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Lately I've been thinking a lot about the fall of the Berlin Wall/Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc and the way it's changed the world in the past 20-25 years.
On one hand, a lot of countries like Poland and China are much wealthier than they once were, and have a lot more to eat, can afford technological products, and so on. Anyone younger than about 15 or 20 in these countries can't even remember the interim after communism in the 1990s when there were hard times let alone the communist era itself.
Yet on the other hand, the fall of communism devastated a lot of economies. People started leaving California once the military-industrial complex left, though Northern California fared somewhat better due to Silicon Valley. California's been losing people since about 1990 or 1991 aside from immigration. This decline doesn't even compare to what happened to North Korea of course, where there was a famine that killed possibly millions of people, or even to Japan who's economy still is in the crapper 20 years later and where people basically aren't having children anymore because it's too expensive and they're too busy working long hours to keep up their standard of living, exactly what I think is now starting to happen in America. Don't be surprised if by 2030 the average American is 45 years old.
I think there are very few places that weren't affected by the fall of communism. The collapse essentially led to a lot of modern day phenomena such as the rise of the internet which was until the mid 80s a classified technology, but not only that but also the rise of American cultural hegemony and as the 'world police', the rise of gentrification in major cities all over the world and the buyout of radio stations which is why pop culture started to suck and art suffered in the 1990s onwards, capitalism appealing to the lowest common denominator such as South Park, Jerry Springer and reality shows.
It's impossible to have any true new genres come out like Punk, Hip Hop or even grunge when the cities are priced out to ordinary people and the only stores are Walmart, Target and Starbucks. So basically we're still stuck with the early 90's pop culture with slight modifications here and there due to technological advance which is the only thing that's really changed in 20 years.
When communism fell corporate accountability went out the window. Even countries like Sweden started to make their economies more like the USA. The 1990s also saw the rise of neo-conservatism, black president aside America is in many ways more conservative than it was in the 1960s-70s. There's many people who would like to get rid of welfare, and see corporal punishment return, destroy all cultures except the consumer culture, and Disneyfy the cities even more, essentially they'd like America to become a gigantic version of Singapore that's the neoconservative endgame.
There's really no middle class anymore, and no true upper class in the sense that rich people today don't really have any true class at all. Kids today either want to imitate the lower class and be gangstas and teenage parents or they want to imitate the rich and be snobby hipster 'individuals' and name their spoiled kids after cities they would like to live in.
I'm not saying bread queues and gulags is the answer. Hell Russia is a capitalist country now, run by the mob and they still have gulags. America's prison system is basically the same scale as the gulags if not quite as harsh in its conditions. I think if the Soviet Union wasn't dismantled they could have kept glasnost and perestroika going and maybe developed into a cooperative economy and improved their human rights situation rather than an imitation of the corporate gangster paradise that is the United States.
I just think that the existence of an alternative ideology to American-style consumerism kept us in check, it actually influenced the West more than we would like to admit to. I think it's no coincidence for example that soon after communism fell, many US cities got rid of their apartment price controls and bam, all the lower and middle class people had to leave because of the power of the invisible hand uncontrolled and so the sense of place in those cities was destroyed or at least heavily tarnished. I think that's the reason why regional accents are dying out, not because of television or the Internet which really don't influence accents that much.
Communism might have been what prevented us, for a time from turning the world into a global corporate United States where culture doesn't matter, history doesn't matter, family doesn't matter, friendship doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is me, my rights, that people tolerate my self-centered and shallow behavior, my cell phone and my coffee.
Communism is alive and well. The GOP greed is turning communist China into the world's next superpower.
Hardly. China is about as Communist as Singapore. The PRC is communist in name only...a more accurate representation of the PRC is state capitalism. I know that your slight isn't so much at communism as it is a missed shot at the GOP, but claiming that the Chinese are anything resembling Communism is blindly misguided. Last I checked, Romney is the only candidate that is claiming that he wants to lable China a currency manipulator which is WHY we are losing rust belt jobs left and right. The yuan SHOULD be one of the most valuable currencies in the world and subsequently Chinese goods should be expensive. Their government has screwed with their currency causing HUGE trade imbalances.
And if you think it's "GOP greed" you should go through your house and look around to find how many items were produced in China in opposition to their American and Euroean counterparts. Maybe you're greedy too.
To the OP:
The fall of communist governments was both good and bad for the world. Good in the sense that it gave countries in the East a chance at a thriving democracy (See Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, etc). And bad in the sense that it has dramatically increased income inequality and dramatically decreased quality of healthcare in those areas. I personally prefer to see Communism relegated to the bowels of the past where it belongs, but I do acknowledge that for all it's bad...some good came from it. The primary issue with the question is that "true communism" really hasn't, or can't be tried. Marx essentially claims that communism must exist as a stateless entity...so to make the claim of a communist country is an oxymoron. The closest thing that one could find that would truly resemble communism would be a series of hippy communes in close proximity.
Communism is alive and well. The GOP greed is turning communist China into the world's next superpower.
That is the most insane statement I've read this morning.
The GOP (not corporate greed and small business over-regulation) is to blame for China becoming a superpower? You don't understand that the US is not the only country buying cheap Chinese products. China has artificially lowered the value of their money to keep their exports cheap.
If you own a computer, tv, radio, car, appliance, cell phone, containing Chinese components, you have helped to make them a superpower. Since there are more liberals than conservatives, and almost all of them use Apple products... it would be more correct to say the DNC greed has turned China into a superpower.
I voted no...At least the Commies kept the finger on all the 3rd world crapholes that we are embroiled in these past few years, Should have left them alone in Afghanistan too..Let them bleed themselves dry for that ****hole of a place......
That is the most insane statement I've read this morning.
The GOP (not corporate greed and small business over-regulation) is to blame for China becoming a superpower?
You'll have to disregard most posts from this person.
You could ask what the temperature would be tomorrow and they would reply with a shot at Romney or the GOP followed by the typical liberal trademark of the "smack my head" emoticon.
I voted no...At least the Commies kept the finger on all the 3rd world crapholes that we are embroiled in these past few years, Should have left them alone in Afghanistan too..Let them bleed themselves dry for that ****hole of a place......
The definition of insanity is to doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
The USSR went bankrupt trying to tame Afghanistan. How could we be so arrogant to assume our outcome would differ? On top of this, we supplied the taliban with the very weapons they've been killing us with.
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