistic reasons…..within a code of practise about a million times more complicated than anything a solicitor encounters….and he has to do this to a client(i.e a layman, just like a solicitor does with a jury)
errr.no. It hardly needs reminding of the Nazi scientists who had senior positions in America (including on the space programme on which the Soviets heaped major successes for 10 years on the Americans- despite spending 1/3rd of the money per year that the Americans were doing), or non-Americans like Kissinger and the scumbag Brzezinski running Americans foreign policy at the height of the Cold War . FDR was no great thinker or strategist…he and America were fortunate to have many excellent European immigrants come over to advise on economics,science and so on. At best no further than a first generation immigrant seems to provide any value in America, or is allowed to…hindered by the despotic talentless social science dickheads that Andrei ( an intellectual unlike a time-wasting cretin as yourself) so eloquently and correctly points out.
Beyond dumb to compare Stalin breakingthrough from a non-technical background in his pre-industrialisation time…….to the low IQ failure Gorby breaking through from a technical background , in a completely different environment 50 years later
Oh goodie. 30 year long span? Have you ever considered that from 1980 to 2017 US population grew by 100 million (in realty more)? Again, I provided you with a US government statistics which gives an official numbers–if you have issues with that data, or with how percentages are calculated, I can not help. But to give you some insight: look at the prices (and a horrendous inflation hidden in it) of any US military hardware and you will understand, maybe. As an example, US Navy procures today a single Flight III Arleigh Burke-class DDG for almost 2 billion dollars per hull, Flight I/II of these ships was in production from 1991 to 1999 went for around for $800 million per hull. So, the issue is, granted that technological updates are expensive, how come that the costs increased 2.5 fold from 1999 to roughly 2007? Can you explain to me also how come that the house which in 2005 was selling for 145 000, in 2006 was selling for 272 000? This is not made up number–I know this particular house among very many similar cases. Do you get my drift or you still believe that using monetary data for comparisons in manufacturing without consideration of costs is valid method? I offered you a simple forensic experiment–visiting Walmart, among many other places and take a look at labels. And, of course, you somehow missed the conclusion of the piece you offered, apart from the fact that it is written by economically ignorant dude:
Conclusion:
What is marked in bold and cursive shows that the guy is not exactly in touch with realities of manufacturing sector. What is JUST in bold–is true. US capital literally shipped most industrial good jobs abroad while selling out the thing which was supported by non-stop credit bubble–a massive American internal consumer market. In other places like, say Russia? Industrial (manufacturing) market is booming and so it does in some places in US, but only in some. When the guy states that those jobs are “gone for good”–that is when I know that he is full of shit.
Any organized society requires an ‘elite’ for the very necessities of organization.
(Wiki): ‘The iron law of oligarchy’, the political theory, first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties, claims that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an “iron law” within any democratic organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of organization. Michels’ theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise.
According to Michels all organizations eventually come to be run by a “leadership class”, who often function as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons, political strategists, organizers, etc. for the organization. Far from being “servants of the masses”, Michels argues this “leadership class,” rather than the organization’s membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization’s power structures…”
You call it philosopher kings, nobility, aristocracy, upper classes, leaders, nomenklatura, organizers, society can’t function without it. We know that since Plato and the whole history before and after him.
Agree.
The key (not found so far IMHO) is how to make and keep those elites work for common good and not only for their own.
A cynic could, even, appoint blame for the missing key to masses instead, as popular, to those elites.
I posted evidence of 3.4 times higher suicide rate. You did not produce evidence of Soviet suicide rate being “only” 2.4 times higher (which, as another commenter mentioned, is nothing to brag about).
Populations in the extreme northern regions is small enough that even if your claim is true, it wouldn’t affect overall figures much.
Your other attempts to make excuses for the Soviet Union’s extremely high suicide rate are pathetic.
For someone whose standards are on the level of the poorest American. The place below glows with desirability and advancement:
https://gdb.rferl.org/95B87EFC-75B3-4194-B387-426C0819EC3C_w1023_r1_s.jpg
Here is an American housing project in the Baltimore ghetto:
https://stream.org/wp-content/uploads/Gilmor-Homes-900.jpg
Nicer then where the Soviet middle class lived 🙂
Building ugly garbage in the center of otherwise nice cities is nothing to brag about.
You are the perfect exemplar of the Soviet product, demonstrating it with each post.
Your words: “real output dropped catastrophically” and “By the end of Reagan’s term US was de-industrializing with ever increasing speed.”
Since those claims were obviously wrong, it seems you are now arguing that per capita output has dropped. That might be true. America has seen an influx of tens of million of immigrants…so even though American industrial output has not dropped at all but has increased, this increase may not have kept pace with the population growth due to this immigration.
Your link showed manufacturing increase from 2008 to 2016 of 5.9%. Between 2008 and 2016, America’s population has increased by 6.2%. So yes, although manufacturing has grown in output, population has grown slightly more (6.2%), so the per capita manufacturing production has had a very slight decline even though actual output has increased.
This is very different from your claims about “real output dropped catastrophically.”
Your link didn’t include info from the Reagan era, however.
I quoted the article for the figures, not the author’s opinions.
Article stated that output doubled from 1984 and today. Population during this time increased only 42.3%. So per capita output has grown since 1984. The per capita stagnation has been more recent.
Of course. Was not the role of the Philosopher King, the helmsman of the Ship of State, to keep the steady course? And not let the mob of the sailors who claim knowledge of sailing, though they know nothing of navigation, and call the helmsman a ‘stargazer’, to convince the owner of the ship to give the captainship to them. Oh, the Divus Plato!
So, an indicator that I assume you will agree is quite important:
Machine building production in 2015:
Wherever it is shipping machine tool production jobs, it sure ain’t Russia. (Actually most of the limited US deindustrialization happen
in the 90sand 00s, during the Obama era you actually started seeing some “reshoring”).In US Dollars, really? Did you read my post attentively? I doubt it.
And the significance of this “conclusion” is in exactly what? But should you have been using professional sources you would have known that bar some significant but very few US outsourcing, as it was with Boeing’s Moscow Engineering Office which before 2014 employed 1200 Russian aerospace engineers and was responsible for such things as design of B-787’s wing, as an example, any US “outsourcing” to Russia is not possible in principle. Why it is so–is a separate issue. But while we at it, you should also remember that Russia is a key supplier for very many crucial titanium parts for Boeing, including landing gear. Well, yes, there are also some Russian made laser and plasma cutting CNC machines working there. Just a cute fact.
You obviously have a very unreliable information on this issue. I am not talking about knowledge, of course–that is a whole other game altogether.
I “bolded” a crucial thing in this phrase. Obviously, should you have known some issues plaguing modern US manufacturing labor force… but hope dies last, I guess.
They are a tradable good so it is entirely legitimate to price them in dollars – the $2.2 billion worth of machine tools that Russia imports certainly are!
Doesn’t seem to be what you wrote in the post that I was replying to:
This doesn’t look entirely unreliable:
https://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2016/03/25/Photos/MG/MW-EI733_output_20160325121729_MG.jpg
Before you mention population: The population has grown 40% (225 million to 320 million) since 1980, while manufacturing has more than doubled. Considering far fewer people work in manufacturing now relative to then, that also translates into a vast leap in productivity.
