From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: State Socialism (last one, for sure)
Date: 29 Dec 92 13:02:58 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <20472@ksr.com> cher@ksr.com (Mike Cherepov) writes:
>In article <58039@dime.cs.umass.edu> (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>Your original claim was that the communism was incapable of creating
>>wealth. You now seem to have backed off of this. 
>
>You are still deluded about my original claim.  My position is unchanged.

I should have saved your original post, but my first contribution to this
discussion was a question: "Do you really claim that there was no wealth
creation in the USSR?" Your argument has now been reduced to a claim that
the Soviet system "lagged" and that pre-revolutionary Russia boasted a
"fledgling" capitalism. Fine.

>>Nails what? The xSSR is undergoing a revolution, its entire previous
>>economic system is being discarded. One expects a drop in living standards
>>in such situations.
>
>The peak of Soviet economic growth occurred in late 1980 and at that
>peak there was the order-of-magnitude difference in GNP per person
>between the USSR and the OECD.  Before the drop, as I made clear.

This is nonsense. The peak of Soviet economic growth appeared in the
early 1930's when the Soviet Union was transformed, brutally, from an
agrarian nation to an industrial one. The story of the 1980's is certainly
not one of economic growth, the debts and military costs of the period
of stagnation beginning in the 1970's and the inherent flaws in a clumsy
command economy mounted up and lead to the collapse of the Soviet system.
Your comparison, is pointless.

>> You cite a polemnicist. I cite a serious economic historian.  You don't
>>have to take Nove on faith, but he offers sources, makes an effort to look
>>at all sides of disputed issues, and had no obvious ax to grind. Find
>>a source who is trying to understand a complex phenomena rather than
>>trying to make a point.
>
>Nice ad hominem, but Johnson has nothing to do with the GNP figures I
>quoted - they are current Russian National statistics.  They tell us
>that Soviet per capita incomes at their peak were an order of magnitude
>lower than the OECD.  Nothing I know, from current statistics to ample
>personal exposure to both systems, contradicts that.

You've shifted topics. I have never claimed that the Soviet standard of
living was equivalent to OECD standards. But, the difference between Russia
and France is not purely a difference in the relative sizes of their
communist parties and, as I originally pointed out, Russia in 1913
was far behind the current OECD nations.  Nove documents this quite well,
and you have not cited a serious historian who feels otherwise.
When we evaluate the sucesses and failures of the Soviet model, it is
important to accurately understand the differences between Russia in 1913
and the USA or France in 1913. You seem to want to believe that
pre-revolutionary Russia was well on its way to the capitalist paradise
when the bad commies showed up and stole the cake. This is not a view
which is supported by any serious historian that I am aware  of or that
you have cited. 

>We know now that Soviet incomes were never better than third-world
>level.  Historians who argued otherwise should re-examine their
>methods and selection of sources - they were wrong.

This simply reveals the inadequacy of your analysis. If you show that
Soviet incomes were 3rd world, you need to explain why soviet life
expectencies were not, or admit that living standard and income level are
not necessarily closely related. If we compare the educations and
nutritional level of Soviet refugees with, say, Muslim refugees from 
Bangladesh, we can see what thrid world standards really entail.


>>Your frame of reference is distorting your understanding. "Value" is 
>>socially determined, not a physical quantity. The "value" of plastic
>>lawn flamigoes is greater then the value of the petroleum used to make them
>>only because people are willing to purchase them. The "value" of products
>>produced under the old soviet system cannot be determined by figuring the
>>price that they would have fetched in a world market.
>>propagandistic analysis.
>
>Such an approach towards value precludes all economic comparisons
>between countries.  Using such Yodaikenomics, one could not conclude
>that Americans are richer than the Costa Ricans.  I believe that no

Please. Put a little thought into it. I am arguing against oversimplified
analysis, not against analysis itself. It is very easy to use comparitive
figures to make a partisan political point, but it is much more difficult
to actually increase understanding. 

>mainstream economist or fair-minded person would buy your notion
>that the value of pathetic East German Trabant cars or miserable Soviet
>tape recorders is not reflected by their (low) market price.  The

You persist in imagining my argument to be an apology for the Soviet system.
I am not a fan of Trabants or bad quality soviet hi-fi equipment, but I
caution you against assuming that  the "value" of steel made by a combined
enterprise in a command economy is equivalent to the price that that
steel would have fetched on a world  market.

>>Sigh. These comparisons are only useful for rallying the faithful around
>>one flag or another.
>
>Wrong.  These comparisons were useful for causing emigration to the
>capitalist West from the communist East, knocking down the Berlin
>Wall, breaking the Soviet empire and the USSR itself, and confining
>the Communist economic model fans to basket cases like Cuba and
>North Korea.  Nobody is rallying to your flag any more.

Comparisons did all that?


Your understanding is hampered by your inability to see our discussion as
anything beyond a contest between Soviet and US models. You seem to be
unable to comprehend that it is possible to be a cheerleader for neither
side.   

-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu