In my opinion, as the west has (and always had) the advantage of controlling the most developed countries in the world (US itself, Japan, Germany+western Europe), and important countries like Saudi Arabia and its oil rich neighbors. I think the USSR and its Eastern European allies would still be much behind the west in terms of economy and technology.
However - Obviously the situation would much better than it is now in the Eastern Bloc. Replacing Socialism (even though rotten, revisionist one) with Capitalism was devastating to those countries.
I also believe the West would be in a much harder position (than now). Could it invade Iraq twice with a strong USSR around? How would the 2008 crisis would be different? How about the Arab Spring?
How would the Eastern Bloc have co-existed with the unrestricted flow of information through the internet? It couldn’t have, it would have been an impossible anachronism.
it was similar to the military problem. the military budget had such huge inertia that it took a huge fiscal crisis to even reduce it slightly.
getfiscal posted:there were a lot of ways to improve the soviet economy but the problem was more that they couldn't see them because of ideological blinders. like it was considered an iron law that socialism couldn't have inflation, and most times when a price went up or something there were big riots and strikes. even when they were doing huge economic experiments in the late 1980s, most consumer prices were relatively unchanged. but yeah in retrospect they could have raised consumer prices to induce production and reduce demand.
it was similar to the military problem. the military budget had such huge inertia that it took a huge fiscal crisis to even reduce it slightly.
I took my final in an econ class today and the final itself had one problem that was written like "assume all the unrealistic garbage we learned this semester is true, etc."
stegosaurus posted:I took my final in an econ class today and the final itself had one problem that was written like "assume all the unrealistic garbage we learned this semester is true, etc."
yeah economics is cool.
getfiscal posted:there were a lot of ways to improve the soviet economy but the problem was more that they couldn't see them because of ideological blinders. like it was considered an iron law that socialism couldn't have inflation, and most times when a price went up or something there were big riots and strikes. even when they were doing huge economic experiments in the late 1980s, most consumer prices were relatively unchanged. but yeah in retrospect they could have raised consumer prices to induce production and reduce demand.
it was similar to the military problem. the military budget had such huge inertia that it took a huge fiscal crisis to even reduce it slightly.
hmm yase a bunch of bad men who believed in socialism did bad things, and only when the realistic capitalists came around who weren't blind could things get better. behind all your revisionist bile is an an anti-materialist account of history which is no better than the trotskyists who blame stalin for every ill in the world (and I guess the MLs who think revosionism was the result of traitors and greedy wreckers rather than material conditions). however, most importantly, behind it all is the human suffering and wretched conditions of the overwhelming majority of the population, which you've sheltered yourself from behind a couple levels of irony. the sad thing is these kind of posts appear innocuous, and i even got yelled at for calling out the last series of bourgeois-apologism veiled as curiosity and "non-dogmatism".
babyhueypnewton posted:hmm yase a bunch of bad men who believed in socialism did bad things, and only when the realistic capitalists came around who weren't blind could things get better. behind all your revisionist bile is an an anti-materialist account of history which is no better than the trotskyists who blame stalin for every ill in the world (and I guess the MLs who think revosionism was the result of traitors and greedy wreckers rather than material conditions). however, most importantly, behind it all is the human suffering and wretched conditions of the overwhelming majority of the population, which you've sheltered yourself from behind a couple levels of irony. the sad thing is these kind of posts appear innocuous, and i even got yelled at for calling out the last series of bourgeois-apologism veiled as curiosity and "non-dogmatism".
what specifically was incorrect in my post.
also my post didn't say "socialism was bad and wrong", it just said that it had that specific feature (talk about price rises was restricted) which may have contributed to certain imbalances.
babyhueypnewton posted:getfiscal posted:
there were a lot of ways to improve the soviet economy but the problem was more that they couldn't see them because of ideological blinders. like it was considered an iron law that socialism couldn't have inflation, and most times when a price went up or something there were big riots and strikes. even when they were doing huge economic experiments in the late 1980s, most consumer prices were relatively unchanged. but yeah in retrospect they could have raised consumer prices to induce production and reduce demand.
it was similar to the military problem. the military budget had such huge inertia that it took a huge fiscal crisis to even reduce it slightly.
hmm yase a bunch of bad men who believed in socialism did bad things, and only when the realistic capitalists came around who weren't blind could things get better. behind all your revisionist bile is an an anti-materialist account of history which is no better than the trotskyists who blame stalin for every ill in the world (and I guess the MLs who think revosionism was the result of traitors and greedy wreckers rather than material conditions). however, most importantly, behind it all is the human suffering and wretched conditions of the overwhelming majority of the population, which you've sheltered yourself from behind a couple levels of irony. the sad thing is these kind of posts appear innocuous, and i even got yelled at for calling out the last series of bourgeois-apologism veiled as curiosity and "non-dogmatism".
