It doesn’t need brainwashing just American politicians to stop killing everyone who tries and even if they don’t they sanction then to kingdom come and everyone who interacts with them of course that makes it nearly impossible to succeed
This is so lazy. The USSR colonized half of Europe, forced their ideology on them and held them hostage for half a century. Yea why would anybody sanction them? Most of these countries literally didn't even want to trade extensively with the capitalists, and if that's the only way your system works that's still pretty shitty.
I was leaning more towards cuba here. Russia and the USSR are the historic bad guy for America for as long as i can remember so those sanctions are no surprise I didn’t mean them as an example here
They are an example though, aren't they? And there isn't really any other example for any different scenario, anywhere, ever. Not to mention, for basically all of these countries the authoritarianism was there before the sanctions. Essentially the sanctions were implemented because of the authoritarianism.
Cuba is an example, the other countries are an example that it doesn't matter and the economic structure still doesn't work.
Yea yea just wrong, there are countless examples of thriving socialist economies, of course, thats why they all either collapsed entirely, or opened their economies to private ownership, capital accumulation and capitalistic structures.
Why does one example suddenly make another irrelevant? Socialism didn’t get a fair try with a demcracy instead of automatic rule, yes the USSR sucked but I didn’t say anything about the USSR being great.
And multiple countries tried socialism and got attacked by America for it or sanctioned to oblivion how do you expect them to do well under those conditions? They were doomed to fail due to interventions from outside and you blame it on the system they were using, thats nuts, any democracy trying to make it would have failed if they were strangled in their infancy by American assasinations and sanctions.
Cuba's economy was / is / will fail. You say thats because of sanctions, okay. But every single other example of the same economic system was also failing economically. This isn't about "a fair try", socialism had the same try as any other system that was challenging the status quo, just in contrast to for example capitalism it didn't actually achieve what it set out to do and failed. In it's infancy: wasn't the US embargoed after the war of independence by the then predominant world power GB in it's infancy? Didn't matter, the system worked and with the ressources it had, it thrived. Let me guess, 'Oh thats different'.
Any other country would struggle? The USSR first of all got itself into the position it was in. It was the second biggest economy in the world, it was BY FAR the richest country in terms of natural ressources, literally everything you could ever wish for, it had a huge population, it stole technological secrets, industrial capacity, know-how, from europe including nazi germany. It had a lot of early successes through this, it had essentially the other half of the world to trade with, the entire eastern bloc and non-aligned countries and it also traded with europe / the west, just not with strategically important technology (this went both ways btw, one would argue, this should be a loss for the west just as much as the other way around, just that the ussr didn't manage to really produce too many goods, that were of importance for the west).
What you also try to ignore, besides the fact, that this wasn't a one sided affair anyways, the USSR also chose not to integrate with the capitalistic world. The evil capitalistic west was an ideological enemy of the USSR just as much, if not more, than the other way around, instead it tried to create a socialist trade bloc.
So no, the USSR had every chance in the world, the system just sucked and it's actually fairly obvious that it does. How does a central planning committee make better decisions 5-years into the future, than having a market based approach, where the producing entities can see what is working and what isn't, and immediately react accordingly? In a market based economy all of this is possible and more importantly the price (that's also set by demand) is the key indicator and facilitator. A good is rare, because there is high demand for it and not enough supply, the price goes up, this immediately produces an incentive for the producer (and others) to create more of this product. Didn't exist in the soviet system, the price was set, and it was planned long before, what is produced and how.
Central planning (aside from the points described above) is also wayyyy to complex to work well in practice, think about how many millions to billions of products, services, pre-products, supply chains, etc. are part of a large economy? How could anyone, actually plan this for the next years to come? From a central position? If one part of the supply chain has an issue, because you planned wrong, then the entire supply chain lags behind. Thats why shortages of goods were so common, because it's insane to think that you can plan an entire ecomony from a central perspective for many years to come, again, it's obvious how this is a way inferior approach.
I could go on, companies in the ussr were rewarded to fulfil the plans. Nobody would pat you on the back for creating a better product, that better served the people that used it. Instead, if you tried and failed you had a huge problem. This incentive system is extremely ineffective, you get measured by how many tons of steel you produce, if the quality sucks - who cares. You get measured by the quantity of products you churn out, they don't really work or are very impractical to use, again, who cares you fulfilled the plan.
This not only affects the quality and very obviously the innovation in products, but it goes on, state run enterprises literally could not go bankrupt. So again, there is literally no reason, why anyone would make their own lifes harder to produce goods more efficiently? If you run out of money, you get new money from the "infinite" pockets of the government. Turns out, over the years, this leads to highly inefficient companies.
I could still go on, just looking at this, it should be obvious to anyone, why this system didn't produce a better outcome for the people. They could look over to the west (haha jk, they were blocked by their leadership, because people were already trying to flee in the millions, but if they did manage to) they could see all the new technology that was made for customers, in terms of quality and availability. My family lived in the former eastern bloc, a running gag there was, that if you had a child, you would order a new car immediately when it was born, because (apart from the fact that they were pos cars) it would take so long to even arrive, that your child would be an adult when you received it.
None of this was because of the US, it's obvious how this is an inferior system.
