Debate: Capitalism vs Socialism
Side: Capitalism

It is true enough that some of what a Soviet lacked in real wages was ballanced by universal coverage of certain things. One cannot argue, however, that the quality of those services was at all good; mortality rates due to Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Dysentery~, Typhoid Fever~, Typhus~, Relapsing Fever, and Malaria were astronomically higher than those in England and Wales indicitive of quality and cleanliness too, with ~ marking those deseases which were agritvated in the USSR by the lack of communal hygene. As staggering as the stats are (2,993,072 Soviet malaria deaths vs 0 for England and Wales) the study is careful to point out that deaths in the USSR were likely under reported. "The figures for England and Wales are approximately complete; it is likely that those for Russia are not equally so." ( http://www.marxists.org/archive/newsholme/1933/red-medicine/ch16.htm  Infectious death stats from 1929 )What ever you think of socialized medicine, even those countries with it (like my country, Canada) are behind America when it comes to existant resources and equipment, the US having more MIRs per person, for example, than any other industrial nation ( http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9272  ). This does not mean that the US system is perfect. It just illustrates that even health services which aren't to the socialized magnitude the USSRs was (France, Britian, Italy, Canada, and the rest all have many market-oriented features in their health care) still lack in resources, making the Soviet system the more dismal as it epitomized all the sour features the socialist systems had to offer: "For ideological reasons ... important components of national income – such as services and interest on capital – were excluded from the national accounts of the Soviet Union."The first paper you post (and presumably didn't read close enough) concurs with this analysis. The paper found that the standard of living rose using health status as markers, not that it was exceptionally good. It is very clear that the standards were not close to parity with the United States, which was your main ignorance. From the paper, "These data paint a picture of a society far behind other developed countries in the health status of its population in the prewar period. For example, even in Moscow and St. Petersburg children reached no more than the 20 percentile of U.S. childthgrowth prior to World War II, suggesting widespread stunting of children during that period. But substantial and rapid improvements in child height and birth weight were recorded in subsequent years; as a result by the late 1960s children in some regions reached the 50 percentile of U.S.the child growth. A period of stagnation followed, marked by a large and growing infant and adult mortality gap with western countries and by stable or declining birth weights and child heights. Nevertheless the physical growth record of the Soviet population of the twentieth century remains an impressive one, especially in light of the evidence that some countries experienced declining adult stature during some phases of industrialization."The peak of child growth for the soviets only reached the US's 50 percentile before falling with the economy. The paper is right in calling this impressive, none-the-less. For while it is a lie that they were anything like in parity with the US and Britain, they did improve dramatically, in large part, as the paper says, from post-war improved hygene conditions. As impressive as it was, it would be more shocking if they didn't improve in a post-famined, post-war Soviet Union. The paper goes on to reitterate some of my points about economic growth in a communist system not indicating the standards of living, which is why it concentrates heavily on manifest changes in health and consumption. One striking finding is that consumption in the USSR at one point surpassed US consumption growth, growth being the key word, for their actual consumption was not in parity with the US's by any means: "While the consumption growth record seems clear, it should be kept in mind that this growth took place in the context of a relatively low initial level of consumption, particularly incomparison with the U.S. and the OECD. As a result, even with rapid growth the absolute level of household consumption remained well below that of the United States throughout the postwar period. Estimates vary widely, but per capita consumption in the USSR likely reached no more than one-third that of the United States in the mid-1970s, and probably declined in subsequent years." I don't know what your strategy is, but providing links that demostrate conclusively your ignorance over the "parity" lie does not help your case. The same paper that you posted continues, "Schroeder and Edwards (1981) estimate Soviet consumption per capita at 34.4 percentthat of the United States in 1979." That 33 percent, before it "fell it 22 - 26 percent by 1980. "Mostinvestigators made herculean efforts to correct Soviet consumption measures for the important sources of bias – the persistent shortages of consumer goods, the cost of time spent in search, the poor quality of goods, and the lower level of retail services – but it remains likely that the actual level of consumption was even lower than the estimates given here, and the figures remain controversial."Once again, the empirical method reveals the truth of the matter. Soviet health, consumption, quality of goods, level of retail services, and quanity of goods were all considerably lower than its liberal rivals. The poor conditions were only to be asailed recently, the good sense and market reforms taking over the communist nonsense and market dogmas. Now poverty has falling abruptly, real wages are up at a rate unprecendented in Russian history, and all those areas of life the study touched on have improved. As far as the Khrushchev Thaw is concerned, it is a liberalization in the real sense ("Liberal" reforms aren't just about markets. It's also about de-regulation, de-centralization, and increased civil liberties) . All I meant by it was the even if health and fitness were up in a Stalin world, a true discussion of "Standards of Living" is not possible until the Thaw, because assuming they were healthy and fit and wealthy under Stalin (they weren't as we have seen), they were not free. The Thaw provided more freedom for the Soviet people to express themselves, explore, learn, and integrate. Being healthy and in a ideological prison is not a good standard of living. I would be reluctant to call it living at all. Moreover, as your paper show, and as I already said, all was not merry under Khrushchev Thaw. The data provided reveal "that male life expectancy had begun to decline in 1965 and that infant mortality rates started to rise in 1971, both nearly unprecedented developments in industrialized countries and both signals that, despite the apparent continuous improvements in economic growth and consumption in the USSR in the postwar period, a significant deterioration in the health of some groups in the population was underway."Your second source doesn't contradict this. In fact, it suplements it. It says consumption grew but absolute consumption was still well below the US and England, primarily because of how growth was allotted: "Achieving rising living standards while investment is rising is the challenge of economic development. On the other hand, only a minority of the population shared in this advance. The peasants realized no advance, and the convicts certainly lost. While the administrative elite and the industrial workforce probably did well, 'trickle down' did not spread much further." The paper concludes thus: "This optimistic conclusion is subject to three qualifications. First, the rise in consumption required an increase intotal hours worked, and no discount has been made for that factor. Second, forced collectivization and political terror may have lowered the quality of life more than enough to offset the rise in material consumption. Third, the gains were confined to only a fraction of the population."How desperate must you be in your quest of revisionist history to pronounce these two reports as being in your favour? The first paper found your parity claim absurdist, the second showed USSR growth in the shadow of the US, with a qualification that it may have been offset by "forced collectivism". Hardly sympathetic to communism, and your conceit makes it pathetic only the more.