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From: bitmap@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: re: In Defense of the Soviet Union
Message-ID: <459@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 13-Apr-84 23:33:40 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.459
Posted: Fri Apr 13 23:33:40 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 01:35:42 EST
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA
Lines: 215

<...> 
A long reply to a long reply:
Mr. Kerwin's latest statements are indicated by "]", the others
should be clear from context.

   >> 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?

No, I'm willing to apply the statements to just about any communist
country.  The anecdote about the bakery shop comes from some friends who
visited Czechoslovakia last fall.  I will address the Soviet Union
in particular, though, as you have chosen it.

Please note that I didn't try to claim that the Soviet system is in
danger of crumbling, nor do I think that most people would
seriously consider the US system as in danger of crumbling.

I agree that systems which encourage bureaucrats are inherently less
efficient:  I think that this is one of the major problems of the
day-to-day working of the Soviet system.

To address your statements about growth and the historical economic
status of the Soviet Union, I will quote from an article in "The
Encyclopedia of Delusions" (E.O.D.), which discusses opinions such as yours.

 "...Russia enjoyed a fantastic rate of growth before 1914...Out of
 the last 25 years before 1914, Russia's growth rate led the world
 in 18 of them.  Her average rise in industrial output from 1894 to
 1914 was about eight per cent per year.  ...by 1913 Russia was the
 world's fifth industrial power, just ahead of Austro-Hungary and
 behind only the United States, Germany, Britain and France, the
 last of which she must have overtaken during the war, despite the
 loss of Polish industry."
 
India of 1917 is hardly a fair comparison, eh?  Modern India, I
think, is not a bastion of capitalism in any case.

 "In real terms, the pre-revolutionary Russian industrial worker
 earned about half as much as his British counterpart; he now
 probably earns about a third."

An interesting comparison would be with Japan, who, although
not invaded, was certainly bombed, and suffered many casualties.
As I understand it, the Japanese constitution, modeled after the US
constitution, was essentially forced upon Japan at the time of
surrender.  Compare modern Japan, with remarkably few natural
resources, with the Soviet Union, which has perhaps the most
natural resources of any country.  I say that it is largely the
system of government/economics that makes the difference.

   >> (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!

Of course, by 1917, Russia was largely overrun by Germans (at least
the western part was), and the country was losing a war.  However,
this point is also addressed in E.O.D.

 "Harvests in the war, as before it, were abundant.  Why then did
 the cities 'starve'?  Katkov, in his fascinating 'February 1917'
 doubts whether they did:  he finds evidence of food enough in or
 available to Petrograd in early 1917.  The huge angry queues
 present us with a riddle--one of so many.  The answer to this one
 lies, I suspect, not in mechanical breakdowns of 'backwardness' but
 rather in a thoroughly modern combination of hideous inflation (336
 per cent from 1914 to the end of 1916) and idiotic price controls,
 two factors which can always be relied upon to produce want amidst
 plenty.  These phenomena were by no means unique to Russia at that
 time..."

My World Almanac failed me in trying to find the figures for world
wheat production.  Are you including the loss due to spoilage and
poor harvesting techniques in your figure?  Why has the S.U. had to
buy grain in recent years, if its harvests have been so good?
After all, its population is greater than that of the US by only
about 1/4, and the US has lots of wheat to export (and pays its
farmers not to grow it), so why this discrepancy with your
statements?

]     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.

Well, in this bright, shining monument to the Soviet economy that
you seem to have built, I will agree that overproduction is
unlikely to occur.

   >> (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.

Yes, you're partially correct.  I should have said that rationing goes 
along with shortages, but is most usually produced by artificially low
pricing.  

   >> 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.

In the S.U., as I understand it, membership in the communist party
is restricted to about 8% of the population (does anyone know the
exact number?).  Of this, the ruling class, i.e., those who have
wealth such as "dachas", is a very 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.

True.  Nazi Germany compares closely, in many respects, with the
Soviet Union.  Of course Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian
state, not a capitalistic one.  It is indeed a sad fact that
capitalistic countries can change into brutal dictatorships:  as
far as I know, this is true of any country or economic system.

]     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.

Tawdry and ingenuous, as well as trite.  So how do minorities fare
in the S.U.?  Would someone else care to talk about this?

Sam Hall
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