Just to remind you comrade, Soviet leaders themselves found it unbelievable how full the supermarket shelves are when they visit the West
Overly full shelves in supermarkets weren’t the case in the USSR by design, not by accident. Most capitalist countries run what are called “surplus economies”, in which companies normally manufacture more goods and services than they can allocate, and a certain percentage of output, as well as input, is wasted. The Soviet economy, on the contrary, ran a shortage economy. In a shortage economy, you plan the production of goods and services so that it will match the demand as closely as possible, therefore very rarely having a surplus of any good or service unless that’s designed to be exported, but also not leaving any capital or any human labor available without using. Since the Soviet economy was mostly closed off to the outside world and was primarily self-reliant, it wanted to employ its resources in the most efficient way possible. Unemployment was literally 0%. Producing, say, 10% more loaves of bread, or 10% more milk, or 10% more eggs, in an attempt to create a surplus in supermarkets as in the western world, necessarily implied lowering the amount of labor and capital used in other sectors of the economy, e.g. 10% fewer electric drills or 10% fewer trolleybus parts.
Surplus in supermarkets in the west compared to lack of surplus in supermarkets in the Soviet Union isn’t a consequence of “the success” of the west, but of the different priorities and designs. Either way, surplus in supermarkets in the US isn’t very useful when 40 million US citizen, of whom 12 million are children, live in food insecurity.
Sure, it’s an effective system to develop patience waiting in line for hours and perfecting rationing.
There was zero employment at the expense of national budget. People are paid regardless of productivity. And even then, productivity is questionable given the restrictive period plans whereby workers and managers are under pressure to meet quotas, and resort to distorting statistics and figures to appease the party apparatchiks, or else they get punished in euphemistic term. Who knows if there was actual more abundance in certain goods and commodities in Soviet Union.
Thank you for showing us that you’ve never read any seriou economic analysis about the USSR and you’re just regurgitating anti-communist propaganda. Productivity in the USSR was comparable to any western capitalist country, except possibly in agriculture for complicated reasons that I’m not gonna get into. If you make such claims of big productivity differences between USSR and western countries, you should back that up with serious sources, so please go ahead and enlighten us all.
Breadlines happened during wartime and during the perestroika, not at any other times, again please feel free to look that up.
There was zero employment at the expense of national budget
I take it you mean unemployment. But your logic doesn’t make any sense. Employed people, you know, produce goods and services. Not like unemployed people. The inefficient thing that runs at the expense of the national budget is unemployment, you know, when you have to maintain people who don’t work.
Nobody claims that the USSR didn’t have flaws in its economic planning. The lack of supervision and crackdown on infringement led to a decent bit of stealing from state property and resale at the black market. The fake production quotas happened in some sectors at times. And too-strong top-down planning led to some problems like the plan to plant corn in Siberia. But all economic systems have flaws and the USSR was absolutely not less efficient on average than any western country, as proven by the fact that it went from being a feudal backwater empire in 1917 to the second world power of the 20th century.
Thank you for showing us that you’ve never read any seriou economic analysis about the USSR and you’re just regurgitating anti-communist propaganda.
The standard communist thought terminating response “you haven’t the theory, so you don’t know what you’re talking about and shut up”. That maybe the case, but that is irrelevant. Which system is still standing as we speak? Even China is communist in name only and is a state capitalist with rapid increasing number of billionaires than the United States in the past couple of years.
Rationing and breadlines still happened for more years as opposed to free market economy, man. It’s not even consumer and basic commodities that is scarce, but even cars are. It is well known how Soviets had to wait seven to ten years just to buy a car. There is scarcity economy because the system is not great, with prices of everything controlled by the state, which is contrary to the realities of market supply and demand. If communism is great, it wouldn’t have fell. And the remaining “communist” countries are only as such in name only.
Again, thank you for enlightening us with your lack of researched analysis. Please, I beg you to tell me a single book on the topic that you’ve read.
It’s not even consumer and basic commodities that is scarce, but even cars are
Cars are a consumer commodity. I already explained the shortage economy of the USSR. You’re trying to compare the consumer capabilities of citizens of the USSR with what, those of the US? The literal hegemon country of the world, participating in colonialism and unequal exchange to absurd degrees, and industrialized for 100 years more than the USSR? The comparison is ridiculous.
