I don't just imply it.
I clearly state that adopting capitalilsm was the cure they needed.
I don't think "specious" means what you think it does.
"Specious" means "superficially plausible, but actually wrong."
It's specious because you're just citing the political system as the reason for their economic troubles, just as you cite our political system as the reason for our economic successes. It's a very superficial line of reasoning, only examining a few abstractions and citing them as the sole factors which make or break an economy. It's not really looking at the real nuts and bolts of what was actually going on, both here and over there.
They had famine even during peacetime because they were unable to cope with any setback, eg, drought.
They were facing much more than just drought. It would be one thing if these countries were paradises
before communism, and then you could justifiably say that "socialism ruins economies." But what you're saying here is just not truthful, because you're only citing a few superficial abstractions and reaching an unsupported conclusion about the merits of a political system while refusing to look at the circumstances they were facing and the larger picture of what was going on in the world at the time.
Even 10,000 corporate farmers is more diversity of thought than a single governmental entity.
But I also know many small farmers who aren't incorporated.
It wasn't a single governmental entity in the USSR either. Or at least, it wasn't supposed to be. They were supposed to have local cooperatives who were to be allowed independence and some degree of self-rule. Stalin turned things upside-down and deviated from what was originally intended.
I take it that you don't personally know many farmers or bankers.
The former mind their own business.
And the latter have no desire to dictate farming practices.
I've known quite a few farmers in my own extended family who would give you quite an earful about what they think of banks.
You remember Farm Aid? The farmers weren't in trouble because of a socialist economic system. It was all because of greedy bankers. A bunch of performers and others got together to raise money so these farmers could pay the banks their blood money, but it would have been far cheaper and more efficient overall just to order the banks to cease-and-desist any attempts at foreclosure. Of course, that goes against the "orthodoxy" of capitalism, and no one wants to do anything blasphemous while pretending that more practical solutions are "not an option."
A lot of farmers needed extensive governmental assistance during the Great Depression, which was another gift of capitalism.
We've been put out of business?
Pish posh.....poppycock....balderdash.....barsh...flimshaw!
I & many associates run small businesses.
Okay, so you're among the few left standing. Congratulations. The trend I'm noting still exists, though.
They were/are powers because they're big & they chose/choose to exercise power.
If anything, socialism is a drawback in funding their adventurism.
That's why the Soviet empire fell.
Maybe, although that was years after any famines. After the wars and their system had time to recover, they rebuilt their infrastructure to a level comparable to that of the United States. Their military industrial capacity and level of technology even surpassed us in many areas - despite all the famines, despite the wars and untold devastation those countries went through, they still managed to turn it around very quickly and scare the bejesus out of entire generations of Americans.
They even beat us into outer space. (And the only reason we had a space program at all was due to one of the spoils of war, such as German rocket technology and the scientists involved in it.)
It's true that they still lagged behind in a number of other areas, particularly in consumer products and luxuries that we enjoy so much here in the West. But that's all fluff and teddy bears. That's the only real difference between the two systems.
Many countries went thru devastating wars.
The capitalistic ones chose to remain so.
The socialist ones chose capitalism.....except for N Korea, which continues to suffer horribly under the pall of socialism & its attendant oppression.
North Korea's problem is due to their isolation and the cult of personality surrounding their leadership. What they have is not "socialist," but more of an absolute monarchy. The two Koreas are/were a bad mistake which resulted from Cold War intrigue and other shenanigans that we should have stayed out of. It's all due to that ideological orthodoxy that capitalism must oppose communism wherever it might be, which led us to wars and other crises around the world. It even brought us to the brink of total nuclear annihilation - all because of America's excessive devotion to capitalism and big business.
Do we see mass starvation here.....in Japan, in Germany, in.....oh, you get the picture.
I think these kinds of comparisons are beside the point, but if you really want to compare how things are today, then there are some horror stories coming out of pro-capitalist countries as well. Just about anywhere south of the border, large sections of Africa and Asia. We don't have mass starvation here because we have millions upon millions of acres of good arable farmland, a favorable climate, and we generally always have a good harvest. Some might even claim that America has been blessed by God, for those who believe in that. As a result, we produce more food than we consume, so we are a net exporter of food.
I don't know offhand whether Japan or Germany grow enough food or if they have to import, although we invested a great deal of money to rebuild Japanese and German industries after WW2 - mainly because we needed them as powerful and viable allies against the Soviet Union. So, they had a lot of outside help from other governments. If they had to rely on capitalist processes alone, they may not have done so well.
It should also be mentioned that, at least regarding Germany, many US capitalists strongly criticize Germany's system, at least as far as their "socialistic" aspects.
Do you know any people who lived under USSR or PRC socialism, & then under capitalism.
I do. They'd disagree with you about how great things were back in the day.
Yes, actually I know quite a few, and I've also visited the USSR when it still existed. I spoke personally with many people who lived there. For the most part, they saw their government in much the same way many Americans look at our government. They may have had problems and complaints, as well as darker pages from their history they weren't proud of - just as we Americans have dark pages from our history that we're not proud of. But they didn't really see their government as the "evil empire" that Reagan and others of his ilk tried to paint them. I could walk down any street in Moscow, a city of 7 million, in the dead of night and feel perfectly safe from any muggers or crime of any kind. There was some crime back then, but it was quite rare and mostly underground, not out in the streets. It's much worse today.