I am not “now” arguing, that is the key message I am sending for years now. Not only it “dropped” but the standard of living dropped, wages stagnate, social problems grow tremendously–a huge percentage of youth from 18 through 30 can not even pass basic drug test to get any job on manufacturing floor, not to mention get into the serious professional technical fields. All of that matters, not just some grossly inflated numbers in dollars. Again, re-read attentively what I wrote to you about DDG-51 of Areligh Burke class–it is just one such example. Moreover, no serious (I underscore it) analyst is using US economic indexing–most of it is a convoluted sham, based on a US Dollar’s status as global reserve currency and thus the ability for US to write any numbers it wants. Few fields in which US is still internationally competitive, such as aerospace (mostly commercial, military is a catastrophe pretty much), microchips and microelectronics, still greatly infested with Chinese counterfeits, partially automotive and medicine (at what cost) are those few fields which are beginning to shrink even as I type this. Now, in order not to drag this discussion out, ask yourself a question, how come–an established fact–that US failed so miserably to assess Russia’s actual economic and military strength? When one goes by the estimates by “current pricing”, and that is what is in the foundation of US (and a lot of Western) economics, one is inevitably wrong most of the time. Now, read this, well versed Canadian analyst with a great pedigree in Soviet-American relations and weapons’ limitations treaties.
https://orientalreview.org/2017/09/18/exchange-rating-russia/
If this will not explain to you why things look (and feel) not how it is “reflected” in US statistics, I don’t know what will. This, however, may explain to you why US still can not create a good piloted spaceship, why it relies on Russian-made RD-180s for powering its Atlas project and why, in the end, US is not capable anymore to produce good (forget great) Main Battle Tank and fighter-plane.
Yes, and US weapons are also “tradable” goods and look where we are now, especially on per-capita combat capability. If you didn’t know, just comparison–an average, now retired, Shuttle launch ranged from 450 million to 500 million dollars, now compare it with Soyuz missions launch costs even today 48 million, that is exactly 10 times less for piloted delivery or, through Proton’s launch which is around 90 million (5 times less) for a comparable payload.
“Priced” in US Dollars? Well, I guess we are back to square one then. Just to give you a hint about tradable goods–the price of F-35 varies, from overly optimistic $95 million a pop to more than $121 million a pop for F-35C. Russia sells SU-35 which simply is incomparable in actual combat capability to F-35, being superior in most crucial capabilities, for 40 to 60 million depending on configuration, Take 50 (middle of the road) and compare it with 121 for, frankly, flying POS. Obviously, the fact of Tesla subsidizing (different sources range it up to S4000 a pop) its “cars” (enormously expensive) also has to tell us something, shouldn’t it? But again, I already wrote about it here, I will reiterate it–read this attentively.
http://www.unz.com/article/assessing-russias-military-strength/
In a larger framework of this whole never-ending discussion: Anatoly, if you want to learn something of substance, including about “productivity” (sure, producing state-of-the-art fighter plane for a fraction of cost of F-35, or flying in space for the same fraction doesn’t tell us about productivity, does it? Don’t bother with answer) pay attention to what really matters–a cutting edge R&D and most of military technologies. I will repeat again, US is being outplayed in those fields precisely because of the issue of “productivity” and, as Saker correctly found the title for one of his pieces IIRC “The End Of The Wars On Cheap”. If you still believe that US GDP is 19 trillion Dollars, sorry, I cannot help, I deal with facts not with acts of faith.
What happened to prices of cars, gallon of milk, cartoon of cigarettes, beer, houses since 1980? Do you know the price of cartoon of Class A 100mm cigarettes in COSTCO in 1993? I do, $12.95. Do you know what it is today? Google just for fun. Cigarettes are “tradable” goods and guess what–they are accounted in statistics you provide for their “price”. So is gallon of milk, so are cars, which on average were around $7000.00 a pop in 1980, today they are on average $25, 500.
http://wgntv.com/2016/04/25/the-average-car-now-costs-25449-how-much-was-a-car-the-year-you-were-born/
But I am sure there is some index which can explain that things are peachy. I am also sure someone who concocted this BS index has a Ph.D. in… whatever. The same as the fact of actual decline of living wages.
Generally speaking it hasn’t. People have more and better toys than they had before. Average house size increases as family size decreases. One specific group has seen a drop in life expectancy – white people without college degrees (educated white people are in general doing fine). Mass migration plays a large role here.
It obviously isn’t good, but is not the catastrophe you portray.
You could have written – are stable. Actually wages in America have increased for the top 30% (basically, anyone with a post-bachelor degree, or a professional bachelor’s degree in something like engineering or pharmacy) but have been stable for the others.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/21/news/economy/upper-middle-class/index.html
Correct. Though on balance they are not that high. Most people aren’t affected in their daily lives by these.
A good article, which does not state that Russia has somehow eclipsed the USA, or is even near to doing so (as you are implying), but stating that ranking Russia below a country like Spain is foolish, and that Russia is laying the foundations for a very solid future.
Are you sure?
http://www.businessinsider.com/real-wages-decline-literally-no-one-notices-2013-6
I don’t claim to know anything about Russia so I can’t comment on how well the life of the average person is there, but in the US, the sense of declining income is very present and its a haunting specter.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-fading-scent-of-american-dream.html
I’ve added an image here but it doesn’t seem to be pasting for some reason. I don’t have a “dog” in this but I can definitely testify to the sense that increasing despair overall. Its getting less pleasant and less hopeful, and that is a central reason why discourse is increasingly acrimonious in the US.
Your link showed stability/stagnation, not a decline, with differences in weekly earnings since 1980 within $5.00. The problem is more about expectation than reality. People hope and expect to do better than their parents but they just end doing slightly worse if they are at the bottom, about the same if they are in the middle, and a little better higher up, with no extreme changes.
Here’s a chart:
http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2014/10/Wage_stagnation.png
Keep in mind that this stability/stagnation exists at one of the highest-income countries in the world.
Also, although real wages have not changed, much of what can be bought with them has increased on quality and will continue to do so. Modern TVs cars etc. are better than their counterparts in 1964.
Full article:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
Since 2000, real wages of the bottom 25% have declined 3%, which isn’t much and which probably doesn’t apply to any of the readers here. Among those doing better they have gone up 9.7%.
Resentment is strongly marketed in the USA, by all political parties and groups. Reality is not nearly so catastrophic..
Hm, I think it is more than that, because the whole mad house (and it is a mad house) you observe right now is just one of many manifestations of this “not catastrophe”.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-hackers-apos-used-pokemon-214308049.html
But, sure, let’s call it “not too bad”.
Wait a minute, show me where I ever stated that Russia “is about to eclipse USA”, what I did and continue to do is to point out a gross miscalculation, based, btw, precisely on the methods you are using, that is monetization of all and everything. But that is what I stated, and I quote:
In terms of high-end weapons I certainly can state that there is a lot of “eclipsing” going on and it is not only just recently, a lot of that was already true in 1970s and 1980s. Let me demonstrate you some other things of this nature. There is some small shitty Russian-made car called Lada Granta–nothing special to look at, yet this jalopy while being nothing special will still do the job and get you with the FWD and in relatively comfortable conditions whereever you need to go for about 390 000 R, which translates into something around $6,500. Can you buy new, even not good, vehicle in US for this money? Largus, which is a little nice wagon, you can by for about $9,000 in basic configuration. You can get Kia Rio 2015 with almost 60,000 miles for 9 grand. But nothing new. Guess what, people buy them and some even love them. Without discussing a key issue of a consumer patterns this whole exchange makes no sense.
