I'm reading a book right now called "Why Nations Fail" (a little drier but definitely worth the read) and it argues that part of the reason why strongly centralized economies fail is that politics gets in the way of optimizing for growth.
E.g. maybe USSR communism could have worked better if there wasn't, say, the coal minister standing in the way of moving resources away from coal to a better use of capital.
That sounds like it could be applied to any Western society today as well. Throughout history, have there been any alternative democratic systems where politicians are less 'powerful'?
Not that there weren't serious economic problems, just that they were not dramatic and certainly not so compared to those of capitalist countries. For example, the Soviet system did a poor job at incentivizing production. Factories that performed worse would often receive greater benefits, as policymakers frequently followed a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" approach. This also happened internal to factories or other productive activities, where there was no real incentive to work more efficiently and sometimes a disincentive. These are, of course, easily soluble problems with greater information and adding some incentives for workers' performance, but I don't bring them up because of that - I bring them up because it's what workers complained about.
Of course they did, this is Marxist doctrine. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Why would this be a bad thing? Who would want to change this aspect of central planning?
> These are, of course, easily soluble problems with greater information and adding some incentives for workers' performance
So did they fail to solve these problems because they were prevented from doing so because of dogma?
It doesn't make any sense to jump straight to "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" in a Marxist tradition. That's a state reached with communism, a proposed end state to a socialist transition of undetermined length - and no actual prescription for how, exactly, any of that would happen.
That would more aptly describe some (non-Marxist) anarcho-communist movements, who believe you can jump straight to a communist way of being without a transition.
> Why would this be a bad thing? Who would want to change this aspect of central planning?
If you are actually punished for making production work better you will become alienated from your job and actually want to do a worse job in order to improve your own personal conditions. People care more about their families, their friends, their local well-being than a far-off bureaucrat's.
> So did they fail to solve these problems because they were prevented from doing so because of dogma?
Not really, they were heavily focused on foreign policy and a growing domestic intelligentsia that was increasingly bourgeois, believing Western propaganda about how much better life was elsewhere and lacking real experience with rampant homelessness, hunger, and the state of poorer countries. That group was actively vying for power and eventually won as the public grew weary of defensive wars and focusing industry on defense and also began to buy that propaganda. That led to serious internal struggles and, eventually, what amounted to a bourgeois coup that dissolved the USSR at the barrel of a tank.
All in all, the problems I described were not dealbreakers. Western bourgeois democracies have plenty of "bullshit jobs", yet we don't refer to that as a problem that's failing to be solved due to dogma - it's failing to get solved because there are dominant systemic forces responsible for it being that way in the first place and they are so fundamental to our typical understanding of how the economy should work that we don't even talk about them, instead distracted by fights between center-right bourgeois politics and far-right bourgeois politics.
It is indeed true that socialists and communists reject the construct of private property and jump to expropriation and violence with no idea how to progress from this state to their desired end state.
> If you are actually punished for making production work better you will become alienated from your job and actually want to do a worse job in order to improve your own personal conditions.
This is why "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a terrible idea and likely to fail in any scenario involving human beings.
> Not really, they were heavily focused on foreign policy and a growing domestic intelligentsia that was increasingly bourgeois
Yes, they were more interested in exporting their ideology to the rest of the world than making it work where they were already in charge, and frustrating people's natural inclinations was so difficult as to require a massive domestic espionage apparatus. But what is even more interesting is that all those loyal soviet apparatchiks became more bourgeoise as they became responsible for allocating more resources. Perhaps the communists could learn something here too.
> believing Western propaganda about how much better life was elsewhere and lacking real experience with rampant homelessness, hunger, and the state of poorer countries.
The propaganda was not too far from reality as many defectors learned.
> Western bourgeois democracies have plenty of "bullshit jobs", yet we don't refer to that as a problem that's failing to be solved due to dogma
I think some people do.
> so fundamental to our typical understanding of how the economy should work that we don't even talk about them
i.e. dogma
> instead distracted by fights between center-right bourgeois politics and far-right bourgeois politics.
Funny, the people on the right say its between center-left and far-left. I think you both need to read more, tbqh.
yes
> and jump to expropriation
yes
> and violence
No. Most individual socialists are reluctant to be involved in any form of violence and anticipate it to be defensive in form. You can kind of get a sense for this when diving into who the foreign aggressors/invaders are in most conflicts and who are fighting anti-colonial revolutions following a general breakdown of society + state violence cracking down on political movements. Not a lot of people eager for violence among socialists. Pretty much the opposite - tons of people who are debilitated by their empathy.
> with no idea how to progress from this state to their desired end state.
I would say it's more that there are many competing ideas on how to do so and there's constant infighting.
> This is why "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is a terrible idea and likely to fail in any scenario involving human beings.
But it's not relevant to this situation...
> Yes, they were more interested in exporting their ideology to the rest of the world than making it work where they were already in charge
I'm referring to actually defensive capabilities. Not the "defense" euphemism that Westerners use to describe very military investments used in very aggressive ways.
> and frustrating people's natural inclinations was so difficult as to require a massive domestic espionage apparatus.
Those were and are very direct responses to spying and disruption. Western approaches to socialist-run countries create the same conditions every time, creating a form of selection (like natural selection) for organizing around fighting foreign influence. You'll note that those who didn't (like Allende) were and even those who tried to but weren't strong enough (like Sankara) were murdered and had their governments replaced by imperial powers.
This doesn't mean their domestic spying was or is good, just that it was, in fact, a reaction to real and active outside threats. Notice that Western powers are currently engaged in widespread domestic spying over much smaller threats.
