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On Moral Superiority

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Re: On Moral Superiority

#11

Post by bad_user »

jessriedel wrote: post #3

Is this worth reading? I stopped after the ridiculous claim that "If you can pay peanuts, you can produce tanks and ICBMs that cost peanuts." I mean, if a small band of hunter-gatherers is led by a single tribal leader with complete power, he can pay them nothing. But that doesn't mean he can make ICBMs for peanuts. Likewise, the US had objectively more economic power than the USSR, and, assuming that the USSR had to…

If those hunter-gatherers are amongst the world's top scientists, then of course you can produce tanks and ICBMs for peanuts. And USSR had plenty of scientists and natural resources ;)

Re: On Moral Superiority

#12

Post by te_platt »

So the Soviets under Stalin murdered 10's of millions before 1950 but maintained moral equivalence with the United States until JFK was elected? I guess I have a different sense of morality.

Re: On Moral Superiority

#13

Post by loxs »

forinti wrote: post #5

As a Latin-American, I laugh at the notion that the US have any sort of moral authority. In fact, many communist movements in LA actually came to be in response to oppression administered from Washington; if you had a nasty dictator propped up by the US and the only people who would help were in Moscow, then your best bet would be to become a communist, just as the Croats cozied up to the Nazis in order to get rid of…

Of course, this might be the case with Latin America, I have no knowledge of the situation down there. But for us, Easter-Europeans, USA was really the better alternative to USSR

Re: On Moral Superiority

#14

Post by loxs »

te_platt wrote: post #12

So the Soviets under Stalin murdered 10's of millions before 1950 but maintained moral equivalence with the United States until JFK was elected? I guess I have a different sense of morality.

You know, things like nuking whole cities do count when measuring moral. Not that USSR was highly moral, just the opposite. USA was not too moral that days.

Re: On Moral Superiority

#15

Post by protomyth »

kiba wrote: post #4

The whole idea that the USSR central planning policy result in economic decline is bunk? I am suddenly reminded of Paul Samuelson and his economic textbook touting the idea that the Soviet economy will surpass the USA's economy. Of course, it never came true.

For a really simple way to illustrate how bad the USSR central planning was, look no further than some big companies IT shops. Managers not trained in the specific area and very mistrustful / contemptuous of the actual workers giving orders; defining process and schedule; and telling the workers what "best practices" is. Now, imagine this crud applied to farms and factories.

Re: On Moral Superiority

#16

Post by protomyth »

loxs wrote: post #14
te_platt wrote: post #12

So the Soviets under Stalin murdered 10's of millions before 1950 but maintained moral equivalence with the United States until JFK was elected? I guess I have a different sense of morality.

You know, things like nuking whole cities do count when measuring moral. Not that USSR was highly moral, just the opposite. USA was not too moral that days.

As opposed to fire bombing a whole country or doing death marches?

Re: On Moral Superiority

#17

Post by loxs »

protomyth wrote: post #16
loxs wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, things like nuking whole cities do count when measuring moral. Not that USSR was highly moral, just the opposite. USA was not too moral that days.

As opposed to fire bombing a whole country or doing death marches?

I am not trying to measure who is (was) worse. The thing is that the USSR had their arguments to carry their propaganda on for several decades. And their people believed them more or less.

Re: On Moral Superiority

#18

Post by confuzatron »

He's confused when he compares the Soviet Union with Al Quaeda, and proposes that Al Quaeda is popular due to the loss of moral superiority of the US.

A more sensible comparison would be Soviet Union versus some hypothetical repressive theocratic 'caliphate' that Al Quaeda would like to set up. No doubt the unfortunate subjects of such a system would end up feeling the same way as the unfortunate subjects of the Soviet Union.

I agree with him that the US should export their values. Unfortunately if they do more than talk then they are going to come up against people who will violently oppose such a project, and then he'll be denouncing the US as the evil empire again, regardless of the conduct of the opposers.

PS: I feel like there's a lot of spittle flying around in this thread!

Re: On Moral Superiority

#19

Post by nikhilgk »

jessriedel wrote: post #3

Is this worth reading? I stopped after the ridiculous claim that "If you can pay peanuts, you can produce tanks and ICBMs that cost peanuts." I mean, if a small band of hunter-gatherers is led by a single tribal leader with complete power, he can pay them nothing. But that doesn't mean he can make ICBMs for peanuts. Likewise, the US had objectively more economic power than the USSR, and, assuming that the USSR had to…

In a communist society, the state owns everything. They own all natural resources, the industries that processes them, the supply chains, the labor and the economy. Profits and margins are not the objectives and there is no competition. So overall, the expenses to the state are far lesser than in a capitalistic society. Imagine if the US government owned IBM, Boeing, Lockheed, all the mines, had the cheapest yet most skilled labor then the cost of an ICBM would have been significantly lesser.

Re: On Moral Superiority

#20

Post by rdl »

jessriedel wrote: post #3

Is this worth reading? I stopped after the ridiculous claim that "If you can pay peanuts, you can produce tanks and ICBMs that cost peanuts." I mean, if a small band of hunter-gatherers is led by a single tribal leader with complete power, he can pay them nothing. But that doesn't mean he can make ICBMs for peanuts. Likewise, the US had objectively more economic power than the USSR, and, assuming that the USSR had to…

He's pretty unclear on economics, yes.

Capitalism more efficiently allocates the labor of people than a command/communist economy. Thus, for the same population, a capitalist economy has more wealth -- it can spend this on better consumer goods AND better military hardware. The tokens themselves don't matter.

As well, the "western world" was much bigger and better resourced than the soviet bloc, and started from a much higher level of development.

It's amazing that the soviets were able to maintain some level of parity as long as they did (maybe to 1960-1965 in most military forces); for some things, playing catch-up was easier than initial development (nuclear tech, lots of other weapons, many consumer products), so it was easier to remain in a close second place than to potentially be the leader.

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