Are you in America? So much of this is wild hand-waving that its bewildering, for example the below:
Which simply dismisses it as “quality” as to relative increase in price, but consider that since 2000(taking from budget 360):
-College tuition and fees are up 145%
-Medical care is up 76%
-Housing is up 45%
-Energy is up 79%
While income is stagnant with 50% of income earners earning less than $30k, the loss of living standard is NOT illusionary. As someone who was impoverished and struggled my way into the top 10% of income, I can testify that this is not some sort of nonsense projection; I can particularly relate to Mr. Martyanov’s commentary on lack of mobility and a vehicle. In my case, I was lucky and someone gave me a vehicle for a very cheap price, and it saved me even though it barely ran(and the engine exploded after a few years). This is ever more noticeable because in the US, without a vehicle, you have no mobility at all. Your entire life will be reduced shortly to travel, work, sleep thanks to the horrific public transit system in most places(where that is even possible).
To do anything else, I would have had to go deep into debt. Everything in the US is about debt and two-income families and ever-increasing working hours. Even a leftist economist such as Robert Reich has talked about this and deplored that we’re getting ourselves into an increasing fix.
This is not a sustainable situation.
http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-1938-to-2013-inflation-history-cost-of-goods-inflation/
Excellent observation. This is precisely the case. Just to illustrate a little bit, in 2001-2 one could live in Seattle area (including Bellevue) or in Portland with family for 80-90,000 a year, granted the house (and consequently mortgage) were bought in early-mid 1980s. Then everything changed, I already used one such example but even for hi-earners, suddenly, by 2006-7 decent house which in mid-1990s new went for about 300,000 suddenly shot up into 800,000 range and that was and still largely is the trend. It is a complete mad house and this salary will not buy one a shit anymore in those areas, unless we are talking about some mud-hut in some crime-ridden areas. In L.A. in some places (I know, I was once called for interview for a 90,000 a year job) which are those “hubs” of supposedly “hi-tech” a simple 3 bed-room mid 2000s house went for… 1.5 million. After doing my due diligence on this as they said “wonderful” area I refused to be even interviewed. I omit here also rent prices which are through the roof.
Yeah, same story in eastern Mass; house prices are at least 3 times what they were in the late 90s (and that’s for the same house; new ones are out there, in the stratosphere). That’s the problem with all those charts with ‘constant 2014 dollars’. ‘Constant dollars’ my ass.
I am. Neither I nor anyone I know (siblings, cousins, friends, schoolmates etc.) has experienced declining or even stagnant income. But, most of us have post-bachelor’s degrees, in engineering, medicine, etc. One that didn’t was a cop who retired as a sergeant after 20 years, on a great state pension.
One of the articles I posted suggested that those in the top 10% have seen a 9% increase in real wages since 2000. I can see that. Overall the top 25% or os in the USA have seen improvement. This is reflected in the proliferation of Whole Foods, stability of higher-end retail stores like Nordtrom (as more middle class ones such as JC Penney decline), etc.
Poor people have had their wages drop. In my area, a lot of people pay Polish and Ukrainian OTBs to do construction and home reno; they are cheaper than American workers (and don’t use heroin or opioids – who wants to take a chance on having a junkie in their home?); wages for that type of work have decreased. Natives are right to fight against migration of cheap labor.
But the reality – improvement for the top 25%, decline for the bottom 25%, stagnation for the rest. A lot of marketing goes into fostering resentments by everybody. Americans blacks probably don’t realize that in general they live better than any Africans have lived in the history of the world. Our stagnant middle class wage is among the world’s highest. Etc.
Isn’t a lot of this taken into account when they calculate inflation? Adjusted for inflation, income has remained about the same.
Debt provides access. Karlin posted a graph showing home equity/debt. Debt allows people to move into homes and raise families in them, while slowly paying the debt off and having full ownership by the time they retire. If the housing price has increased during this time this becomes even better – you began by owing, say 150k on a house in 1995 but by the time you own it fully in 2025 it could be worth 300k.
So don’t move there if you are starting out and don’t have any inheritance. I’ts a big country, people don’t have to move to the expensive little bubbles.
This sounds like absolute nonsense combined with pretentious waddle about credentialism. Even if it was in fact better for your class of people, it doesn’t mean that it has been serving the majority.
Even more so. It simply demonstrates that with increasing inequality, a wealthier upper class can afford even more disposable income. While great for that upper class, its not great for a shrinking middle class.
No, debt creates a slave caste.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/28/home-ownership-rates-drop-to-lowest-since-1967.html
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/10/pf/millennials-negative-savings/index.html
http://time.com/8740/federal-reserve-debt-bankrate-consumers-credit-card/
What you are expressing is so distanced from the reality that many Americans are facing that I have to question what kind of a world you live in. My life is a lot easier in every way now that I make what I do – but it in no way makes the fact that living standards have dropped vastly for most people – in fact, you seem to have consciously avoided the trends I mentioned. My father, who was an immigrant with two post-graduate degrees and paid at a level beneath native workers, was able to easily support a family as a single wage earner working forty hours a week – and buy several houses.
I have a similar level of education and technically make more than he does, and even so, just trying to be a single earner family has been difficult, let alone children. And on average, I put in far more work than he had and played far more bullshit corporate politics than I would have ever liked in a world without any notion of seniority that once existed then.
Now, I’m sure that you seem thrilled that we can go down this road of endless inequality in a country where mass transit is a joke and credentialism is the name of the game along because you get to be a rentier but many aren’t – including the manufacturing classes.
Can you provide us with some ‘real’ statistical figures taken from the archives and not with the kind of rhetorical-literary statements of ‘poplar’ Orthodox Priest Alexiy Moroz (Ded Moroz?)?
Of course while your ‘hundreds of billions’ is rhetorical, the tens of millions is a figure agreed upon by many researchers. And is not Shalamov ‘fiction literature’ as well? Wikipedia’s assessment of his ‘Kolyma Tales’ is that ” He attempted to mix fact and fiction, which leads to the book being something of a historical novel”.
“A brief survey of the short story: Varlam Shalamov”, by Chris Power, in ‘The Guardian’, 20 March 2015:
“It is tempting, at first, to consider the stories autobiographical, if not straight memoir. This impression is only strengthened if you have encountered Shalamov’s stories quoted as primary source material in historical works by Robert Conquest and Applebaum, or by the political philosopher John Gray. It is a judgment his prose style supports: “Shalamov holds himself in severe check as an artist”, wrote Irving Howe, “he is simply intent, with a grey passion, upon exactitude… Yet the more you read, the less documentary-like the experience becomes…
A reader who knows only a few of the stories may well imagine the Kolyma Tales to be simply a factual account of Shalamov’s experiences. The events described in each individual story seem entirely real. Only when we read further, when we try to grasp the whole of this epic cycle, do we begin to realise that its truth can never be grasped: we begin, at last, to sense the terrible unreality of the survivor’s world. Successive narrators suffer identical fates, their stories intertwine impossibly, and time stands still. This fusion of realism and the surreal endows Kolyma Tales with extraordinary power”
@https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/19/short-story-survey-varlam-shalamov-kolyma-tales-gulag
Ironically, Shalamov criticized Solzhenitsyn Ivan Denisovitch because of his too rosy depiction of the life in camps! He commented on Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” saying: “The camp described here was one in which you could happily have spent a lifetime. It was an improved postwar camp, nothing like the hell of Kolyma.” Unlike Solzhenitsyn, who propagated that camp experience could be positive and purifying, Shalamov claimed it would turn a human into an animal, a lowlife creature with no standards”@http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/varlam-shalamov/. “Kolyma is Auschwitz without the ovens”!
hahahahahahaha! are you that much of a spamtroll ****wit with obvious extreme mental problems?
