Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site charm.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!mhuxj!mhuxi!charm!tpkq From: tpkq@charm.UUCP (Timothy Kerwin) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: In Defense of the Soviet Union Message-ID: <321@charm.UUCP> Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 01:36:47 EST Article-I.D.: charm.321 Posted: Thu Apr 12 01:36:47 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 08:17:51 EST Organization: Physics Research - AT&T Bell Labs MH Lines: 116 $<-- >> Timothy Kerwin writes: >> >> >This results ... in the lowering of wages toward the minimum >> >necessary to maintain the life of the worker... >> > >> >The point is that if you want to find solutions to the problems of >> >recession, unemployment, inflation, etc., you have to look beyond >> >the capitalist system. >> >> Well, looking beyond, to, say, the communist system, we see >> (i) almost full employment--however, this means that you might have >> 4 or 5 clerks working in a bakery shop that has goods only part of >> the day, and could be sufficiently staffed part-time by one >> person. The wages, I suspect, are less (in terms of buying power) >> than one might receive in the U.S. in welfare. By "the communist system," I assume the author means the economic system of the Soviet Union. As I pointed out in an earlier article, stories about the "failure" of the Soviet economic system and predictions of its imminent collapse have been appearing in the capitalist press ever since the Bolshevik Revolution. But the facts certainly indicate otherwise, and a report on the Soviet economy from the CIA (certainly no friend of the USSR!), released in December 1982, agrees. According to the CIA report, in the past 30 years the Soviet gross national product grew at an average rate of 4.6 percent. The official figure for the US economy during the same period averaged 3.4 percent. The CIA report concludes that "an accurate, balanced assessment" shows that the Soviet economy will continue to experience "positive growth for the forseeable future," and that "an economic collapse in the USSR is not considered even a remote possibility." (I wonder if they would say the same of the US economy!) I don't know if the bakery shop described was seen by the author during a trip to the Soviet Union, or if it exists only in his head, but the fact is that one of the main factors holding back the Soviet economy is a severe *shortage* of labor. It's clearly in nobody's interest to have idle workers in a planned economy. Bureaucratic waste and bottlenecks are probably inevitable in an undertaking as big as planning a modern industrial economy, and these are made much worse by the existence of a parasitic bureaucratic layer, which managed to usurp political power in the mid-1920s, and maintains its grip by totalitarian methods. However, the planned economy was not overthrown, and except for the periods when the Soviet Union was being blockaded or invaded by its capitalist neighbors, the standard of living of Soviet workers has risen steadily. Rather than compare it to the imperialist American economy, which began industrializing in the first half of the 19th century, which didn't suffer the devastation of a massive invasion during either of the World Wars, and which saps wealth from every corner of the world, why not compare the Soviet Union to a country like India, which was at roughly the same level of economic development in 1917 as the USSR? >> (ii) no recessions?--it could be argued that the average state of >> the economy is one long recession, measured in terms of output. >> Clearly, I think, the poor production in the farm sector in the >> U.S.S.R. has not been due to every year since 1917 being a bad winter. In 1917, hunger was widespread in the Soviet Union, and starvation was not uncommon; today, the Soviet Union is the world's largest producer of wheat. Indeed, it would take some EXTREMELY GOOD WEATHER to account for this, if weather were the deciding factor! In the Soviet economy, production is for use, not profit. Instead of capitalist firms competing with each other for profit, production in the Soviet Union is carried out according to an overall state plan. Production is limited primarily by the economy's physical capacity to produce (that is, by the supply of labor power, raw materials, machines, factories, and other means of production). Periodic crises of overproduction -- where needed products pile up in warehouses because they cannot be sold at a profit, and production is brought to a standstill -- do not occur in the Soviet economic system. >> (iii)no inflation--rationing is a method of controlling legal >> prices, but a side-effect is that there are often shortages. Also, >> black markets may be affected by inflation. Inflation is not an >> implied defect of the capitalistic system. Throughout most of the >> history of the U.S., at least, inflation has been mild. >> Rationing does not cause shortages, it is a result of shortages. The shortages themselves are caused by a combination of bureaucratic mismanagement (which, again, is primarily a result of an undemocratic, top-heavy decision making process), and the real need to devote a large part of the social surplus to modernizing industry and agriculture. Nevertheless, in recent years a much greater emphasis has been laid on consumer goods, and the cost of necessities continues to be extremely low. The price of bread in the USSR (about 10 cents per loaf) hasn't risen since 1955. And, of course, all health care and education is free. >> Moreover, the systems with the least economic freedom often are the >> ones with the least political freedom. >> >> Sam Hall >> decvax!ucbvax!ucbtopaz!bitmap >> On the contrary, the "economic freedom" you speak of is only available to the rich, and the ruling class is a very tiny minority. Today, under capitalism, political freedom is a luxury which is only tolerated in the wealthiest capitalist countries, where relative class peace prevails. As soon as a capitalist country starts to fall on hard times, democratic rights begin to disappear. Capitalist countries where the economy is on the brink of collapse have produced some of the most brutal dictatorships the world has seen. Socialism, despite the abuses carried out in its name, lays the foundation for building a world in which social classes no longer exist, where production is geared toward meeting human needs, and poverty, exploitation, racism, sexism, political repression, and war are but dim memories of a barbaric past.