If communism is great, it wouldn’t have fell
…which it didn’t. The illegal, antidemocratic, top-down dismantling of the USSR, was a political decision taken by a few politicians in the party, not a “failure that made the country crumble”. The USSR survived to a civil war, and to a WW2 in which Nazis murdered 25mn+ soviet inhabitants. Much worse economies like that of Cuba still subsist with a very healthy base of communist citizens. Please, go read a history book, instead of spouting the anti-communist propaganda we’ve all heard a million times. The USSR didn’t fall, it was dismantled.
Mate, stop with the coping and repeating the same drivel of “read theory” because communists can’t think for themselves. The theory is nil when the empirical evidence is there. Communism fell. USSR fell when the constituent states seceded. The former Eastern European elected to form their own independence. China is communist in name only. Cuba is as you said-- subsisting-- as a result they cannot maintain their buildings and many historical buildings are deteriorating. Many Cubans earn more money as taxi drivers than doctors!
More people risked crossing the wall and borders being shot and crossing the sea to flee from communist countries, than people from capitalist countries to communist states.
You’re trying to compare the consumer capabilities of citizens of the USSR with what, those of the US?
Oh the strawman, the refuge of those who are-- well-- grasping for straws. I never said anything about the US. But sure, do so and ignore the other capitalist countries whose citizens could easily buy more cars and in an instant, such as UK, France, Japan, South Korea and Italy. And those countries are known for car manufacturing.
But sure go ahead, keep coping with the drivel that scarcity economy in communist states is by design when it is just a cover that communist countries are, in fact, experiencing chronic food, consumer and commodity shortages because of voodoo economics they practice. Lol, “scarcity by design” is the funniest cope I have seen from tankies. Tell that to the people who died from Holodomor, famine in China, and from Lysenko’s agricultural bonkers of a science. Even China abandoned communism wholesale and Cuba finally acknowledged that the “market is a fact of life” and allowed greater degree of economic liberalisation into their constitution.
Dream on bud. Communism will work any minute now despite contrary to empirical evidence that it is plain as day for the eyes to see. See with your eyes for yourself, instead of spouting what you call “theory” with your script like an non-thinking NPC.
Overly full shelves in supermarkets weren’t the case in the USSR by design, not by accident. Most capitalist countries run what are called “surplus economies”, in which companies normally manufacture more goods and services than they can allocate, and a certain percentage of output, as well as input, is wasted. The Soviet economy, on the contrary, ran a shortage economy. In a shortage economy, you plan the production of goods and services so that it will match the demand as closely as possible, therefore very rarely having a surplus of any good or service unless that’s designed to be exported, but also not leaving any capital or any human labor available without using. Since the Soviet economy was mostly closed off to the outside world and was primarily self-reliant, it wanted to employ its resources in the most efficient way possible. Unemployment was literally 0%. Producing, say, 10% more loaves of bread, or 10% more milk, or 10% more eggs, in an attempt to create a surplus in supermarkets as in the western world, necessarily implied lowering the amount of labor and capital used in other sectors of the economy, e.g. 10% fewer electric drills or 10% fewer trolleybus parts.
Surplus in supermarkets in the west compared to lack of surplus in supermarkets in the Soviet Union isn’t a consequence of “the success” of the west, but of the different priorities and designs. Either way, surplus in supermarkets in the US isn’t very useful when 40 million US citizen, of whom 12 million are children, live in food insecurity.
Sure, it’s an effective system to develop patience waiting in line for hours and perfecting rationing.
There was zero employment at the expense of national budget. People are paid regardless of productivity. And even then, productivity is questionable given the restrictive period plans whereby workers and managers are under pressure to meet quotas, and resort to distorting statistics and figures to appease the party apparatchiks, or else they get punished in euphemistic term. Who knows if there was actual more abundance in certain goods and commodities in Soviet Union.