One picture (from US propaganda lie site RFE/RL is of a building in Russia built 50-60 years ago you cretin….of course it does not look the same quality now as it did then (the simple solution is to install some cladding on it ,even with a faux-brick facade, which could lead to the type of tragedy seen in London recently…but could also improve the aesthetics).The point being, from an architectural point of view…in form and function ,those type building were designed brilliantly for the time …and much superior then their British and French counterparts for housing in areas of intensely high factory & general workers
The US pic (“sure” they came with disabled access ramps in the 1960’s you dumb pr*ck) is of a building built at a much later time and with nowhere the same quality surrounding living space as the Russian building. We also cant tell what the size or dimensions of that US building is either ( or when it was built) making your cretinous comparison even more, well, braindead.
…err at the time they were built they were not ugly you idiot…..the US building has cladding in the form of bricks, the Soviet one does not…but is brilliantly designed. The “ugly”( and some of the holiday resorts in Soviet time in Crimea, buildings built for exhibitions, cultural buildings in central Asia and scientific building in places like Minsk were truly beautiful Soviet structures) is a matter of a few mm thick cladding not being installed on reinforced concrete buildings.
Soviet style also heavily influenced many architects in western cities, in the 60’s and 70’s. Of course “Ukrainian” architecture is not a term that has or will ever exist (maybe it’s building with a load of watermelons surrounding it…or a similiar type of Ukrop tragicomedy idiocy). Polish “architecture” is a similar oxymoron.
…well,more BS statistics not rooted in reality.
The real reason of the attacks against Solzhenitsyn is “Two Hundred Years Together” and not so much the allegedly ‘fictional’ Gulag Archipelago. And the most offending part of the ‘Gulag’ is its disclosure that instrumental in the creation of the Gulag and its functioning were people like Naftaly Aronovich Frenkel, Matvei Davidovich Berman, Semyon Grigoryevich Firin, Lazar Iosifovich Kogan, Yakov Davidovich Rappoport. You fill in the dots.
Why the bitterness? Statistics for people in the top 25% show increasing real income. This is corroborating by the spread of high-end stores that cater to them. I am simply describing reality.
Credentialism? You don’t think that someone putting in the time and effort to get, say, an engineering degree deserves a higher income?
It hasn’t been. As I wrote, the bottom 25% have seen a drop, the middle have been stagnant/stable.
More accurate: expanding upper middle class (though still, of course, a minority).
I thought you were some sort of reactionary, who would therefore on some level appreciate inequality and its associated refinements…
Vastly? For most people? Sorry, that is B.S. Various examples: real wages, adjusted for inflation, have been about the same. Size of average houses has increased. Number of automobiles per person is about the same. Size of TV screens has increased. Okay, tuition has increased dramatically in cost. But where is this “vast drop” in standard of living?
You posted an article about the decline in home ownership in the USA. Well, the article is meaningless because it does not account for the influx of poor immigrants, which would negatively impact such statistics. In 2015 home ownership among whites was 72%, among Latinos 46%. These numbers have been fairly stable over time, but as Latinos become a higher % of the population, the overall rate declines. Similar phenomenon for student loan debt.
Your efforts are commendable.
How unfortunate. The corporate world is a playground for psychopaths. I heeded my family’s advice to avoid it.
I explicitly wrote, in the previous post, “It obviously isn’t good, but is not the catastrophe you portray” It is of course problematic that the top 1% have seen a huge increase in their wealth, the top 25% a less substantial increase, and everyone else has seen no improvement or a drop. We ought to do something to help those who work hard but are less fortunate. But – the extent of this problem can hardly be described as catastrophic. Russia in the 90s was catastrophic. This doesn’t come close.
I picked a nice picture. Here is another example of housing for working Soviets:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/71/41/52/714152b9a3497d87865bdecdc214afa5–russian-girls-urban-decay.jpg
Worse than American housing projects.
Thanks for sharing your opinion of the building above, and demonstrating that as a Sovok you can truly appreciate it.
And while poor Soviets were getting crammed into their housing projects, Americans in the 1960s were moving into these places:
https://d2jf00asb0fe6y.cloudfront.net/postwar-american-suburbs_00_e97b6d5fda18f2e1a7b6dd02720296f6_rep.jpg
Because I know this game and so do you, and you’re intentionally twisting it to hide the fact that credentialism in the United States has very little to do with academic advancement and almost everything to do with having money and connections to play the game. This effectively forms a class structure; and for those who don’t get these advantages, student loans are another bubble.
The fact that you’re trying to play dumb about this and the fact that you don’t seem ignorant suggests that you’re not debating in good faith. You’re ignoring the spiraling stupidity and inefficiency that this is gravitating to.
I’ve literally put forth the numbers and you’ve ignored them. So I’ll just repeat myself – the cost in living has increased significantly while wages have not increased proportionately for most Americans, on the order of 90%. You can scroll up and look it up again.
And no, its not “covered by inflation” calculations, which is why such calcuations have been surprisingly useless. The result of this has been masked by the increase in dual income families, total debt and increasing work hours(as well as lowered benefits from work and decreased full-time jobs), but it doesn’t change the fact that this has happened. Almost anyone with roots in the country stretching back even one or two generations in my experience has noted about it. Like I mentioned, even Robert Reich covered this in Inequality For All – hardly a right-wing manifesto.
The fact that I can take literally ten seconds and pull up evidence of this shows how plainly evident it is – the shrinking middle class and the ever rising need for a double-income family despite ever decreasing discretionary spending.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/25/upshot/shrinking-middle-class.html
http://www.mybudget360.com/two-income-trap-dual-income-trap-household-income-middle-class-two-income-trap/
And all covered through debt and at an ultimate detriment of any long-term individual net worth, all to ultimately serve a rentier class of wealth and assets to generate more wealth(and assets) over a debtor class. My family is one of such, but unlike you, we’re not blind to the fact that this is hardly fair or right for an overall society.
The real reason of the attacks against Solzhenitsyn is “Two Hundred Years Together”
This is possible though the attacks started earlier before 200 Years was published.
I can accept that some numbers given by Solzhenitsyn are too high. But one should keep in mind when and under what circumstances he was writing the Archipelago on what kind of underground research he could base his book. Personally I have great admiration for him and like his novels and short stories very much. There is greatness of human and Russian spirit in them that like in Tolstoy works is transcendental. He was a great Russian patriot. He was an exceptional man. One of the greatest men in history.
The attacks started well before the “200…” because the attitudes of S were containing ‘in nuce’ (and more boldly) the general theme of the “200…”.
He did not meet the expectations of the West, namely speaking ill of national Russia. The West was at the time in the fake process of ‘discovering’ the crimes of Stalin (but not of Lenin/Trotsky’s ‘true’ Communism). Stalin was a closet ‘antisemite’ and a ‘Russian nationalist(!)’ , wasn’t he? The West took the stand that the faults of the Soviet system were a manifestation of Russian character and of the Russian people’s willingness to endure tyrants (and persecute Jews because of their Orthodoxy). Soviet expansionism was blamed on the traditional geopolitical interests of the nation-the desire for warm-water ports, for example -or on the legacy of oppression and imperial adventure held over from the tsars. Blaming Russia for the faults of communism “comforts the entire West” which supported openly or underhand the Communist experiment. Solzhenitsyn reasoned: “If the horrors of the U.S.S.R. stem, not from Communism, but from the unfortunate Russian tradition . . . then the West has nothing to fear. It follows that nothing bad will happen. If socialism does overtake them, then [it will be] a virtuous socialism”. And they would not feel any pangs of conscience that they contributed to the senseless slaughter of millions of Russians.
Is AP a rentier, however? IIRC he’s a skilled white-collar like a doctor or dentist (or lawyer but AP doesn’t fit the type).
These people get paid tons of money – $10,000+ per month is not unrealistic. You don’t even need any sort of rent on that sort of income to sustain a family + two/three children + dog + nice suburban house sort of Americana lifestyle.
