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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml to Socialism@lemmy.mlEnglish · 1 year ago

How the USSR Radically Reduced Inequality, Even Among its Adversaries

www.socialisteconomist.com

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How the USSR Radically Reduced Inequality, Even Among its Adversaries

www.socialisteconomist.com

☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml to Socialism@lemmy.mlEnglish · 1 year ago
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Economist David F. Ruccio explains how income inequality was radically reduced under the regime of the USSR, even among its adversaries in the West.
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  • infinitevalence@discuss.online
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    1 year ago

    If you drag everyone down to the ground that’s kinda what happens.

    • xkyfal18@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Agreed, after the fall of socialism that’s what happened.

      • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        no you dont understand, the USSR made people in the US poor somehow and thus more equal. no, i dont know what brainworms are, why do you ask?

    • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      • infinitevalence@discuss.online
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        1 year ago

        Opps, turns out creating a bunch of charts without fixing the value makes life in the USSR look amazing… Only no, no it was not. Go back make all of your charts again, but this time dont use relative change or log to make things look like they were closer or better.

        • CascadeOfLight [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Oh man, what did the US and UK have that the USSR didn’t? That’s right, a giant fucking empire grinding hundreds of millions of third world slaves into the dirt.

          And yet, even without that the USSR was growing so much faster it would have caught up to and surpassed them eventually - until they couped it, destroyed it and ravaged its people and economy.

        • Femcowboy@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Look at where the U.S.S.R started and also 1940-1945 in comparison to the U.S. Eastern Europe was just dirt poor, and then relative to the U.S took a massive hit as Nazis ravaged their countries. Looking at relative growth of GDP is valid because it equalizes for how little the U.S.S.R started out with, and what it overcame. The U.S.S.R was not perfect by any means, but materially life in the U.S.S.R got better at a faster rate than capitalist countries, and those graphs also show that more people enjoyed that growth than those in capitalists countries where GDP is basically just a measure of “how rich the rich are.”

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Are you legitimately suggesting that the USSR and the UK/US started off on the same level of footing? Is history a series of static snapshots unrelated to what came before or what will come afterwards to you?

          You’re deeply unserious.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      That’s pretty wrong though. Check some numbers on USSR citizens pre-fall and compare them with some European countries and thr US at the time.

      • infinitevalence@discuss.online
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        1 year ago

        Look I appreciate value and history of socialism, but suggesting that life was good under Soviet rule ignores reality. If you talk to people who lived under it life was so bad that risking death and imprisonment to flee to the west was a worthwhile endeavor. Bread lines existed, famine happened, quality of goods was shockingly bad, violence was how order was maintained, and the idea of free speech and discourse even in ones own home came with great personal risk.

        Now, dont think for a second that just because I take issue with remembering the USSR with rose glasses I think things are all rainbows and holding hands in the west throughout history. Capitalism is clearly more destructive to the world. Capitalism created global warming and climate change, it has extracted nearly all wealth and value from people to the extent that most people in the US struggle with basic needs.

        Suggesting that authoritarian police states like the USSR are where life was good is a dangerous re-painting of history, as is suggesting that capitalism comes with no risks or costs to humanity. We obviously need something better, but the USSR is not the history lesson we should base our next society on.

        • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I was specifically commenting on some common economic figures I’ve seen. I’m not into authoritarian governments.

          Speaking of experiences though, the systems in the Eastern bloc weren’t identical in every country and for everyone. I know people who feel the regime they escaped was hell on earth. I know people who lived well and have been worse off ever since the collapse. This survey from a few years ago provides some insight on people’s attitudes in aggregate:

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          I grew up in Soviet union. Life there was absolutely fine. What you’re spewing here is absolute nonsense.

          • infinitevalence@discuss.online
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            1 year ago

            I’m really glad that was your experience, for my friends and family who got out and to the west life was measurable worse under the USSR.

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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              1 year ago

              Your friends and family weren’t representative of the majority of the people. The empirical data clearly shows this:

              Let’s start with some academic studies on USSR

              Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth that made the achievements listed above possilbe:

              • https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdf

              Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time:

              • https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1

              A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life:

              • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdf

              This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development.

              • https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/

              This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.

              • https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cje/beac072/7081084?guestAccessKey=01c8dd9f-af1c-48b3-b271-eb5d3a45017c&login=false

              Next, we can look at how do people who lived under both systems feel now that they got a taste of capitalism?

              • A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.

              • The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.

              • Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.

              • A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -“during the time of socialism”. The survey focused on the respondents’ views on the transition “from socialism to capitalism”, and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito’s rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as “more or less the same”. 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions.

              • 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.

              • Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12u

              • Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx

              • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                So do your handlers just provide you with these copypastas or do you make them yourself?

                Say something critical of Russia. I dare you.

                • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
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                  1 year ago

                  Russia is a capitalist shithole that’s a mirror of the west. Quite telling that your instinct is to smear people when in lieu of having any actual counterpoint.

                • dayna@lemmygrad.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  That’s a lot of words to say that you can’t read

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