From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: State Socialism (last one, for sure)
Date: 30 Dec 92 20:49:07 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <4269@mitech.com> gjc@mitech.com (George J. Carrette) writes:
>In article <58077@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>> 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. 
>
>Maybe you can help me with a serious problem. I cannot figure
>out how to measure economic growth in an environment where millions
>of people are dying. In particular:
>
> How do you value the output of the slave
> labor as compared with the value of the slaves that died?

The Soviet Union in 1918 was an agrarian nation, depending on others
for industrial goods and capital. The Soviet union in 1935 was
an industrial nation, producing its own industrial goods despite 
the hostility of the worlds most powerful nations. Most economists,
I believe, would consider that evidence of economic growth.
>
Your questions are good ones, but apply to all industrial nations.
How can we value the output of the African slaves whose labor
powered the early development of the US industrial base? Or the value
of the American Indians who were murdered to open up the forest which
provided the raw material for the US shipping industry? Or the value
of the lives of the children who pulled coal cars in British coal 
mines, or the  Chinese who became addicted to opium  courtesy of
the British government. Clearly the creation of the US shipbuilding
industry was no favor to the Africans who got crammed into 3 foot
high storage rooms and were shipped over to work cotton fields or
cut sugar cane, and the creation of the Soviet industrial system
did no good for the millions who starved in the Ukraine. But I can't
think of a nation that industrialized without committing some horrible 
crimes or getting foreign aid. Can you?

>>[straw man where ...]
>> pre-revolutionary Russia was well on its way to the capitalist paradise
>> when the bad commies showed up and stole the cake.
>
>Was anyplace a "capitalist paradise?" Was the USA a paradise?
>
>Can anybody deny that "massive changes" took place in the UK, USA?
>But were millions of people killed by the government, or even
>by capitalist private armies during the industrial revolution?
>Certainly not. The USA in particular was attracting millions of
>people. 

certainly you know little about US history if you can make this
claim. Millions of Africans did die, as did millions of American
indians. The British industrial revolution immersed a huge section
of the population in grinding poverty and slave labor work conditions,
and those who dared to protest were murdered, and this does not
begin to take into account the pillage of Africa and India. 

Look, if you just want to wave the flag around and cheer yourself
with your brave stand against Stalin, go ahead. But, history is not
as simple as some might like it. Russia in 1913 was not the same
as America in 1830, it had different traditions, different neighbors,
and existed in a different world economy. I'd like to understand what
happened.

>What was it about the Communist systems that made it possible,
>convenient, or otherwise available to kill millions of people in order
>to effect these "massive changes?"

And what was it about the capitalist system that made it possible to
enforce the enclosure laws, use human beings as property, put
8 year olds in coal mines, cut off the hands of conquered people
who would not work nonstop (Belgium congo),  .... ? The lenninist
ideology is a pernicious one and Bakunin's critique of Marx in the
1800's has been shown to be horribly accurate, but the comic book
"evil empire" level of analysis is not particularly informative.


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu