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People, particularly young people, think it's great because they've been LIED TO - in the media, and in the public schools. They are told that everyone can have a Middle Class lifestyle under Socialism or Communism, instead of the reality: that NOBODY has a Middle Class lifestyle under those systems. There is only the Ruling Class, and the peasants.
And it's far worse than loss of a prosperous quality of life, because you also lose all freedom under those systems. Do you want politicians to decide whether you'll be allowed to buy a car? Or buy a home in the suburbs, versus rent a flat in an overcrowded, dirty city? Do you want politicians to choose whether you get a shot containing an experimental gene therapy (particularly when said politicians are obsessed with population reduction for climate change)? Do you want to let them decide if you are allowed to eat MEAT, or if you must survive on insects and "artificial" meat?
Virtually al African countries are free-market capitalist. No dictators there', no overcrowded dirty cities, no medical ar all, no meat or other proteins in their diet. Public school is under a tree, if a volunteer teacher can be found, or a few scraps of writing paper.
No decent roads except the nice freeway to the airport where the rich drive their air-conditioned automobiles and fly to London to study economics and law. Tell us about the middle class in Ethiopia or Mali.
German observers tell me that a communist economy could have worked if the socialism had a multi-party system, so corrupt leaders could have been voted out of office without abolishing socialism. Just as the US was multi-party with no threat to free market capitalism.
There is a reason that there aren't multi-party elections in such countries. The problem is that the "deep-seated corruption" yields a considerable income that they don't want to give up. In multi-party, mixed socialist-free market Jamaica elections are exceedingly violent, since the holder of power gets the keys to much international aid, that gets siphoned before the people benefit. I can't post a video link but a movie I saw in 1981 (but must date from the early 1970's) called "The Harder They Come" graphically showed this violence. This was explained to me by a law colleague.
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Originally Posted by arr430
Also, the US showed in Korea that it was prepared to destroy militarily any communist-leaning state, so the European communists had to spend most of their resources arming their defense against a very real US threat, instead of domestic civilian development.
That's really not fair. The DPRK invaded South Korea in June 1950 and gave the U.S. and allied powers little alternative. An outside power, the USSR, was spending most of the Warsaw Pact's resources for them to aggrandize itself and feed its own corruption. As was pointed out above:
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Originally Posted by MinivanDriver
(i)t is a failed petrostate.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
People, particularly young people, think it's great because they've been LIED TO - in the media, and in the public schools. They are told that everyone can have a Middle Class lifestyle under Socialism or Communism, instead of the reality: that NOBODY has a Middle Class lifestyle under those systems. There is only the Ruling Class, and the peasants.
As I have pointed out, it's a system that works in university classrooms not in the real world. The students are being subsidized and can afford an idealistic, impractical system. People working at or managing a business don't have that luxury.
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Originally Posted by NHartphotog
And it's far worse than loss of a prosperous quality of life, because you also lose all freedom under those systems. Do you want politicians to decide whether you'll be allowed to buy a car? Or buy a home in the suburbs, versus rent a flat in an overcrowded, dirty city? Do you want politicians to choose whether you get a shot containing an experimental gene therapy (particularly when said politicians are obsessed with population reduction for climate change)? Do you want to let them decide if you are allowed to eat MEAT, or if you must survive on insects and "artificial" meat?
Frankly and at the risk of being "off topic" that is where the universal electrification of vehicles and many of the pandemic restrictions are leading us. The electric vehicle mandates will force rationing of the ability to travel. The pandemic restrictions and governors' use of "emergency powers" allowed the state to clamp down on all activity. It was only a judicial revolt in Wisconsin and state house riot in Michigan both on, I believe, May 23, 2020 that started the "phased reopenings" in many states.
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Originally Posted by arr430
Virtually al African countries are free-market capitalist. No dictators there', no overcrowded dirty cities, no medical ar all, no meat or other proteins in their diet. Public school is under a tree, if a volunteer teacher can be found, or a few scraps of writing paper.
No decent roads except the nice freeway to the airport where the rich drive their air-conditioned automobiles and fly to London to study economics and law. Tell us about the middle class in Ethiopia or Mali.
Actually in theory many are socialist. And since the "economy", such as it is, consists of international aid, the ideology doesn't matter. The government has the keys.
Some markers of economic status aren't visible. Romanians may look "poor", because in cities most people live in apartments. The villages still didn't have electricity, except in the very center. But people who did well in school were able to get free higher education, even all the way through to the PhD level. Nobody went bankrupt to pay their share of hospital bills AFTEr insurance had paid its share. In Latin America, most kids can't attend high school, because they can't afford the schoolbooks, to say nothing of college. Nobody in Romania was turned away from high school.
Sure those countries look run down. The concept of dong maintenance on buildings to maintain the state's "investment" didn't exist. And there was a lot of waste built into the system. Central planning also resulted in a lot of waste and boondoggles.
But Communism as a theory sounds great on paper. It might actually work, if it were decentralized a bit, wasn't so bureaucracy-heavy, and didn't involve totalitarianism. That's what Gorbachev set out to achieve: a restructuring, a re-design. The Dalai Lama studied it a bit, and was impressed. He thought it sounded like a humanitarian system, a perfect match for Buddhism, .... on paper.
This angered an old friend that was from Romania. His late grandfather had been awarded a rifle for his service in WWI. It got him arrested for having a weapon following the end of WWII (when the communists came.)
He recalls field trip days to the orchards. This wasn't to learn about orchards. This was using child labor to harvest the crops. The children had to sing all day long so they wouldn't be able to eat the produce they were picking.
His family had a tractor for their farm. Rather than surrender it to the State for nothing, they buried it.
His mother worked in a toy factory there. The only way to survive was based upon the allocated scrap rates. That was the % that could be taken....and whatever you made could be bartered with others that did the same thing illegally and on the black market.
Higher education was free. It had to be because none of the jobs paid anything substantial. The smart people were given harder intellect slave jobs. The dumb people were given harder labor jobs. Those unable to follow orders like a good slave were arrested. The top jobs were given to the intelligentsia in the party. If whoever was running a service you needed was completely unqualified and incompetent for their role in leading a service you needed to work to survive...that was your problem.
Snitches have a wonderful living. People that would go around and tattle tell on unpatriotic behaviors. Unless of course they snitched on the wrong person. Then they were dead.
He never spoke of healthcare, but a Chinese doctor did. As all doctors had to do, she performed forced abortions, where some lady had been snitched on by her neighbors as carrying a second child. They controlled cost by simply limiting supply...to such a degree that when someone entered her cancer hospital, the first question wasn't....what is wrong with you. It was....what does your family control? Otherwise...there's simply no room.
Whether you were living well or terribly didn't really matter. Someone somewhere with the right connections could snuff you out legally at any point in time. You lived in fear. Forget protests...grumbling about conditions was dangerous. Forget community....attending a faith was fraught with risk.
Ask someone from a communist country how they felt the first time they walked into an American supermarket, church or when they realized they were totally free. Ask them if they'd want to go back to the old ways for a little more productivity or whatever lie the modern commies are peddling today.
Communism makes all people equally enslaved....with a spirited few that get to be the slavemasters. Think of the competition, lies, deceipt, tricks and betrayals anyone would perform in order to ensure they are amongst the slavemasters. Think of how many problems go unsolved when voicing them literally could be the death of you.
Virtually al African countries are free-market capitalist. No dictators there', no overcrowded dirty cities, no medical ar all, no meat or other proteins in their diet. Public school is under a tree, if a volunteer teacher can be found, or a few scraps of writing paper.
No decent roads except the nice freeway to the airport where the rich drive their air-conditioned automobiles and fly to London to study economics and law. Tell us about the middle class in Ethiopia or Mali.
You don't seem to understand free market capitalism. Or, specifically, the bedrock it requires in order to exist: rule of law and governmental respect for property rights and civil rights. Unless you have those two in place, then you don't have a capitalist state. You just have a totalitarian regime that allows trade to exist.
Africa for the most part has been hobbled by dictatorial rule and corruption in its various countries over the course of post-colonial history, so your premise makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It is impossible to build wealth or plan for the future if dictators swoop in and take your money by fiat. All you have to do is look at what Robert Mugabe, et al, have done in Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa. Oh, and most African countries have been, at one time or another, nominally Socialist. Learn some post-colonial history.
However, there are one or two exceptions. Take Botswana for example, a country that continues to outperform all of subsaharan Africa, chiefly because it has adhered to policies that are compatible with free market capitalism, as well as a fair measure of fiscal discipline.
That's why China's economic gains will be ephemeral at best. Even now, Xi is laying waste to China's technology sector with nothing more than decrees. Ask Jack Ma of Alibaba how he feels about Communism right now.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 09-12-2021 at 02:34 PM..
You don't seem to understand free market capitalism. Or, specifically, the bedrock it requires in order to exist: rule of law and governmental respect for property rights and civil rights. Unless you have those two in place, then you don't have a capitalist state. You just have a totalitarian regime that allows trade to exist.
Add to that clear titles to real estate. Those allow for orderly capital markets, borrowing against and sale of real property. With no such system an advanced economy is almost impossible.
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Originally Posted by MinivanDriver
However, there are one or two exceptions. Take Botswana for example, a country that continues to outperform all of subsaharan Africa, chiefly because it has adhered to policies that are compatible with free market capitalism, as well as a fair measure of fiscal discipline.
My father designed Botswana's embassy to the U.N. in the late 1960's or early 1970's. It is along the lines that you told me.
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Originally Posted by MinivanDriver
That's why China's economic gains will be ephemeral at best. Even now, Xi is laying waste to China's technology sector with nothing more than decrees. Ask Jack Ma of Alibaba how he feels about Communism right now.