Economics is fundamentally the science of the possible and I don’t see how the United States can realistically do cardinally better than it is doing now or than the alternatives on offer. While the poor in leading European countries do live better, the American middle class is far more prosperous (e.g. doctor salaries in the UK are almost twice lower, and taxes are far higher). Yes, healthcare and higher ed are very expensive, but this can be mitigated – insurance and maintainng an emergency piggy bank for the former; scholarships, pretty generous financial aid for the poor, and saving up for the latter (with lower taxes and higher incomes, saving up is more realistic than in Europe, at least for people with high time orientation).
Yes, the US would be even better if it somehow managed to bring the spiraling costs of healthcare and higher ed under control, but I don’t see how they more than cancel out the real problems of the main alternative model, the Euriopean one. The US still generates a lot more entrepreneurship, innovation, and scientific research than Europe.
Are you for real?
https://msk.realty.mail.ru/offer/sale-coun-3331680671887713.html
This (granted that I would break contractor’s hands for such wall paper) you can have for around $70,000.
This,
https://msk.realty.mail.ru/offer/sale-coun-61027030001606398.html
you can have for around $65,000
All that is near Moscow. If you can show me same quality of housing near NYC, Boston, Seattle, Portland (I omit here this shithole SF) I would really appreciate that. Now, the sheer idiocy of posting here pictures from post-WW II USA which floated in cash and doesn’t know war for 160 years–tell me, who writes this propaganda crap for you? You claim to have been a part of “nomenclature” (at least your wife, as I recon)–I doubt it is true. Have you been to Vladivostok, Novosibirsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar lately? You know where this is?
http://hiddencityphila.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Scheidt3.jpg
You should do better than that.
I can give you this – perhaps in a world with globalization and technology offering scaling that we cannot do better at present. I would offer that its possible to provide things such as affordable transportation and lower cost housing, but my main goal is simply to reaffirm that there is a sense of a drop in the standard of living, and its hardly illusionary.
I don’t think that it is very debatable is that the cost of living has risen dramatically, often in indices which the Fed clearly underestimates.
http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-2014-inflation-1950-vs-2014-data-housing-cars-college/
This naturally makes discourse more acrimonious because when children feel like they will essentially live worse off than their fathers(nicer smartphones and safer cars notwithstanding), it doesn’t bring any joy. And while you could totally have an economy based off catering to the top 25%, that fundamentally changes the character of the nation from a middle-class nation where the myth of social mobility is strong, to a much more stratified one.
Please stop insulting me.
I finished my undergrad degree, and pursued a professional degree that allows me to work at a group practice with my own choice of hours (under 40) and with a ~90th percentile income. This is pretty much how it works for most for the people I know. Examples of friends: a former professional from Russia. When she came to this country for whatever reason she didn’t confirm her previous degree but instead got a degree as a dental hygienist. She makes 80k a year in a mid-size, fairly inexpensive metro area and has a nice, stable life, easy work hours, etc. This is only a 2 year degree. A husband and wife, both physicians from Russia. He confirmed his degree, she is working as a nurse. They have a nice house in a suburb with an excellent school, and recently bought a lakehouse. My best friend from undergraduate studied engineering. He works terrible hours, 60-70 hours a week. But he manages major projects and makes mid six figures. He complains that he does all the work for the company while executives make at least double what he does. He is pushing his kids towards eventual medical school, or finance. He lives well.
No connections were involved. No bribes. No magic. Just study and work. And in result – a decent life. This is how pretty much everyone I know personally lives. Yes, it’s different for off the boaters. A couple we are friends with from church don’t speak much English and work as laborers, despite having a university education (law, so not transferable). Their oldest got accepted to a pharmacy school. Median income for a pharmacist is 119k per year. Normal hours, no corporate b.s.
If your world is different I feel sorry for you. Perhaps it explains your one-sided personal nastiness – собака бывает кусачей только от жизни собачей.
For people foolish enough to get student loans for a degree in art history (unless they have wealthy parents), sure.
Maybe. My parents both worked too. I live no worse than they did. Grandparents’ generation only the father worked. Standard of living was much lower on one physician’s income, but expectations were lower too so it was okay.
Charles Murray in his book “Coming Apart” described how much poorer upper middle class people on their single income were in the 1960s. He was right.
It largely means that people like to complain and being a victim is considered to be virtuous.
Your first link was about the shrinking middle class. It shows that the middle income has shrunk from 53% of the population in 1967 to only 43% of the population in 2013. But, the same article shows that the upper income has grown from 7% to 23% in the same time period.
Your second link included this gem: “Try sending your kid to a private college that costs $50,000 per year when you are only earning $50,000 a year as a household.”
Otherwise, such families would send their kids to state c0lleges. Tuition at SUNY Buffalo, for example, is under $7,000 per year.
The article is dishonest. But being a victim is wonderful.
I drive a Subaru; one of the nurses I work with who makes less than I do bought a Lexus on credit. She is such a victim of the predatory debt spiral, poor thing.
I know many people who survived Poland, Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s. That was catastrophic. The current American situation, where the middle and lower classes are slowly falling behind, is bad and unfair, but it is not close to being catastrophic.
Well, I can look up and think that the people at the very top are parasites. It seems that way for me, superficially. But I don’t know them, nor do I know how the system works at that level. Maybe they really are, or maybe they are not. I hesitate to make judgement because I see how b.s. has become widespread in other cases. The “consensus” is that the central and eastern European nobility were some kind of parasites, and that was utterly false – they were a service class who lived well but who worked very hard also. The upper nobility worked as governors or mayors of large cities, or generals, the lesser ones worked as civil servants, junior officers, professors, physicians, etc. Prince Sergei Alexandrovitch was a tireless worker and reformer when he governed Moscow.
The “my budget” website is dishonest. You linked to another of their articles in your reply to mem which I answered. In this article:
Bad, right?
Well, the problem is that average car and average home are orders of magnitude more advanced now than in 1950. You could get a house the size of an average 1950 house and it will be much lower in price than the current median house price. Such a house may be close to your income as in 1950. Ditto for automobiles.
This mostly proves that people want to spend more for bigger and better things than they used to.
Now this is really dishonest:
:::::::::::::::::::
I know people whose kid has gone to U Penn. If your kids gets accepted they automatically get a scholarship with a family income of under 200k a year. It depends on your income.
U Penn has cost calculator where you input family income and assets and you are told what your tuition will be:
http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/net-price-calculator.htm
I just played with it, providing a family income of $60,000 a year for 2 kids and no parental assets. Tuition for such a family is $4,400.
So your source lies.
Of course, such a family could send their kid to a public university. SUNY Buffalo has annual tuition under $7,000.
I’ve been living in the corporate world close to twenty years now and I can easily tell you my world: most resumes are machine read and then read by human resources who mostly focus on keywords. As such, for most candidates, the most important thing is to simply have a college degree – whether or not he went through it because he was diligent student or because his parents paid for a full ride for his six years doesn’t matter. I’ve done enough tutoring too of wealthy children to know that they’re given every single advantage possible to gather the appropriate credentials which later justify further wealth.
After that, the additional filters are certification and other accolades which can be used to build out a profile – and guess where they come from? Largely from having excess money and/or time to be able to spend upon them, as well as having the industrial information from knowing which ones are valuable.
Beyond that? Heavily involved with personal connections – this isn’t to say that this is some sort of intense nepotism, but sometimes just being in the correct circles is enough, such as knowing which company has a free budget and openings.
My experience is the opposite and I think its particularly notable for the descendents of non-postgrad population that what seemed perfectly reasonable before – living off one income and having a house, is increasingly a dream.
