/liberty/ - Liberty

https://mises.org/library/russias-march-communism

QTDDTOT next time. Better yet, just search mises.org yourself.

Wrong flag

>>89178

1. In Russia we use the word "oligarchs" and not "billionaires" when referring to these people for a reason, because they didn't make their money through market means, Yeltsin's period was definitely not capitalist. By definition, an oligarch is a person who becomes rich with the help of the government - in contrast a capitalist is someone who doesn't make his money with the government's help, but who made his millions by actually providing a service to society with honest work. You wouldn't use the word "oligarch" when referring to someone like Bill Gates, or in Russia's example - Pavel Durov.

2. After WW2, the USSR/Russia's economic prosperity was always dependent on oil/gas prices and production, the Soviet Union (and its "superpower status") was, almost entirely funded by the capitalist west, and modern Russia still is. If the west really was at war with Russia and wanted to treat us as anything other than boogieman to limit their own citizens freedoms, then they will try to cripple the Russian economy and seize the assets that oligarchs keep in the west, instantly destroying Putin and his mafia, instead of threatening us with NATO expansion.

3. Putin's Russia is still run by oligarchs who extort the people more than they did in the 90s. No one can actually explain the economic miracle that Putin did besides "well, uhh… he nationalized some industries or something" because he didn't actually do anything. Putin just came at a time when oil prices were growing, and saying he did something to fix the economy would be as silly as saying he is the one responsible for video games getting progressively better graphics over the years.

>the Soviet economy put the people first

Back then the country was still a crypto-colony to Europe, but I agree that when not funding infrastructure projects and proxy wars in foreign countries, as corrupt as it was the Soviet government actually tried to fulfill its responsibilities to its people, but only as much as a farmer tends to his cattle to get the most profit out of them. At some point the people in the government realized that instead of giving you (the cattle) free shit paid for by westerners, they can just take it for themselves and blame everything else on capitalism, and that's why you still see the same cocksuckers (or their children) from the Soviet government in the Russian Federation's government today, they never went anywhere.

>cybernetic distribution of goods

Your god computer won't make communism work, don't even try to put us through the same nightmarish social experiments again.

>>89182

this

>>89181

> Uhh no, that was there before. Russia has always had an alcoholism problem, even in the 1800s the government of Russia had made a good amount of revenue by producing Vodka, and even in the Soviet Union it had to be sold in state-run stores. Gorbachev had also mentioned that alcoholism had caused a good 8 billion dollar loss in production, so whether you take that with a pinch of salt or not is up to you, just know that it'd always been there and to act like the opposite is the case is odd. Just because alcoholic psychoses are up doesn't suddenly mean that Russia didn't have an alcoholism problem beforehand.

To add to this, the Russian government has a monopoly on alcohol and sells it at lower than market prices. With all the food prices rising, vodka was one of the few products that has only been getting cheaper and cheaper since the end of the 90s. According to an older statistic, around 40% of males die due to alcohol-related complications before they reach the age of pension, and this is no coincidence, the sooner people die, the less pensions the government has to pay to old people. People are literally drinking themselves to death out of depression, and it only benefits the government that both sells this poison and creates the horrible conditions that people live in, but apparently, this is all the fault of "capitalism".

>>89178

>Russia and the transformation from socialism to capitalism

you mean crony capitalism

>>89185

Yeah, lately pension age was raised so that average life expectancy is less that, btw.

>>89195

is lower that that*

>>89186

You know they refuse to make any distinction

>>89182

>Implying Microsoft's success isn't due to government intervention

Fun fact: Microsoft makes more money from each Android smartphone HTC sells than HTC does, due to patent licensing. Those patents are granted and enforced by the US government.

Now, explain to me once again how Bill Gates isn't an oligarch?

>>89267

Technically, oligarchs earn their money through illegal means, illegal even from their counties' standpoint. Copyright is a legal form of monopoly, while oligarchs do corrupt schemes, blackmail, murder and rob. You have a point about this thing, though.

>>89267

You have a point, a very good one, but I think it's more accurate to say that Microsoft's continued success is due to intervention—to get there they had to compete in the market.

> Life expectancy sank so much it killed almost 6 million people, GDP collapsed beyond repair, infrastructure crumpled, employees were laid off everywhere, massive increase in alcoholism and domestic violence, end of the almost 100% literary rate, shortages, inflation, the loss of the super power status.

Gee, it almost makes you wonder, was Soviet Russia systematically lying about many important statistics in the immediately prior years? It's almost like they were infamous for doing so or something.

>>89316

OP should have brought up Cuba's statistics about their healthcare and life expectancy. Statistics entirely and only provided by their own reports about themselves.

>>89181

Basically sums it up.

>>89182

>the Soviet Union (and its "superpower status") was, almost entirely funded by the capitalist west

There's an excellent story in one of the Koch autobiographies explaining exactly why his father hated the USSR after he invested millions into their economy only for the soviets to nationalize his mines/oilrigs and declare his contract he had with the Soviet government null. And how they proceeded to fuck up/break half the equipment afterwards because they didn't know what they were doing.

>tie GDP to primary resources like coal, timber & steel

>ship product all around the USSR without using it to inflate stats

>claim post war reconstruction as glorious communism

>ignore things like shoes and brushes

WOWZA LOOK AT THOSE NUMBAHS!

A good doco on the insanity of Soviet economics is Adam Curits' The Engineers' Plot

https://archive.org/details/PandorasBoxE1TheEngineersPlot

The charade got exposed, the end of the USSR is the ultimate in bubble bursting.

>>89316

The Soviet system incentivized lying as a means of self-preservation. Even if a bureaucrat wanted to do the right thing and give accurate reports all of his information was tainted by lies and coverups elsewhere throughout. This was particularly bad in East Germany and why the economic output of the Western half of modern Germany is still being transfused into the East to unfuck it decades later.

>>89390

Curious, then how did Eastern Germany have a higher economic growth than Western Germany?

almost as if the West disassembled all industrial capital of the GDR after reunification because it wasn't "profitable" to the service economy

>>89453

Wasn't Eastern Bloc industry equipment years out of date in general and therefore uncompetitive in a market economy?

>>89491

>raods

kek, meant roads.

kek, notice how this filthy commie changed the subject from Russia, to East Germany?

>>89178

>Country collapses

>Economy collapses with it

Wow, it's not that hard to understand.

>>89491

>Both East Germany and West Germany were absolutely destroyed by the war, we can safely say that GDP probably dropped to 0. I mean the war had just finished. So a comparison of the two shows that by 1950, West Germany had 5.2 GDP per capita whereas East had 2.0. So already we see a failure from East Germany to catch up. But then what of the economic growth?! Afterall East increase 6.25X whereas West only increased 4.34%, right?

I'd like to follow up this comment and say that I have two close family members who got mathematics degrees specializing in statistics, and both of them agree that measuring percentage of growth is inherently disingenuous.

>>89654

Nothing really collapsed, it was all intentional. The same ministers who were in the Soviet Union are still in Putin's government.

>>89489

economic growth is bad for environment

>>89316

/thread

Seriously, why isn't the answer this simple?

>>89756

>>89798

stfu animeposter