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Mikhail Gorbachev has died

reuters.com

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Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#461

Post by thrown_22 »

bhupy wrote: post #288
paganel wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War l There was such a plan, at least in the twisted minds of the people behind the Washington Consensus. They were calling it privatization or price liberalization or some other non-sense like that, thing is the common people got the very, very short stick (like my parents, who lost their jobs, their city apartment and who had to resort to literally subsistence agricultu…

The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti... A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market econ…

And yet populations are collapsing in every former communist state.

I don't know what you call it when a country loses 10% of it's population, like Ukraine did, but decimation is the dictionary definition.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#462

Post by kemiller »

lapcat wrote: post #22

The United States didn't do enough to help Russia transition to democracy in the 1990s. There was no "Marshall Plan" after the Cold War like there was after World War II. This was a huge mistake, and we see the consequences now, with Russia having turned back toward totalitarianism and imperialism. Sadly, it seems that Gorbachev's efforts were mostly for naught. But it was courageous at the time to open up the Soviet…

Not sure how a Marshall plan would have worked since, unlike Germany, we were not occupiers. Our ability to reshape their system was limited. Not that we didn’t bubble things.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#463

Post by claudiawerner »

simonh wrote: post #330
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it wasn't real capitalism?

Every economic system has capital, even socialist ones, it just means property. What distinguishes capitalism is that individual rights over capital are respected. Capitalism is based on private property rights, and individual economic freedoms to buy and sell your labour or property. That means it’s fundamentally reliant on the robust rule of law to enforce those rights, the rights of those purchasing property and s…

The idea that capital is ahistorical (or at least, traces its origin to the concept of human property itself by being 'just' property) is not a claim to be made as though it were uncontroversial. In fact, many people proposing non-capitalist systems disagree the idea that capital is 'just property' for good reasons, which may be worth considering.

You argue that the capitalist system presupposes these rights and the rule of law; I would say that historically speaking capital itself (more importantly its production process) presupposes these rights and capitalism presupposes capital.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#465

Post by nradov »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #369
bhupy wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia. https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2022/03/16/the-transiti... A lot of Russia's issues stem from the way the government sold off their state owned corporations, which created artificial monopoly/oligopoly owners overnight — often insiders/cronies to begin with. This can be contrasted with traditional market econ…

Yeltsin is very much to blame. Russia would have transitioned much better if Gorbachev had been the head of the post-USSR Russia instead of Yeltsin. That said, the former Soviet Republics that transitioned well are those that were smaller, already edging their way towards a market economy before the USSR collapse, and received substantial help from (and eventually joined) the EU (Baltics, Hungary, Poland, Czech Rep.,…

The data doesn't support your point about inequality. The other former Communist eastern European countries generally don't have particularly high Gini index values. Other countries have much more income inequality.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#466

Post by indymike »

andrekandre wrote: post #317
ghostwriter wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people would not waste their time nitpicking the usage of such a widely accepted term. For some reason the US embassy still finds it important enough to broadcast the difference to the rest of the world: https://ar.usembassy.gov/education-culture/irc/u-s-governmen... Could you explain that?

i think you are being a bit pedantic, it says: While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. notice the wording "more accurately" and not "mischaracterized" etc -- btw... whats the point in arguing the u.s isn't a democracy? are you trying to say that people shouldn't be able to decide their leaders?

> i think you are being a bit pedantic

This is the PolySci equivalent of software engineers arguing about the type system in Python. It is a great source of debate and endless clarification... and term papers for undergrads.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#468

Post by thrown_22 »

DFHippie wrote: post #305
SlavikCA wrote: post #70

As the Russian, I'm of the opinion that Gorbachev is traitor. I hate communism, so it's good that he helped us to get rid of that. But why getting rid of communism had to include letting Americans to take reign in many government agencies of Russia? What would be your opinion of US president, if he goes to to retire in Russia? I'm reading some Russian news site, and almost universally Gorbachev is hated by Russians.

> What would be your opinion of US president, if he goes to to retire in Russia? Did Gorbachev retire outside Russia? I wasn't aware of this. He died in Moscow. The last time I heard about him before this was when he attended an RT event in Moscow (which was also attended by Jill Stein and Michael Flynn). Where outside Russia did he retire? Why did he leave this place to die in a Russian hospital? Your comment leads…

>Russian news sites are notable lately for not allowing the free expression of Russian opinions, so what they show you may not be representative. I'm not saying you're wrong but that Russian news sites aren't great evidence that you're right.

There is no one in Russia who wouldn't piss on his grave if given the chance.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#469

Post by ClumsyPilot »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #453
filoleg wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't only for the rich and wealthy (or those who had anything valuable at all) even in the slightest in some of the Eastern European countries at that time. If you look at houses in Compton and see metal bars on the windows, you don't instantly think "man, they must have lots of expensive stuff to steal". Kind of the same deal here.

Yeah, and guys who were installing these doors were blindfolded and couldn't see what the stuff the owner of the apartment had.

the people you are incorrecting and are arguing with?real experience or living in a high crime environment.

Maybe it's worth taking their points seriously instead of arguing. Nobody has flimay wooden american-style doors in Russia, everyone installs steel doors, thats the norm.

Re: Mikhail Gorbachev has died

#470

Post by catominor »

hestefisk wrote: post #449
coldtea wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The transition to a market economy went very well for most of the former Soviet Republics except Russia That might be what it writes in the link, it wasn't the case though, except if you mean after things stabilized 15 and 20 years later (and it's still bad in most places). Tons of conflict, forced migration, poverty, crime, sexual slavery, and so on...

Exactly. Countries like Poland and Hungary have huge social issues and struggle with corruption. A lot of political research points to the recent rise in fascist nationalism in these two countries as caused by being thrown from one political ideology to another (e.g. “communism” to ironfisted neoliberalism / Washington Consensus). It’s pretty evident none of them worked. If anything the country that was LEAST worse o…

The DDR/BDR wealth/income divide is still significant, even today and in spite of the government's fairly aggressive taxes explicitly earmarked to develop the former DDR.
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