I’m not here to compare from other countries that I have little economic knowledge of – my understanding is that the standard of living in Russia, for example, was abysmally low though guaranteed; I can state confidently that the Chinese see their lives as improving, but then again, they had such a low base to start from. However, in references to the US, my argument is simply that the US whether for good reasons or because it was merely “flush with cash and without infrastructural destruction post WW2”, the sense of possible expectations was much higher for much of the population where entry-level manufacturing jobs were widely available and a single wage income could be expected to support a family.
With that lost, its very understandable why many would be upset with the changes. For me, its hard to imagine how that’s even controversial given how obvious it is to anyone who’s spent a good amount of time with Americans, especially in red states. You can even call them members of the victim ideology if you so wish; it doesn’t change how they perceive or the reality of the situation.
Yawn. It has to be against the law to waste unz.com bandwidth and disk space with corny-immigranty ‘American dream’ narratives. Go watch American Rhapsody (or something) and write an imdb user review.
We were comparing Soviet-era housing with American housing projects. Not post-Soviet housing which you linked to.
As for current prices – keep in mind the ruble has fallen, and incomes are much lower than in the USA. I reckon my wife’s large flat in central Moscow lost a few $100k in value.
You can doubt what you want. I’ve lived in Moscow in the mid 2000s, and visited the Urals and St. Petersburg. Haven’t been back since 2013 though.
It’s just the boring reality. It’s not a land of desperation for people who work hard and are educated.
Solzhenitsyn is a master of narrative, and extremely smart in crafting a book to expose a fraud.
His Gulag is a testimonial epic, written deliberately without sentimentality or sensationalism, inexorably opening the reader’s eyes to the whole reality of communism-socialism. One who reads Gulag is exposed to the soviet portrait of Dorian Grey, and cannot but cry that the emperor has no clothes. In older times, it would have been one of those enduring oral traditions that in the end surprise academics by their close depiction of truth.
His 200 yrs together is similar, though crafted as an historian and closely and intelligently circunscribing his argument to russian history, using exclusively jewish sources, and making the reader come to terms with him. By the end of the book, the honest reader cannot but agree with his arguments. What I remember: Russians are responsible for the Revolution, Jews profited grandly from it but ordinary Russians suffered and the Church even more, Jews started leaving after Israel foundation and strengthening of US diaspora, “abandoned ship” rapidly after 6 day war, Russian harshness under tsar does not bear close scrutiny, post 70s image of Russia as ‘incomprehensible anti-Semitic’ is not founded, and Russia (as opposed to Germany) has not held anyone responsible for crimes committed under Soviet government or even to intellectually come to terms with them. This last bit, of course, is politically incendiary, more even than say, menacing to stop reparations.
This is just a nightmare and I feel sorry for you; you do seem like a very decent man. It’s a nasty world. I am grateful that it’s rather alien to me.
This is nonsensical on several levels. First, housing prices has risen per square feet so unless the American square feet of air has somehow improved technomagically, this doesn’t answer it. More importantly, as someone who I assume has more than a casual understanding of marketing, the “differentiation” is in itself an effort to provide an excuse to increase cost. A classic example of this is first-class airfare, where the service provided is not fundamentally different but the price is increased through perceived differentiation. As Dr. Reich noted in his documentary, housing prices rose as household income rose – and its much more likely that this is due to having a higher income to earn off from than anything else.
This isn’t to say that it hasn’t improved the actual product – I’m not the type to argue that newer cars aren’t safer, however, there is something to be said that the actual product itself is less accessible without debt, something with AM referred to and I can relate to.
Yeah, we know. Especially for those who got excellent education abroad — for free — and whose knowledge/profession happened to be marketable when they arrived. The whole 0.01% or so of the population.
I studied here, as did my cousins, friends, etc. and kids of immigrants study here. It isn’t magic, it just requires hard work, normal decisions (don’t study environmental science, or art history, unless you are independently wealthy) and some intelligence.
True, and perhaps they have in relation to salary (I don’t know) but houses have increased in square feet substantially also. This increase accounts for much of the increase in house relative to income. In the 1950s it was normal for a house to have only one bathroom or for a garage to only have room for one car. You can buy such a house today – it will be much cheaper than the median home price. It may even be the same relative to income, as it was in the 1950s.
Sure. People must be made to be dissatisfied, to want more than what they have even if what they have is all right. This has implications beyond mere products.
BTW, what do you think of the tuition claim about U Penn in that article?
even to intellectually come to terms with them
Look at the commenters at Karlin’s or Saker’s article. Very sad. I am afraid in the long term it will come to hurt Russia.
200 yrs together is similar
I was not particularly curious about The 2000 Years thinking that I know about this stuff enough. But since you say that it is as well written and constructed as Archipelago I will read it.
Not completed yet (who does it take so long?) translation is here:
https://twohundredyearstogether.wordpress.com
This differentiation seems to be integral to capitalism at the lowest levels.
A frappuccino con dulce de leche (or whatever) probably doesn’t cost significantly more than a coffee in terms of ingredients or labor. It does however cost 3x more at a Starbucks.
First class airfare, though… that effect is in play there as well, but don’t you have about 2-3x more space just to yourself there? At least that was my impression the one time I got bumped up. Super enjoyable. While I have a rather Protestant mentality and don’t plan on making any particularly profligate purchases should I ever strike it very rich, first class airfare is the one luxury I will be sure to partake of every time I get on an airplane.
I understand what you’re saying. Still, in America, immigrants from eastern Europe/Russia/China are a very specific category of people: educated, ambitious families. Often have some cash when they arrive. Ethnic mafias help also. You can’t generalize from there.
I mean, you can of course, but it only betrays a certain myopia, lack of imagination… Dogmatism… If I could make it, why can’t everyone? Well, there are reasons. Different environments, different circumstances. 200 million people can’t all become dental hygienists and optical technicians; someone has to stock shelves in stores, flip burgers, and serve tables. And someone has to be unemployed too.
Don’t disagree – its fundamental part of marketing and its interesting how well it hacks into human psychology. Fundamentally, a generic sandwich cookie is not much different from an Oreo; and a Whole Food-branded GMO-free organic chocolate sandwich cookie is realistically not that much different from an Oreo but the buyer gains a status impression from each. Such status impressions and benefits translate pricing levels.
First class flight is a bit like that too, though as you noted, there’s a difference – which was further exacerbated by the ever-declining quality of coach seats, meals, and other perks. Its pretty interesting and was a central aspect of what I studied back when I was in school; the declining quality of airline service to price was one of my projects.
What I think is a problem is when debt permits access to, and essentially forces more expensive solution than is needed. What if you, for example, don’t need or want a “modern car” and be in debt? What if you just needed a box with four wheels that doesn’t fall apart?
If your options are to rely on nonexistent mass transportation or to hope to get lucky with an used car from classically sleazy individuals, it essentially limits the choices of a prospective individual to end up acquiring goods that he wouldn’t really want, but is more or less manipulated into with a variety of signals.
I happens often to me, one can only read so much. If you like the man, you might enjoy Pearce’s biography of S. It is a shortish read, and explains really the evolution of his soul. From a brilliant, proud and unbending achiever to a wise and humane person capable of both fulfillment and forgiveness.
https://www.amazon.com/Solzhenitsyn-Soul-Exile-Joseph-Pearce/dp/080101204X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1508269137&sr=8-1
hahahaha- is that Marseille or northern England your attention-whore photo is from?! This is why I cant always comply with AK’s seemingly normal requests , when I’m confronted by such a POS,dumb lying vermin, troll.
AK: Okay, perhaps closing the bulk of such comments behind a MORE tag will produce a more salutary effect.
