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Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

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Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#261

Post by Jabbles »

D_Alex wrote: post #226
refurb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. Unless you have an alternative, your claims of exploration will fall on deaf ears.

>Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. I don't really think communism is a viable economic system, because of, you know, people . However, a couple of points should be made: - Communism has always had to deal with enmity of world's richest and most influential nations (USA and UK in particular). Possibly because communism has had this inbuilt idea that it needs to spread to everywhere, whether t…

Between 1922 and 1962, USSR's economy grew at an average of about 9% real per annum

Growing from a bad start and where you can copy a more developed nation makes this easier.

https://bearkunin.medium.com/soviet-union-facts-and-fictions...

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#262

Post by Jensson »

birdymcbird wrote: post #257
Jensson wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy. They have fake elections to trick their people, each seat has only one candidate selected by the communist party so it is all a sham.

-> “Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy.” cuban here. please dont pretend america care about democracy. america have interests. when they need new regime they suppress democracy as needed or push for democracy. main idea to get some regime subservient to american economic interest. why america has so many migrants at border but america do nothing or even talk about what crisis happe…

I'm from Sweden, not USA. I think there are many problems with USA, but it isn't capitalism at least, I'd say the major problem is that their democracy doesn't properly represent the will of the people. Sweden isn't perfect, but I don't see many countries that does a better job, and Sweden is very capitalist, we voted about going towards communist but people didn't want to. Instead we have a strong capitalism, but with relatively high taxes and high government benefits, but other than that governments doesn't meddle much with companies, so freedom to do business is very high.

If Cuba was a democracy then I would disagree with the sanctions, but I don't think it is wrong to pressure a government into giving proper voting rights to its people. If Cuba actually implemented democracy and USA still sanctioned them then that would be bad, but that isn't the situation we are in.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#263

Post by pmontra »

D_Alex wrote: post #226
refurb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. Unless you have an alternative, your claims of exploration will fall on deaf ears.

>Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. I don't really think communism is a viable economic system, because of, you know, people . However, a couple of points should be made: - Communism has always had to deal with enmity of world's richest and most influential nations (USA and UK in particular). Possibly because communism has had this inbuilt idea that it needs to spread to everywhere, whether t…

> Possibly because communism has had this inbuilt idea that it needs to spread to everywhere

Communist countries wanted to export communism, maybe for all the good and bad reasons democratic countries want to export democracy. However there were plenty of people in the west that wanted their country to become communist, especially up to the 80s. So the enmity against all the communist world was also a matter of internal affairs, to contain internal opposition.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#264

Post by D_Alex »

Jabbles wrote: post #261
D_Alex wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. I don't really think communism is a viable economic system, because of, you know, people . However, a couple of points should be made: - Communism has always had to deal with enmity of world's richest and most influential nations (USA and UK in particular). Possibly because communism has had this inbuilt idea that it needs to spread to everywhere, whether t…

Between 1922 and 1962, USSR's economy grew at an average of about 9% real per annum Growing from a bad start and where you can copy a more developed nation makes this easier. https://bearkunin.medium.com/soviet-union-facts-and-fictions...

>Growing from a bad start and where you can copy a more developed nation makes this easier.

True. But you know what really makes economic growth easier? Foreign aid. Also trade.

The USSR otoh had to deal with sanctions.

https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Embargoes-and-S...

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#265

Post by too_much_churn »

The main thrust of the comments here seems to be defending against the idea that Yeltsin was genuinely surprised. It's sad to me because this indicates that the main lessons from this very dark period of "real existing socialism" haven't been learned. Oh well, maybe next time!

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#266

Post by nivenkos »

Jensson wrote: post #234
muglug wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also deny it all, by law, to Cuba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_... The USA's stated goal is regime change. It’s willing to make life worse for Cubans to achieve that goal.

Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy. They have fake elections to trick their people, each seat has only one candidate selected by the communist party so it is all a sham.

