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Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

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Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#21

Post by AnimalMuppet »

huffmsa wrote: post #17

The US at the federal level, maybe. But it'll likely just fracture into smaller regional Nations made up of the states. Worst case, it's 50 separate nations. Especially now that we'll likely see a shift back towards state level autonomy, with the federal government's bungling of the SARS2 pandemic. The US is decentralized to begin with, the USSR was not. Decentralized systems fare better in collapse situations.

Corollary: Pay attention to elections to state offices, not just to national ones. They can matter.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#22

Post by ltbarcly3 »

sacks2k wrote: post #5

When human life is meaningless and you don't have to make decisions around a pesky constitution and citizen rights, it's really easy to be prepared for anything.

This is the opposite of what is true. When you have no rights and no constitution, the people who have control will use that control to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. They'll enforce policies that cause starvation and deprivation, often without even realizing they are doing so - there is no way for information to flow efficiently, and regional authorities only answer to the central authority and not at all to the people in their administrative area so they hide bad news.

People use the USSR in WW2 as an example of where central planning led to success, after all they mobilized the entire country for war and eventually won. However, the entire Soviet army was destroyed multiple times. Putting on a Russian army uniform was basically the same as suicide. The rest of the world didn't have the power to force their citizens into certain death, and as a result they thought harder and were able to find ways to fight the war without 90% casualty rates and having entire divisions destroyed to the last man.

Having to answer to your citizens leads you to be more prepared and more responsive to problems, not less.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#23

Post by hash872 »

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to shove, we'll always fund Social Security over another aircraft carrier or 30,000 troops in South Korea. So, a slow fadeout seems way, way more likely. Plus, declining birth rates & declining business dynamism.

The states that actually collapse are the more rigid, authoritarian ones like the USSR or the Ottoman Empire. Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders.

No offense but I have to roll my eyes a bit at these disaster fetishists. Orlov is apparently a foreign-born one, but we have tens of thousands of domestic ones here in the states, this is a very old belief system. (Hell, my parents were back to the land hippies fleeing Nixon & the imminent nuclear apocalypse!)

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#25

Post by dickjocke »

jotm wrote: post #13
flohofwoe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

East German here, so I don't know all that much of the details of Soviet society before the collapse (but my guess is that the situation wasn't all that different in all former socialist countries). I would agree that the (East German) state and government was entirely unprepared for its own collapse. But maybe the people were better prepared because they've been living at the brink of collapse for most of their live…

This "life always on the brink" preparedness is a major part of what's keeping poor European countries poor. Everybody distrusts the government, they rely on each other, learn to do things themselves so they don't rely on others. So, money doesn't exchange hands, taxes don't get paid, GDP doesn't grow, more money doesn't get printed. This is all in a very interconnected world with a mostly free economy, so outsiders…

The average American didn't (and probably doesn't) distrust their government on anywhere near the same visceral level as someone living in the soviet union.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#27

Post by yters »

I wonder if the different economic system had anything to do with USSR's collapse? And perhaps US collapse becomes more likely as we change economic systems?

For example, communists killed and imprisoned all the kulaks (land owning farming class) to create their collective farms. Shortly thereafter the USSR was hit with devastating famine. Similar series of events happened in China under Mao. Coincidence or causation? If the latter, is this indicative of the nature of the USSR economy and perhaps provides insight into why it collapsed?

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#28

Post by traes »

hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded-

Rome?

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#29

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

traes wrote: post #28
hash872 wrote: post #23

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to…

> Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Rome?

The Roman Empire, in its various forms, lasted for 1000 years.

Re: Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

#30

Post by Spooky23 »

nopriorarrests wrote: post #16
Hokusai wrote: post #4

Without agreeing with many points, the main thesis is true but just for one point: XXI century economies are less resilient to isolation than in previous centuries. We live in a more complex society and countries need each other more than before. Communication is cheap, transport is cheap so it makes sense to rely on other for your own need. So, this lack of preparedness is true for USA, but also for many countries i…

Russia totally recovered by any metric you can pick, from household income to average life expectancy. Heck, moscow in 80's looked like dumpster fire. Now it looks like a proper european capital city. EDIT: to prove my point, russian life expectancy from fed -- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=qTgj

Russia isn't the Soviet Union. And Moscow isn't the provinces.

I'm not dumping on Russia, but it's easy to look at the shiny place and forget about the other parts. If you were a time traveller from 1985, NYC looks like a magical fairy-land (at least on the surface). But Syracuse, NY or Utica, NY... not so much.

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