Those are 40-50 year old Soviet housing you dumb f**kwit. The American picture ( you were too thick to include a picture without cars…thus giving the game away definitely on this not being a modern photograph) is fresh from the time those buildings were built 50-60 years ago…thus making y0ur inclusion of it , even after I already pointed out you making the same stupid mistakeof confusing new with old… simply bewildering..but that’s the job of a fantasist ****** like you…to waste everybody’s time with nonsensical gibberish. Show a photo of a successful 50 or 60 year old American mass housing project …in the city…you prick. This obviously doesn’t exist for many reasons….deindustrialisation of the US leaving impoverished communities ( as Andrei so brilliantly pointed out) being one of them. It’s funny….are you too stupid to know that American demolition experts exist- they demolish several crap American inner-city housing projects every year?
One thing your BS inadvertent helps to show is how groundbreaking and excellent it was to provide 5 storey buildings, creating great social cohesion, in a leafy environment in a busy city….as the Soviets did en masse in Moscow 50-60 years ago. The 5 story part is best because it is not too high…a perfect height.
Seeing as how dumb you were to think disabled access-ramps were common-place in negro ghetto’s in the 1960’s America…..your attention-whore lying is beyond belief and shameful.
errrr……millions…billions of people prefer to live cramped up ( at a much higer height) in high-tech buildings in Hong Kong,Tokyo,London,……than in the wide spaced suburbs of Detroit, or in spacious rural areas….what is your point you dumb POS? City life is a totally different to suburban or rural life and people place higher premiums on it than they do in other areas.
One think your cretinism does prove though is what a miraculous achievement is was by Stalin, the father,along with Lenin, of the artificial state of “Ukraine” to industrialise the USSR and create the conditions for this housing boom. The US had the advantage of starting industrialisation earlier, easier conditions for mass production of cars next to the great lakes…but the USSR overcame this with superior urban planning and the rapid industrialisation….and the superior public transport ( will we see a f***wit troll vermin as yourself try to call the Moscow and Saint Petersburg metro ” unaesthetic” ?) which facilitated this city housing…whereas the prevalence of the car lead to more suburban housing in the US..many of which were unremarkable and in decay now.
Are you a tankie?
Thank you for the information. May I ask: what is the title of your book (if it has one yet), and when will it come out? What topics will your book cover?
You can’t comply because you stalk my posts. Over 50% of your efforts here are vulgar barking in response to something I’ve written. I’m not offended by you (you are incapable of that) but offended that I’ve attracted such a low quality of stalker.
Yes. Built at the height of Sovok civilization and the ultimate reflection of it..
Americans tend to destroy such crap, Soviets lived in it for many generations. Here’s an old project in Chicago:
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1lS2qHevnCYsSSV9f9f6UHc6HTA=/0x0:1648×1080/1200×800/filters:focal(693×409:955×671)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/53362507/Screen_Shot_2017_02_22_at_9.16.43_AM.0.jpg
Did you grow up in a place that is only fit for Chicago slum-dwellers?
Soviet superior urban planning:
http://rodgersrussia.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/aptblodk.jpg
I think any sane Russian ,Armenian “Ukrainian”,Dane, American ..ANYBODY….would prefer to be led by Stalin…. then be lead by any one of the fucked up failures as Bandera,Shukhevich,Timoshenko, the village idiot Klitschko,Poroshenko-Valtsman,Turchynov, Yushchenko,Saakashvili,Pinchuk,Kuchma,Yarosh,Yats,Parubiy,Nayyem,Klimkin,Kolomoisky,Suprun ( or any one of the butjob offspring of cowardly scumbag Ukronazis who fled to US/Canada after WW2)
I don’t think anybody seriously disputes that Stalin/Lenin is and was way more intelligent,stronger,pragmatic,forward-thinking and saner than that sorry list of morons I just produced.
The more I read you (not an easy task, given your broken, convoluted English), the more I wonder why it is that a top-notch professional with such an impeccable education as yours is wasting his lifetime in the impoverished and decadent USA, instead of enjoying all those advantages of your motherland.
Or why it is that, to this day, one finds a steady flow of Russian professionals of all sorts coming to the USA but an almost non-existent flow of US professionals in the opposite direction.
Because America is better at exporting paedophiles than skilled people? Because maybe too many Americans are braindead and ignorant of Russia and many other countries to move there…..or even acquire a passport to do so? Internal migration ( and thus dissatisfaction with their state) , in America has often been huge throughout the “prosperous” 20th century,making your point about “non-existant flow of Americans in the opposite direction ” a moot one. This partly explains Trump’s win where clueless idiots living in California (recipient of much of this internal migration) have no idea how he could have won the election.
Russia has 145 million people, most of who have no intention of ever moving to the US ….plus it has the second highest number of immigrants seeking to work in it.
Maybe Andrei ( and what a pleasure it has been reading his intellectual comments) … likes the sun, the heat and learnt English during the time after Communism where America was put up on a pedestal ( “useless at foreign languages” explaining Americans not moving in the opposite direction?)
Nobody disputes that Russia had a very hard time of it in the 90’s and start of this millennium……..but has since made miraculous progress due to their own phenomonal talent and mentality…….and because of the leadership of one of the greatest political leaders of all time.
Nothing wrong with a Russian moving to the US after Communism there because of money and career prestige( and tough conditions in Russia then)….plenty of people come to work a few years in Dubai, feel no positive connection to it….then go back with their enhanced bank account. Maybe Andrei feels that he can show his patriotism by showing the talents of Russians to it’s most politically hostile enemy?- Russians take great pride in their expats proving successful in the west – this is a perfect way to be patriotic and represent Russia….by showing of the skills of Russians .
Maybe, following the tricky period of Russia deacying after 1991 /America viewed as great…and Russia resurging and America decaying after 2000…Andrei was in the position of he wants to stay there because the kids are settled in school,property, sick mother ( I hope your mother is fine Andrei!)….either way……what fucking business is it of yours where Andrei chooses to stay, you cretin?
hahaha! Again fantasist BS and lie upon lie ( with bizarre crying where you just try and copy my insults,explaining what a POS you are) . What is funny is that you know you are a deranged tramp…and we all know that you have nothing better to do than post more in the first half of this blog than I or AK could hope to post in a whole 5 years!
Just to be clear….I come here because I enjoy reading Anatoly Karlins intellectual,patriotic ,well-researched ,well-argued, honest and thoughtprovoking blog……………you come here because you are a mentally f****dup stalker ,liar,dumb Ukrop-troll (from thousands of kilometres away, of course) …who can’t post on a ukrop blog…..because there is nothing remotely good about Ukraine to write about.
Still working on building up your total of posts in response to mine, stalker 🙂
Nothing will ever make me think that the EU and, especially, the US involvement in the Ukrainian revolution-coup was not a disgraceful decision. It provoked a predictable reaction in the east of the country and in neighboring Russia that has cost thousands of lives.
What a stupid way of returning to a senseless Cold War that was.
However, some Russian commenters at Unz are managing to make me think that West Ukrainian nationalists may have some point, after all.
I admire your patience and level-headed comments, AP.
You won’t, ever, get a straight answer to that question from….certain…types.
Obviously, that behavior reeks of hypocrisy, but, they probably don’t ever register it.
And that also tells a lot……..about the culture/way of life they are coming from.
But, as you probably know (and they do know just won’t ever admit it), because US/West, for all their faults, give an individual a better chance to do something positive with his/her life.
If one is good at something, he/she could make it in West.
In Russia and similar societies/cultures, less likely.
Much less.
That’s why there has been steady “brain/skills” drain from those societies/cultures into West.
And it will keep going on.