The debt load in China is quite concerning as well, and threatens another global financial crisis.
My father designed Botswana's embassy to the U.N. in the late 1960's or early 1970's. It is along the lines that you told me.
The debt load in China is quite concerning as well, and threatens another global financial crisis.
Like, there aren't any economists concerned about the debt load in the US?
Botswana is a huge anomaly, much like Switzerland. It's economy is floating on the deposits of investors who bailed out early on the doomed (yet free market) economies of Zimbabwe and RSA. Botswana will survive, like Switzerland, because the absentee wealthy won't let it wobble.
Like, there aren't any economists concerned about the debt load in the US?
Botswana is a huge anomaly, much like Switzerland. It's economy is floating on the deposits of investors who bailed out early on the doomed (yet free market) economies of Zimbabwe and RSA. Botswana will survive, like Switzerland, because the absentee wealthy won't let it wobble.
And diamond mines and a host of others. But once again, you miss the point. If Botswana had not performed the hard work of actually creating and maintaining a governmental structure that allowed a decent and trusted banking system, they wouldn't have been a safe haven in the first place.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 09-13-2021 at 07:21 AM..
And diamond mines and a host of others. But once again, you miss the point. If Botswana had not performed the hard work of actually creating and maintaining a governmental structure that allowed a decent and trusted banking system, they wouldn't have been a safe haven in the first place.
Botswanans didn't create their little utopia and invite the wealth in. Like Lesotho and Swaziland, its governing institutions were carefully monitored, and were approved by the powerful white neighbors to be hospitable to their wealthy interests.
Botswanans didn't create their little utopia and invite the wealth in. Like Lesotho and Swaziland, its governing institutions were carefully monitored, and were approved by the powerful white neighbors to be hospitable to their wealthy interests.
Botswana has always sort of interested me. It is an anomalie when you compare it to the instability and violence in so many surrounding countries.
I don't think its success as a country has much though to do with communism or capitalism.
Rather, its success has to do with the fact that the country responded better to British colonial rule than many other countries did. Instead of opposing the British, the leaders in that country sought to benefit as much from British colonial rule as they could. They did a better job of absorbing British institutions, Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, and monetary aid than the other countries did. Botswana did not fight a war or engage in armed conflict to win its independence. The British simply realized it was time to leave and prepared the nation as best it could for self rule. The result of all this was a country that was far more stable than its neighbors. Because independence was achieved in this fashion, there was much good will between Britain and Botswana.
Too often, people want to focus on economics as a reason for success or failure. I would submit that culture can and often is a more important determinant in how a nation develops. If people are peaceful and resort to peaceful means such as courts and mediation to resolve conflicts within society it sets the stage for stability. Stability over a long period time--in turn--leads to prosperity. I'll even go one step further. Prosperity over time leads to more and more democracy and freedom for people. Countries that are not fighting famine and civil wars are more likely to be interested in rights and individual welfare of citizens. Those countries are also more likely to be able to take advantage of opportunities. The opportunity to create a stable banking system in which people would be willing to deposit their fortunes is one example.
...Too often, people want to focus on economics as a reason for success or failure. I would submit that culture can and often is a more important determinant in how a nation develops.
Indeed. Russia never had a substantial middle-class (the much-vaunted Novgorod Republic notwithstanding). It was always a system of autocratic ruler, a small hereditary nobility underneath, followed by a technocrat/bureaucrat/clergy class, and then a vast peasantry. To say that Communism can’t create a middle-class, and destroys what middle class existed before the advent of Communism, is true… but here, beside the point, if the society that came to style itself as “communist” didn’t have a middle class or fair system of justice and property… ever. It would be like turning off the lights in a room occupied only by the blind.
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Originally Posted by markg91359
If people are peaceful and resort to peaceful means such as courts and mediation to resolve conflicts within society it sets the stage for stability. Stability over a long period time--in turn--leads to prosperity. I'll even go one step further. Prosperity over time leads to more and more democracy and freedom for people. Countries that are not fighting famine and civil wars are more likely to be interested in rights and individual welfare of citizens. Those countries are also more likely to be able to take advantage of opportunities. The opportunity to create a stable banking system in which people would be willing to deposit their fortunes is one example.
Another good point! The UK and later the US had the inestimable advantage of no credible military assault from overseas… the US since its formation, the UK since, oh, around 1066. A nation beset by waves of marauders, pirates, imperial legions or divisions of panzers, is more likely to be desperate, fearful, and inclined to autocratic “saviors” who would keep the peace, in exchange of unfettered power. Safe and secure nations are more likely to worry about niceties like private property, separation of powers, a stable currency, contract-law, habeas corpus and the like.
I wonder, if France were an island and England on the continent, would English kings have become absolutists, while the French wrote Magna Carta? If Russia were a Scandinavian peninsula, and Sweden a flat landlocked nation in West Asia, would the Swedes have had an essentially feudal system right up to the 20th century, while the Russians developed an active parliament and rigorous respect for private property?
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