I spoke with an Armenian gentleman who immigrated to the United States, and he told me that, despite all the negatives of living under Stalin, there was still a strong sense of law and order within their society. He said that you could be at a bar or restaurant and leave your wallet on a table and expect to still find it there hours later. Nobody would even THINK of trying to steal it. I wouldn't characterize him as pro-Stalin or pro-communist, but there were some things about capitalism which bothered him - especially after he got cheated by a disreputable travel agent.
I used to work with a Polish woman who also immigrated to the United States, and during one conversation she said something to the effect "at least the communists knew how to run things."
I've encountered plenty of people from that part of the world, and I've come across a wide range of opinions. I don't know how many you've met, but I can assure you that they're not all of one like mind on this issue.
When I was there in the USSR, I didn't see any sign that people were starving. In fact, many of them looked quite well-fed. It may not have been luxurious and filled with all the fluff and teddy bears, but things looked they were operating reasonably well. The streets were bustling with activity, children playing in the park, neighbors gossiping. Some things about it may have been inconvenient - but that might come with any kind of foreign travel. I've been to Mexico (which is a true paradise from a capitalist point of view), and Mexico is much worse actually.
Capitalists want a lower quality of life?
Drat!
You're on to our secret fiendish plan!
Seems pretty transparent to me, based on the results of what they do and what they say. If a wealthy factory owner lives in a lavish mansion while his workers are living in tenements and barely eking out an existence, then it seems pretty obvious that the situation is that way because the factory owner wants it that way. It's not that he can't afford to pay them more, it's just that he doesn't want to, solely because he thinks he deserves more money - just because he's a talented and innovative capitalist and the workers are just unneeded peons, easily replaced by other unneeded peons who seemingly abound in great numbers.
By creating this perception in their own minds, the capitalist believes that these unneeded peons should live in squalor - because capitalism. The idea of guaranteed employment or a minimum living wage/benefits is highly offensive to these capitalists, since their value system dictates that "these ne'er-do-wells don't deserve it." These kinds of statements and actions clearly indicate their desire to lower the quality of life for most Americans - not out of any practical necessity or any desire for "efficiency." It's just because they think that's how it should be - just because.
This is how free markets work.
Perhaps, although my sense is that a rational human being would consider rational reasons for a company's failure and try to look at all the relevant factors rather than just take a knee-jerk response and say "It's all the workers' fault!" If what you're saying is true and this is the kind of mentality dominating business today, no wonder things are so screwed up. You keep blaming the government, but it's these companies and the decisions of their management which are to blame.
But true to form, the corporate culture encourages pinning the blame on someone else, rather than take responsibility for one's own actions. One of the main problems facing our culture today is too many people refuse to accept responsibility for their own choices, and capitalists are by far the worst offenders in this regard.
What are our spoils from wars?
I take it that you don't spend much time in the history section of your local library or book store.
So prosperity just happens when there's a bounty?
I think that's pretty self-evident, don't you?
The Soviets had far more resources, & yet their economy never even approached ours in productivity.
Their bigger problem was in transportation. In all fairness, we also have to note that much of Russia lies along the same latitude as Alaska and Northern Canada, where it's freezing cold and the terrain is rugged and inhospitable. They were already 100 years behind the West at the time of the 1917 Revolution. There was some growth of industry and rail infrastructure prior to that - some of it with the help of the French. They did have a lot of territory and potential for resources, but large sections still lagged behind and remained undeveloped at the time of the Revolution. In 1917 in America, we were already far ahead of the Russians.
Yet, they did manage to improve and industrialize just the same. They did harness their resources and worked their way to become a superpower rivaling that of the United States. They closed the gap between us and only lagged behind in a few minor areas (fluff and teddy bears). The only reason why there was a difference in how the economies looked on the surface was due to wars that they suffered and we didn't. And that was just an accident of geography more than anything else.
And yes, you say that "other countries suffered wars too," but not to this degree, not like China and Russia suffered during WW2. Whole cities devastated, railroads destroyed, farms burned, factories demolished, tens of millions of lives lost. It's easy for us in America, where not one bomb dropped and our losses were only 1% of the Soviet losses, we can sit back and judge them for "not being as productive as we are." But it doesn't seem a very accurate or objective historical assessment.
In many ways, China was probably even worse off, not just due to WW2 and the Japanese invasion, but due to Western imperialism and various internal political squabbles which resulted from a dying, anachronistic monarchist dynasty. Of course, we had a hand in the Boxer Rebellion and got further involved in Chinese internal politics. As a result, China was somewhat crippled in its ability to defend against the Japanese invasion, as well as an ongoing civil war between the communists and nationalists - both of whom fought against the Japanese as well as against each other. So, needless to say, China was in a complete mess at the time of the communist takeover. Almost immediately after they took power, the Korean War broke out, which they felt threatened by possible US invasion. With guys like MacArthur talking about wanting to nuke Peking, they could tell which way the wind was blowing.
Considering what they went through and the continued antagonism during the Cold War, it's not a surprise that both the Chinese and Soviet governments shifted their priorities more towards military defense, especially during the peak of the Cold War when they would have felt the most in danger. Maybe it might mean that other sectors of the economy have to suffer or at least take a lower priority. It took time for their economy to recover and to build up their defense infrastructure to the point where they didn't feel any immediate danger that they felt in previous decades. US policies had also changed during the same time frame, and that's when the turnaround for both China and Russia started to happen.
It's been 25 years since the fall of communism in Russia, although I wonder whether capitalism has made them more productive than they otherwise would have been. Crime and corruption are certainly higher.