Of course, the USA always has great support for true democratic leaders like Batista, Pinochet, Rios Montt, Suharto, Galtieri, etc. /s

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#267

Post by nivenkos »

Jensson wrote: post #262
birdymcbird wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-> “Cuban rulers would rather its citizens starve than implement democracy.” cuban here. please dont pretend america care about democracy. america have interests. when they need new regime they suppress democracy as needed or push for democracy. main idea to get some regime subservient to american economic interest. why america has so many migrants at border but america do nothing or even talk about what crisis happe…

I'm from Sweden, not USA. I think there are many problems with USA, but it isn't capitalism at least, I'd say the major problem is that their democracy doesn't properly represent the will of the people. Sweden isn't perfect, but I don't see many countries that does a better job, and Sweden is very capitalist, we voted about going towards communist but people didn't want to. Instead we have a strong capitalism, but wi…

The issue with Sweden is that it taxes work, not wealth.

You easily hit the 56% rate on income tax and even the poorest workers pay 25% VAT, meanwhile wealthy landowners and shareholders pay no inheritance tax and minimal capital gains and property tax.

So it impedes social mobility and encourages hard workers to move abroad - this has been made much worse with the refugee crisis too, as they're practically discouraged to work hard. And now look at the healthcare crisis, etc. as wages are a pittance compared to the USA, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, etc.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#268

Post by pmontra »

Jensson wrote: post #239
sudosysgen wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you consider the Chinese to be a shining capitalism, the proportional of people in poverty hasn't been decreased by capitalism.

China is capitalist, they just aren't democratic. They kept the authoritarian regime with sham elections from their communism days but changed everything else into capitalist systems, they are as capitalist as a typical western country today.

Authoritarian regime, control of society, control of economy are basically the definition of fascism. For obvious reasons the only clear difference with canon is the lack of anti-communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

By the way, elections in China are only at very local levels. Most of what we do elections for in western countries are indirect elections there. The Congress is not directly elected by people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China

However you might want to check the 1929 elections in fascist Italy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Italian_general_election

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#269

Post by nivenkos »

int_19h wrote: post #113
thriftwy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For worker class in Russia, it is super common to own (as opposed to rent) your own apartment and also own a country house ("dacha"). You may be otherwise piss-poor, wage wise. The supermarkets has improved greatly though - not quite the USA level, but on par with Western Europe or sometimes slightly better (more chains, easier to eat healthy)

Today, sure. In USSR, no apartment was privately owned, though. You were assigned one "according to your needs" - e.g. when I was a kid, my extended family of 5 (me, my parents, and my mom's parents) had a two-bedroom apartment of 48.5 m^2 total, 27.2 m^2 of which was the two bedrooms. To give an idea of the size, here's the floor layout of that exact series of apartment buildings: https://i.imgur.com/ImxdsUG.jpeg (N…

How old were you though?

That was similar in a lot of post-war Europe, e.g. for my grandparents in the UK.

The Americans have always lived in abundance and luxury in comparison.

Re: Boris Yeltsin's visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 (2016)

#270

Post by D_Alex »

pmontra wrote: post #263
D_Alex wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Communism, or any other system, can’t make that same claim. I don't really think communism is a viable economic system, because of, you know, people . However, a couple of points should be made: - Communism has always had to deal with enmity of world's richest and most influential nations (USA and UK in particular). Possibly because communism has had this inbuilt idea that it needs to spread to everywhere, whether t…

> Possibly because communism has had this inbuilt idea that it needs to spread to everywhere Communist countries wanted to export communism, maybe for all the good and bad reasons democratic countries want to export democracy. However there were plenty of people in the west that wanted their country to become communist, especially up to the 80s. So the enmity against all the communist world was also a matter of inter…

That's a fair point.

On reflection, whether communism holds extra appeal in poor countries, or whether it was an accident of history that *rich* capitalist countries faced off against poor communist countries, communism's chances were kind of hamstrung by this enmity. The playing field was uneven.

So which system is truly better at lifting people out of poverty, all other things being equal, remains uncertain.

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