Debate: Capitalism vs Socialism
Side: Socialism

"You're moving the goal post. You were asking why they hadn't had a productivity boom since the reforms, when they have."Excuse me? I asked why their living standards hadn't risen above the Soviet levels; nor why they havn't risen as quickly and as sharply as the Soviet Union managed to do. It is strange that the Capitalist system hasn't been able to overcome most Soviet living standards even though the problems it has faced are minuscule in comparison with the Soviet dilemmas.Increases in productivity do not translate directly into increases in living standards. First off; you are taking the context of the data from Schroeder and Edwards paper and hurling it about randomly.This statement is rather telling:"It's pretty sad when a Soviet success is getting a few kids to grow fully."First off; this is an indirect measurement of well-being; fully grown humans means well-fed, and well taken care of humans. It isn't as if Soviet technicians managed to tweak children into developing higher. Secondly; you seem to not have read the paper properly, as you are taking some of what was written wildly out of context. Did you bother reading the conclusion section? Do you know how to read a scientific paper? Even though the conclusion technically agreed with you in principle, it undermines you (well, and itself, actually).From the conclusion:"Four different measures of population health show aconsistent and large improvement between approximately 1940 and 1969: child height, birthweight, adult height and infant mortality all improved significantly during this period. Thesefour biological measures of the standard of living also corroborate the evidence of somedeterioration in living conditions beginning around 1970, when infant and adult mortality wasrising and child height and birth weight stopped increasing and in some regions began to decline.The significant improvements in population well-being before 1970 may in part berelated to the expansion of the national health care system, public education, and improvedcaloric and protein supply during this period. Moreover, these improvements occurred during aperiod of rapid industrialization, indicating that the Soviet Union managed to avoid the decline inadult stature that occurred in some other countries during their industrialization phases."The paper gave as an example of one viewpoint the idea that child growth was in parity with the U.S. in some regions but its conclusion indicated the discrepancy was small and that child height merely stagnated (and in a few cases dropped) across the regions of the Soviet Union.In other words: the Soviet system until 1969 nearly matched the U.S. (in a couple cases it matched it, and for certain periods of time). It also took the historically unprecedented path of increasing height during a period of industrialization. It, also, achieved this from a horribly backwards position and through major calamities. For all its faults, and I admit there are plenty, it certainly wasn't as horrible as you hysterical partisans like to make it out to be. I can criticize the Soviet Union just as much as I can praise it, but I won't stand for hypocrisy, scapegoating, and exaggeration.