Big_Gazza wrote: kvs wrote:
The often cited "fact" that the USSR "bankrupted" itself with military spending is a western myth. Capitalist economy metrics are used to evaluate a command economy
with the predictable BS conclusions. The USSR could allocated any amount of resources to any set of tasks without any price costs.
It's not a question of "price" costs. Its about "opportunity" costs. Using resources and manpower on building a huge submarine fleet means that you can't use those resources for purposes that improve your peoples lives. An aircraft carrier doesn't generate economic returns, while a new train line does.
The USSR didn't put enough attention to improving the lives of its citizens (mainly because of the belligerent threat of the US) and people became disillusioned into thinking the grass was greener on the other side (it wasn't, unless you like being a serf working to enrich a selfish ruling class of elitist c_nts).
I do not agree. The USSR did produce consumer goods and produced them in needed amounts and with the right characteristics. It is
yet another western propaganda trope that Soviet goods were all crap. Shiny crap is what you have now totally dominating western
markets.
As with food shortages, consumer goods shortages were deliberately engineered to facilitate regime change. I already posted on the
dumping of food in massive amounts during the late 1980s. The same thing happened with consumer goods. So this was not a natural
outcome from both policy and capacity of the USSR command economy. It was pure intrigue and corruption. When the authoritarians
in charge decide to change economic systems, there is nothing the grass roots can do but go for the ride. People think that
revolutions are easy and spontaneous. No, they are expensive and organized. Nobody was organizing any resistance to Gorby's
perestrokia since it was supposed to make people's lives better. The whole system fell apart too fast for any organized resistance
to the shock therapy economics that came after 1991. People were confused about the source of the shortages and the crisis.
As for today, Russians got lucky that they got "tyrant" Putin. No system can stay functional without the right people in charge.
This is not understood by the vast majority of the humans on this planet. They have swallowed the BS that magical self-regulating
political and economic systems exist. In the real world we have the total farce of the "checks and balances" in the USA. The
rot is permeating the whole system and it is now a self-defeating joke. Only if key positions are staffed by people who do their
jobs and can do them well that you get functional systems. This is a real challenge when most people are easily tempted by money
and will cheat to get it if they have a chance. And it is even worse, since corruption is an organized crime like process where
there is a slow infiltration of compromised and networked individuals in key positions. There are no checks and balances for such
decay.
When Putin leaves the scene, Russia may get some bureaucratic nobody who will not engage in the required "tyranny". And things can
go south just as fast if not faster as in the case of the USSR during the late 1980s.