Comment on The Productivity Paradox: Why Technology Makes the Economy More Efficient But Most People No Richer
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days agoYour comment only works for those who don’t live in ex-Soviet countries. Because it’s western rose-tinted glasses of how USSR just had problems, but was generally fine.
partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
USSR wasn’t really communist though, was it? They tried and failed to make a communist state, no?
phutatorius@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Marx’s view was that socialism would develop as an emergent phenomenon (a modern term, not one he used) to correct the contradictions of capitalism. But in both Russia and China, they tried to impose socialism on what were essentially feudal societies. The result was state capitalism, the industrial revolution imposed at gunpoint with no control of the means of production by the workers. And, as capitalist societies, both countries continued the imperialism and nationalism of their predecessor regimes.
And this isn’t an after-the-fact critique: contemporary socialists such as Rosa Luxembourg made these observations at the time.
Skipping a developmental stage doesn’t work.
BrightCandle@lemmy.world 3 days ago
No country has managed a transition to communism, all of them got turned into various types of authroritarian dictatorships. There is no known method for transitioning to communism and maintaining it.
Doom@lemmy.world 3 days ago
To be fair, when they tried outside influences actively sabotaged the attempt.
partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Would you know whether or not democratic socialism is a good prospect in that regard? A flavor of which that remains capitalistic, but using worker coops instead of the top down monarchistic approach?
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Communism in its true form is unsustainable economically and defies basic human sociology and psychology.
Triasha@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Humans lived for 10s of thousands of years under communism. Capitalism was invented and within a couple of centuries the human race is commiting collective suicide with falling birth rates.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
There were a few years of war communism during, well, the Civil War, but due to all the hunger deaths it might not be what your usual USSR fan wants to think about.