> But what is even more interesting is that all those loyal soviet apparatchiks became more bourgeoise as they became responsible for allocating more resources. Perhaps the communists could learn something here too.
The people I'm describing didn't have any responsibility for allocating resources, they were nerds in universities.
> The propaganda was not too far from reality as many defectors learned.
Defectors that weren't already straight-up spies were frequently disappointed. They found the main thing that they sought: popular consumer goods that they envied. But they also discovered higher rates of homelessness, hunger, a lack of safety at night, and more reactionary views towards homosexuality and women.
Defectors in the opposite direction had similar experiences. When they weren't spies (they often were), they were disappointed in their experience, as they tended to get spied on a lot themselves. Both sides tried to poison or otherwise murder the others' defectors as well.
> I think some people do.
I haven't met many people that acknowledge the existence of "bullshit jobs" and definitely not any who thought they existed for dogmatic reasons. But we all have our bubbles. Do you have any examples that you're thinking of?
> > so fundamental to our typical understanding of how the economy should work that we don't even talk about them
> i.e. dogma
Ha, I thought the same thing as I wrote it and then got distracted. I'm thinking of implicit ideas of how the world works, where we don't even think about alternatives. I'm not sure whether I'd call that dogma or not. I'm not finding the right words to describe it, unfortunately.
> Funny, the people on the right say its between center-left and far-left. I think you both need to read more, tbqh.
If we try to place these ideas on a one-dimensional axes for convenience, the far left is clearly taken up by socialists and communists. Socialists reject all capitalists as allies and drive a hard line between them and everyone else. The nearest to them are social democrats, who attempt to create a controlled form of capitalism through democratic means, where strong social programs and safety nets prevent (theoretically) the public from suffering the worst tendencies of capitalism. Then there are liberals who might believe in some social programs that already exist, but shy away from creating new ones and tend to prefer market-based solutions. Then there are liberals who tend more and more towards uncontrolled capitalism. Finally, there are factions within capitalists themselves that create ideologies like fascism who attempt to resolve crises in profit due to labor fights by adopting a highly nationalist and xenophobic position that blames "bad" capitalists for everyones' problems and tries to organize around "good" capitalists that do things right.
Social Democrats and liberals in favor of social programs tend to populate the center-left and center. Other liberals are right wing and it just keeps going farther right.
Folks on the right who call liberals in favor of social programs "far left" do so because they've not actually been exposed to actual socialists or as a bad-faith pejorative.
Our perspective is that fascists are not capitalists because they seek to manage the economy through central planning.
The rest of this argument is not likely to be fruitful unless you can critically examine your notions surrounding property and violence. Theres also a healthy amount of revisionist historical thinking that seeks to whitewash the terrible conditions created by communist countries. I'm not interested in debating matters of fact here so thank you for your replies and your perspective.
An incorrect perspective. Fascism is sacrificing one set of the ownership class for another, diverting populism directed against a hostile liberal economic system to only part of that class while giving more power to the rest of it. Fascism is characterized by privatization, not central planning, with a subset of the bourgeoisie gaining vast new powers in comparison. You could even ask Mussolini himself about this in his comments about how fascism should more correctly be called corporatism - and see his transition from opportunistic socialist to opportunistic fascist serving key bourgeois individuals and their interests.
> The rest of this argument is not likely to be fruitful unless you can critically examine your notions surrounding property and violence.
I can critically examine them and always have been able to. Should I interpret this to actually mean, "until you change your opinions on them"? I figured there would be an accompanying pushback about them, but I don't see one.
> Theres also a healthy amount of revisionist historical thinking that seeks to whitewash the terrible conditions created by communist countries.
Again, this seems to just be, "I disagree". A fruitful conversation would be one where we can have a discussion and real exchange, not vague dismissiveness.
> I'm not interested in debating matters of fact here so thank you for your replies and your perspective.
Historical and economic analyses are rarely simple matters of fact and this is a subject where dealing with other perspectives is a necessity. None of what we're discussing is at the level of simple facts, they are interpretations depending on a large set of suppositions and historical knowledge.
But I welcome a discussion.
No, it merely emphasizes things that you do not consider and ignores things that you consider relevant.
> Fascism is sacrificing one set of the ownership class for another, diverting populism directed against a hostile liberal economic system to only part of that class while giving more power to the rest of it. Fascism is characterized by privatization, not central planning
Fascism is characterized by an alliance between state and corporate leaders. Its not truly private if the state still controls your production.
> I can critically examine them and always have been able to.
Good, then you should be able to respond to arguments that question your preferred perspective on property rights by defending it rather than assuming it to be the case.
> Should I interpret this to actually mean, "until you change your opinions on them"? I figured there would be an accompanying pushback about them, but I don't see one.
You should interpret it as a gentle nudge towards considering the pushback you have already received in a new light.
> Again, this seems to just be, "I disagree". A fruitful conversation would be one where we can have a discussion and real exchange, not vague dismissiveness.
I'm not interested in debating over the factual accuracy of the deplorable conditions in the soviet republics and satellite communist nations. I consider that (alleged) fact to be settled, you do not, there's nothing to be gained here.
> Historical and economic analyses are rarely simple matters of fact and this is a subject where dealing with other perspectives is a necessity.
This is true.
> None of what we're discussing is at the level of simple facts, they are interpretations depending on a large set of suppositions and historical knowledge.
The factual dispute I referred to is our disagreement on the quality of life of the soviet and communist citizens under state controlled economies. I'm uninterested in your revisionist account alleging that it "wasn't that bad."
> But I welcome a discussion.
Lets return to the issue of property rights. How do you justify imposing your opinion on property rights on other people who don't share that opinion?