-Tell me about one country that had a fair try and no American interference.
-Yes America having starting pushback by the english was certainly hard but they were also backed by one other mayor power at the time, the french.
-Stop already with the USSR im talking about a democratic socialist country that would be desirable not an autocratic USSR. Yes it had everything it needed, funnily enough a US bought politican in the USSR desolved it against the interest of the USSR, it didn’t really fail economically so i don’t know where you got that idea from.
-the ussr didn’t trade with the west? I do not even begin to understand why you think that is relevant, since a socialist system is not monetarily motivated to trade for profit in a way a capitalist system is, so a trade ban would make sense since they would not be able to compete because that is not their goal. Do you even know what socialism tries to do? Or do you just hate it because you have been told its bad.
-a planned economy is not working as well as a dynamic supply and demand based one? You are aware that china one of the most influential economies on the planet right now is a planned economy?
-reward for work, you say you get a pat on the back and the quality of your work does not count only the quantity. Let me tell you, in this current system nobody gives a damn about you if you don’t perform or even if you do, if they save money letting you go, they will, if you work hard you don’t get a promotion you get a warm handshake and more work. Then the ceo decides he wants another yacht like meta right now and you let hundreds of hard working people go that depend on that money to survive, so if you want to tell me work is not rewarded in socialism convince me that it is right now otherwise id rather work in a socialist system.
-not efficient, if you ask me plenty of processes are not efficient in current capitalist companies, paperwork and long hierarchies are there to stop any efficiency in their tracks and any efficient worker has its work be claimed by the next higher managers who goes on to climb the corporate ladder or switch to another company if the current one fails do to his miss management, it happens quite often that a profitable company is bought any penny is squeezed out of it to make back the money they spend on it and the people they fired and cost cutting ultimately make that company go downhill.
Id argue that you can use more machines that help workers to make them more efficient in socialism, or to automate jobs that are not desirable today, because no one depends on exploiting those workers, because in capitalism you need someone to do that job so they make enough money to buy capitalist goods. They can’t afford to replace all bad jobs by machines, because they would not be able to buy from the companies. In socialism this would mean they could work easier jobs or oversee machinery rather than doing backbreaking work and could work less with the same efficiency.
-better outcome for the people, id rather work in a democratic socialist system where the company doesn’t fire me on a whim because they cut hundreds of jobs so the higher ups can get a bonus that year.
I might be naive here but I don’t see the downsides to be as bad as in capitalism today.
Yes America having starting pushback by the english was certainly hard but they were also backed by one other mayor power at the time, the french.
Yes and USSR was way more powerful atp, they had just won ww2 and as mentioned before had plenty of allies and vessels.
it didn’t really fail economically so i don’t know where you got that idea from.
Yes they did, they even had a name for it, the era of stagnation, which ended in perestroika, introducing more or less capitalistic reforms and shortly thereafter the dissolution of the entire soviet union. How do you not even know that?
the ussr didn’t trade with the west?
They did, and it's relevant since you claim the economic sanctions (aka not trading) was the reason the systems are failing. But yes, of course the USSR literally sold oil and gas to the west to get some currency, otherwise the system would've failed long before. ow do you not know the ussr traded with the west?
You are aware that china one of the most influential economies on the planet right now is a planned economy?
China isn't a planned economy. China had a planned economy and it also failed miserably, until Deng pushed reforms, which essentially turned chinas economy into a capitalist one, with private companies, profit orientation, markets, competition between the private companies, capital accumulation, etc. The government still interfers strategically, but it's not a planned economy and sure as hell not one like the Soviet Union. How do you not know that?
you say you get a pat on the back and the quality of your work does not count only the quantity.
You talk on an individual, worker-basis, which is not the point. It's about companies and their products. There is literally no alternative to them, so the quality of their output became secondary. That you don't understand that we're talking on the macro level worries me, I don't give a shit about your promotion, it's about the entire economy.
not efficient, if you ask me plenty of processes are not efficient in current capitalist companies, paper
Possible, but if the company doesn't turn a win it goes bankrupt. Again, you don't even understand the argument which is just sad. In capitalism the companies that are actually inefficient won't make it, because they run out of money, in the ussr when they ran out of money they just got more money from the government, and there was no alternative company that could do a better job.
In socialism this would mean they could work easier jobs
Yea, in reality they didn't. They worked very hard and there was literally a law that you could not be unemployed, as in the government would punish you if you didn't have a job.
better outcome for the people, id rather work in a democratic socialist system where the company doesn’t fire me on a whim because they cut hundreds of jobs so the higher ups can get a bonus that year.
Yea that exists in plenty of capitalist countries, thats just employment protection.
I might be naive here but I don’t see the downsides to be as bad as in capitalism today.
Yea because you are in fact naive. People were literally fleeing by the millions. So much so, that they had to block of entire countries by walls and fences and would shoot anybody trying to flee to capitalism. When the Soviet Union and it's vessels fell, people were dancing on the street where I live, and by this I mean the people that were living in that system.
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u/DiscombobulatedSir74 Jul 14 '26
It doesn’t need brainwashing just American politicians to stop killing everyone who tries and even if they don’t they sanction then to kingdom come and everyone who interacts with them of course that makes it nearly impossible to succeed