Thank you for showing us that you’ve never read any seriou economic analysis about the USSR and you’re just regurgitating anti-communist propaganda. Productivity in the USSR was comparable to any western capitalist country, except possibly in agriculture for complicated reasons that I’m not gonna get into. If you make such claims of big productivity differences between USSR and western countries, you should back that up with serious sources, so please go ahead and enlighten us all.
Breadlines happened during wartime and during the perestroika, not at any other times, again please feel free to look that up.
I take it you mean unemployment. But your logic doesn’t make any sense. Employed people, you know, produce goods and services. Not like unemployed people. The inefficient thing that runs at the expense of the national budget is unemployment, you know, when you have to maintain people who don’t work.
Nobody claims that the USSR didn’t have flaws in its economic planning. The lack of supervision and crackdown on infringement led to a decent bit of stealing from state property and resale at the black market. The fake production quotas happened in some sectors at times. And too-strong top-down planning led to some problems like the plan to plant corn in Siberia. But all economic systems have flaws and the USSR was absolutely not less efficient on average than any western country, as proven by the fact that it went from being a feudal backwater empire in 1917 to the second world power of the 20th century.
The standard communist thought terminating response “you haven’t the theory, so you don’t know what you’re talking about and shut up”. That maybe the case, but that is irrelevant. Which system is still standing as we speak? Even China is communist in name only and is a state capitalist with rapid increasing number of billionaires than the United States in the past couple of years.
Rationing and breadlines still happened for more years as opposed to free market economy, man. It’s not even consumer and basic commodities that is scarce, but even cars are. It is well known how Soviets had to wait seven to ten years just to buy a car. There is scarcity economy because the system is not great, with prices of everything controlled by the state, which is contrary to the realities of market supply and demand. If communism is great, it wouldn’t have fell. And the remaining “communist” countries are only as such in name only.
Again, thank you for enlightening us with your lack of researched analysis. Please, I beg you to tell me a single book on the topic that you’ve read.
Cars are a consumer commodity. I already explained the shortage economy of the USSR. You’re trying to compare the consumer capabilities of citizens of the USSR with what, those of the US? The literal hegemon country of the world, participating in colonialism and unequal exchange to absurd degrees, and industrialized for 100 years more than the USSR? The comparison is ridiculous.
…which it didn’t. The illegal, antidemocratic, top-down dismantling of the USSR, was a political decision taken by a few politicians in the party, not a “failure that made the country crumble”. The USSR survived to a civil war, and to a WW2 in which Nazis murdered 25mn+ soviet inhabitants. Much worse economies like that of Cuba still subsist with a very healthy base of communist citizens. Please, go read a history book, instead of spouting the anti-communist propaganda we’ve all heard a million times. The USSR didn’t fall, it was dismantled.
Mate, stop with the coping and repeating the same drivel of “read theory” because communists can’t think for themselves. The theory is nil when the empirical evidence is there. Communism fell. USSR fell when the constituent states seceded. The former Eastern European elected to form their own independence. China is communist in name only. Cuba is as you said-- subsisting-- as a result they cannot maintain their buildings and many historical buildings are deteriorating. Many Cubans earn more money as taxi drivers than doctors!
More people risked crossing the wall and borders being shot and crossing the sea to flee from communist countries, than people from capitalist countries to communist states.
Oh the strawman, the refuge of those who are-- well-- grasping for straws. I never said anything about the US. But sure, do so and ignore the other capitalist countries whose citizens could easily buy more cars and in an instant, such as UK, France, Japan, South Korea and Italy. And those countries are known for car manufacturing.
But sure go ahead, keep coping with the drivel that scarcity economy in communist states is by design when it is just a cover that communist countries are, in fact, experiencing chronic food, consumer and commodity shortages because of voodoo economics they practice. Lol, “scarcity by design” is the funniest cope I have seen from tankies. Tell that to the people who died from Holodomor, famine in China, and from Lysenko’s agricultural bonkers of a science. Even China abandoned communism wholesale and Cuba finally acknowledged that the “market is a fact of life” and allowed greater degree of economic liberalisation into their constitution.
Dream on bud. Communism will work any minute now despite contrary to empirical evidence that it is plain as day for the eyes to see. See with your eyes for yourself, instead of spouting what you call “theory” with your script like an non-thinking NPC.