Hurricane_Faggot posted:how bad was the chernobyl disaster economically b/c i keep reading that was part of the reason for the collapse?
far more important was what chernobyl symbolized, which was the shortage of natural resources, especially oil, which really started to collapse the USSR system in the 80s. impper talked about it one time i remember before he got burned out from all the shitty trolls and faux-politics.
getfiscal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:hmm yase a bunch of bad men who believed in socialism did bad things, and only when the realistic capitalists came around who weren't blind could things get better. behind all your revisionist bile is an an anti-materialist account of history which is no better than the trotskyists who blame stalin for every ill in the world (and I guess the MLs who think revosionism was the result of traitors and greedy wreckers rather than material conditions). however, most importantly, behind it all is the human suffering and wretched conditions of the overwhelming majority of the population, which you've sheltered yourself from behind a couple levels of irony. the sad thing is these kind of posts appear innocuous, and i even got yelled at for calling out the last series of bourgeois-apologism veiled as curiosity and "non-dogmatism".
what specifically was incorrect in my post.
also my post didn't say "socialism was bad and wrong", it just said that it had that specific feature (talk about price rises was restricted) which may have contributed to certain imbalances.
you're too smart for that at least. it's your tone and the little weasel words you put in like "ideological blinders" which doesn't mean anything until you think about what it means if the ideology that's "blind" is devotion to socialism. you've been posting here long enough that i dont need to wait for a pure troll which will then be forgotten with no ideological advancement at all or apology/self-reflection. dunno why this post specifically set me off, guess it's like hearing a white dude talk about the n-word. when it's coming from someone you know has his heart in the right place or you know actually cares I'll listen to genuine criticism of planned economies, but when it's coming from a position of dishonesty and looking for weakness I don't want to hear it. know your friends from your enemies.
babyhueypnewton posted:guess it's like hearing a white dude talk about the n-word.
statickinetics posted:
arent you a follower of marxist-humanism? or as i would put it, ultra-leftism (the mental disorder kind) and liberalism mixed together in an impotent mess.
babyhueypnewton posted:you're too smart for that at least. it's your tone and the little weasel words you put in like "ideological blinders" which doesn't mean anything until you think about what it means if the ideology that's "blind" is devotion to socialism. you've been posting here long enough that i dont need to wait for a pure troll which will then be forgotten with no ideological advancement at all or apology/self-reflection. dunno why this post specifically set me off, guess it's like hearing a white dude talk about the n-word. when it's coming from someone you know has his heart in the right place or you know actually cares I'll listen to genuine criticism of planned economies, but when it's coming from a position of dishonesty and looking for weakness I don't want to hear it. know your friends from your enemies.
the official ideology of the soviet union was that increases in the price level were impossible under socialism because prices were set politically and were tied to value estimates that necessarily had to fall as productivity improved. this belief contributed to prices being held low in a way that required large subsidies for certain goods, encouraged products to sell out quickly and cause shortages, made it so that there wasn't adequate money to reinvest in plant equipment within firms, and so on.
if you weren't so aggressive you might notice my point was that, in fact, planning could have worked a lot better had it not been for specific dogmas of the communist party, which probably have no real relation to socialism in themselves. like yeah you'd have to admit that socialism operates largely according to standard economic principles, but i don't see why that's a terrible evil thing.
babyhueypnewton posted:arent you a follower of marxist-humanism?
NO
getfiscal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:you're too smart for that at least. it's your tone and the little weasel words you put in like "ideological blinders" which doesn't mean anything until you think about what it means if the ideology that's "blind" is devotion to socialism. you've been posting here long enough that i dont need to wait for a pure troll which will then be forgotten with no ideological advancement at all or apology/self-reflection. dunno why this post specifically set me off, guess it's like hearing a white dude talk about the n-word. when it's coming from someone you know has his heart in the right place or you know actually cares I'll listen to genuine criticism of planned economies, but when it's coming from a position of dishonesty and looking for weakness I don't want to hear it. know your friends from your enemies.
the official ideology of the soviet union was that increases in the price level were impossible under socialism because prices were set politically and were tied to value estimates that necessarily had to fall as productivity improved. this belief contributed to prices being held low in a way that required large subsidies for certain goods, encouraged products to sell out quickly and cause shortages, made it so that there wasn't adequate money to reinvest in plant equipment within firms, and so on.
if you weren't so aggressive you might notice my point was that, in fact, planning could have worked a lot better had it not been for specific dogmas of the communist party, which probably have no real relation to socialism in themselves. like yeah you'd have to admit that socialism operates largely according to standard economic principles, but i don't see why that's a terrible evil thing.