At the other hand….there is one more element there.
Lack of, IMHO,deserved respect, really.
As you mentioned….language. Even with perfect spoken/written language there will, always, be at last a hint of accent.
It’s not easy to be at the very top in Russia…and then hear snigger about own spoken word.
So….the blame isn’t one sided here.
There is plenty to appoint to Westerners there too.
Manners…perhaps?
The Professor, for example, does know his stuff well.
Not that I, personally, agree with most of it, but the man does know a lot of things.
And, all what’s needed is mentioning his, what…”broken, convoluted English”.
Which feeds his resentment.
Which feeds, back, your resentment.
And..haha….now this IS funny….on “alt-right” Website.
Anyway….my 2 cents.
Thank you, much appreciated (though I disagree with your first paragraph).
This is an excellent point. One nice thing about the Russian auto industry as it used to be (perhaps still is), is that when a particular model became obsolete, the machines necessary to make the older version were retained and used in some other factory. As a result, people who couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay for the newest Lada could pay less for a new older one. So in 2005 one could buy a newly-built classic Zhiguli that had been built since the 1970s, a new 1980s Samara, a 90s Lada 110 or a 2000s Kalina.
That’s just not true, on several levels.
Some individuals get a better chance.
And if one is good at certain things (the list changes over time), he/she could make it.
And only if ‘getting a better chance’ and ‘making it’ is understood as selling one’s skills/talents at a higher price. That’s fair enough, but there’s more in life than that.
As a native speaker of English, I don’t find his writing style to be difficult or convoluted. Its somewhat technical and has a general feel reflective of older forms of English writing, but I don’t find issue with that – the modern simplified style offers less opportunity for precise wording and is less beautiful overall.
Well….and how exactly is that different from Russia, for example?
There is.
Only, to be able to get that “more” you have to have basics covered first.
And, those basics will be covered better in West than in Russia.
Again, if one has certain attitude/skillset/experience.
I mean, it’s so obvious that this “debate” just makes no sense.
Why don’t you (and similar types) just ask people who came into West from East?
Or those doing their best do make that move?
Could burst your comfortable delusion?
That’s fine. Having delusions I mean, if it helps you dealing with your life.
But selling those around is…….well….just dumb.
Day before yesterday I spoke with late twenties couple from “East” here. Maybe you should try it sometime. Speaking with people who “run away” from there into “terrible” West.
Yesterday, while walking along the beach I saw two more couples speaking Russian. Again, late 20/early 30.
Won’t even talk about Chinese around.
BTW, have you heard Saker or/and The Professor explanation why they live in West they despise and not in Russia they love?
Surreal.
Thanks for your input, Daniel.
In fact, English is only my third language (at least in the chronological order I learned it) so maybe I should be careful criticizing others for their poor English but let me explain what I mean. You may find a sentence like this Shakespearean but I find it difficult to breathe normally when I am reading it:
He also makes many syntactical and grammatical mistakes. For example, spelling Aberdin instead of Aberdeen shows a carelessness and lack of precision that I actually find difficult to reconcile with a technical mind.
And what is a “Flight III Arleigh Burke-class DDG”? Why would you use use such an unusual term to make any kind of point in a general, non-technical debate?
Russian commenters at Unz != Russian people in general*.
Unz people including me generally come off as slightly neurotic, at the very least.
*I imagine, anyway…
Thank you for the recommendation Pierce’s book on Solzhenitsyn.
Eh. I’ve seen a lot of Americans who have murdered the English language worse than with a complex sentence and comma splices. For my part, I guess in that paragraph I just clustered mentally with:
“Do you understand a profound difference in difficulty between even most complex humanities tasks….say ability to design, calculate and then write a manufacturing plan…”
The intent of the paragraph is clear, with the additional details serving as a kind of modifier that clarify the writer’s point. Its fine; its rather dry in terms of imagery from a writer’s perspective and its not like I can picture what is a “aircraft engine’s pylon” but it gets the point across.
Could you post a quote from my comments that sounds delusional to you, please.
Who’s “The Professor”, and why does it seem important to you to dig into other people’s personal circumstances?
People may decide to immigrate for various reasons. One possible reason we already established: being able to sell one’s skills/talents at a higher price. And yet most people – even most people with highly marketable skills – don’t immigrate. If you feel that the fact that some people do immigrate proves something – do you have a good explanation for why most don’t immigrate, and don’t even have any desire to immigrate?
Well…..if you can’t see
and
for this particular topic, let’s just forget about all this and move on.
Look. Millions of American citizens choose to live abroad. Thousands renounce their citizenship every year. So what. I don’t think it proves anything. There’s no paradise on this earth; every place can be good for some and bad for others, or good/bad for the same person under different circumstances. And people migrate (or stick around) for a million different personal reasons that often have nothing to do with the general attractiveness of the place, and especially with their attitude towards its elite. ‘Love it or leave it’ just isn’t a serious argument; it’s something you say when you already lost.
Look. Tens of millions of non-Western citizens have been doing their best to live in West. It proves that, overall, the quality of life in West is higher, for an average person, than in countries they are coming from.
That includes Russia.
Actually, there is paradise on this Earth. 1 “percenters” in US, Russia, China etc….have that.
Mostly on expense of the rest of those societies.
The difference, again, is that scraps given to “donwtrodden” are better in West then the rest.
You can grasp a concept of “better/worse” I hope?
People migrate (or stick around) for, most of them, quest for better life.
That life is, for those people, better in West than the rest.
Saying you love Russia, having Russian roots and comparing Russia as better place then US/West, but living in US/West is hypocrisy.
If you don’t see that you lack basic common sense and social intelligence.
You don’t like the current system.
I guess that most people who post here don’t either.
But, spewing out or supporting that “Russia better” nonsense is, really, just nonsense.
Of course there are some elements of life in Russia that are better than same elements in US/West.
But, overall, “full life package” for non-elites, is better in US/West than Russia.
But, don’t take my word for it.
Simply go to “immigrant community” part of your city and speak with people there.
As them about: work/pay, law and order, quality of services and similar stuff.
You know, not Heidegger philosophy, just simple life for an average person.
Maybe you’ll learn something.
If you want, that is.
And, I guarantee you, you’ll find more wisdom in elderly folks there than in US/West academia.
Could be fun.
One caveat, though.
You do need a healthy dose of common sense and social intelligence. If you slip there could get nasty.
Be warned.
I admit, though, that as “online therapy”, “Russia better/US worse” is not bad.
Beats pills, alcohol, drugs, shrinks and……… other…… methods of dealing with the shitty world around us.
No it doesn’t. The average person doesn’t emigrate, he stays put.
This is not true, and even if it were, it wouldn’t mean anything. I don’t doubt for a second that a huge majority of poor people would much prefer to live off their vegetable garden in their village somewhere, than to live in the Baltimore ghetto. Even if in Baltimore they can find lobster in a garbage can once in a while.
For those who immigrate? Perhaps. For some of them anyway. But what of it? At the same token, those who commit suicide, perhaps they are better off dead. So? It doesn’t prove that being dead is better than living.
No it isn’t. I can say that southern California is a much better place than the north-east, and yet stay in eastern Mass for the rest of my life. I might have good reasons to stay, or I might just be too lazy to go through the troubles of moving. Either way, I don’t see any hypocrisy whatsoever.
As I’ve been trying to explain to you (unsuccessfully, obviously) immigrants are a special category. Only certain kinds of people tend to immigrate. Once they emigrated, whatever they feel, they have to convince themselves – and keep repeating to themselves and to everyone around them – that they definitely have done the right thing. Whatever they’re telling you, it doesn’t prove anything; they just aren’t impartial.
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