In the political life of our people, how should right be distinguished from wrong in one's words and actions? On the basis of the principles of our Constitution, the will of the overwhelming majority of our people and the common political positions which have been proclaimed on various occasions by our political parties and groups, we consider that, broadly speaking, the criteria should be as follows:
(1) Words and actions should help to unite, and not divide, the people of our various nationalities.
(2) They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to socialist transformation and socialist construction.
(3) They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken, the people's democratic dictatorship.
(4) They should help to consolidate, and not undermine or weaken, democratic centralism.
(5) They should help to strengthen, and not discard or weaken, the leadership of the Communist Party.
(6) They should be beneficial, and not harmful, to international socialist unity and the unity of the peace-loving people of the world. Of these six criteria, the most important are the socialist path and the leadership of the Party.
hope this helps
zero
zero one
"one"
"BOLLOCKS"
babyhueypnewton posted:hope this helps
maybe if people in the soviet union could have identified problems and responded to them more easily instead of papering over disputes for sham unity then the soviet union could have avoided total collapse.
gyrofry posted:Could the USSR keep up with the west in terms of technology, military, and economy?
No because they didn't exploit the third world.
Financial crisis?
Would be a little milder because no outlflow of capital after the Soviet collapse.
getfiscal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:hope this helps
maybe if people in the soviet union could have identified problems and responded to them more easily instead of papering over disputes for sham unity then the soviet union could have avoided total collapse.
realistically though, what do you recommend could have been an alternative for the ussr
babyhueypnewton posted:Hurricane_Faggot posted:how bad was the chernobyl disaster economically b/c i keep reading that was part of the reason for the collapse?
far more important was what chernobyl symbolized, which was the shortage of natural resources, especially oil, which really started to collapse the USSR system in the 80s. impper talked about it one time i remember before he got burned out from all the shitty trolls and faux-politics.
that doesn't make sense though, since russia is a huge oil and natural gas exporter at the moment unless they weren't exploiting their own resources like they are now. the reason why i asked b/c a lot of the figures that put out the cost of clean-up we're around a trillion of today's dollars.
AmericanNazbro posted:realistically though, what do you recommend could have been an alternative for the ussr
i don't know enough about it really. my intuition though is that they sort of had to admit that it's easier to organize an economy on a financial basis rather than a physical basis and go from there. like you need to cost things out well and get the prices right and shit and try to minimize labour costs rather than, like, giving millions of little indicators for everyone to follow.
Hurricane_Faggot posted:babyhueypnewton posted:Hurricane_Faggot posted:how bad was the chernobyl disaster economically b/c i keep reading that was part of the reason for the collapse?
far more important was what chernobyl symbolized, which was the shortage of natural resources, especially oil, which really started to collapse the USSR system in the 80s. impper talked about it one time i remember before he got burned out from all the shitty trolls and faux-politics.
that doesn't make sense though, since russia is a huge oil and natural gas exporter at the moment unless they weren't exploiting their own resources like they are now. the reason why i asked b/c a lot of the figures that put out the cost of clean-up we're around a trillion of today's dollars.
heres a formerly secret CIA document from 1977 about it:
http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000498607/DOC_0000498607.pdf
and heres a bourgeois paper about it (just warning you to skim through all the bougie economic nonsense and get to the important stuff):
http://www.businessinsider.com/peak-oil-and-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-lessons-on-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-collapse-2011-5
The main reason for the rise in Post-Soviet oil production was that there was a change in relative prices between energy and labor, a change in property rights and a change in the over-arching market structure behind the use of such technology. See Dienes (2004) for the complete analysis. During the Soviet era, the oil production enterprises used simple primary and secondary oil production techniques to produce the massive oil that existed. However, the enterprises depended on Soviet technology, Soviet supply lines and above all were under Soviet government dictums. This is where we must also use conventional neo-classical economics to understand events. Remember, oil was basically given away at a low cost, but there was an initial government plan and investment to get it, i.e. a cost within the planned economic structure. Nevertheless, there was little incentive within the system to upgrade the necessary technology and invest heavily in new techniques because the price was set so low, although much investment did occur within the confines of the system.
obviously this is neo-classical economics and should be taken with a grain of salt. however there is some truth to it, and it even echoes much of what getfiscal says. what makes it so awful and what makes getfiscal so awful is were talking about real lives and real human suffering. in the abstract, the cost of labour fell, the prices were allowed to exist on the world market, and the technology improved with the opening of the soviet system to foreign markets. however what this really means outside of an economics classroom is the looting of a nation, the impoverishment of a people, and the biggest blow to the cause of socialism and humanity in history. to talk of this as a flaw, or as a blindness, is arrogance and underhandedness of the highest degree. tell the unemployed man who slapped gorbachov for ruining his life that he was "ideologically blind" or that the soviet system didn't work. /end rant