Marxists?

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Whichever, Even going from that graph, in 1994 the life expectancy plummeted to 64. That happened under Yeltsin's watch. The father of free market Russia.




If Stalins action's constitute murder, then the same can be said for Western politicians and their lassez faire ideologues in the economic sector. From the carpet bombing of Cambodia to the crippling debt in Africa. Its all murder by ideology.

Exactly. It's unspoken, it's not part of the public face of Capitalism, but it's the consequence of an assumption that you can sacrifice people and lives to capital.

The Command Economy of the late Soviet Union did NOT work. It failed and it ceased to be after a while. The Soviet Union lasted a bit over 70 years, approximately two generations. The U.S. Mixed Economy (mistakenly called Capitalist) lasted through several major wars and a crippling economic depression.

ruveyn

That wasn't your argument, you said that it dropped by 10 years, when the truth is that it started its decline prior to Yeltsin. In fact, the difference between top and bottom of 5 years is a deviation of about 8%, something that is to be expected short term when you have to reorganize an entire society.








You would have to prove a link between capitalism and those deaths. There are historically accepted links between communism and genocide/murder. In the case of Operation Menu, it was undertaken since North Vietnamese troops were striking at US troops from sanctuaries in Cambodia. However, if we're speaking of Cambodia, 2 words "Killing Fields".

Last edited by TM on 02 Sep 2012, 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

The USSR failed mostly for political, not economic, reasons. It failed as a oppressive regime. In the meanwhile, it did industrialize Russia single-handedly.

That is exactly my point. It failed for political and economic reasons. By the way Japan industrialized faster than Russia without nearly the oppression and death imposed on the Russians by the Bulsheviks. Japan went from feudal to major league industrial and military in under two generations in spite of being culturally disjoint from the West where industry and big guns were invented. The Japanese beat the Russians bloody in a war in 1904 and 1905. And the Japanese have outperformed the Russians both under communism and after economically.

Marxism and its derivative Bulshevism has been a loser from the git-go.

Command economies only work for short periods of time. For example the U.S had a command economy for the duration of WW2. After the war it was demolished at warp speed. Price controls were lifted in 1946 less than a year after the war ended.

ruveyn

I don't know if it is your point, but it is the opposite of mine.


The Japanese miracle is a miracle because it was alone to do it. Exceptions are not the rule. What about India? China? Iran? Viet Nam? Egypt? Ethiopia? Sudan? Ecuador? Poland? Russia under the Soviet regime outperformed all of these. They were all roughly at the same level of development as Russia in 1900, or at least much closer to it than Western Europe was. Most had decent excuses for their poor results, but so had Russia -- it was treated as a pariah by the Western industrialized countries for almost all its existence. If the USSR ranked second in the world for the 1920-1990 period, I think it counts as a success.

Also, Japan started its industrialization in 1868. That's half a century's advance over Russia. You should remember that the Russian-Japanese War was during the czarist period. I don't understand why you brought it up at all. I used almost the same argument earlier (about Germany) to say exactly the opposite. In fact, the Soviet Union rampaged through Japan-dominated Manchukuo in a matter of days in 1945. If anything, this should be a proof that the Soviet regime succeeded, not failed. (Although, of course, Japan was already in a two-front war against China and the Western Allies, so the comparison is not as interesting as the German one.) In fact, the Soviet Union almost matched Japan in growth, despite being isolated commercially for much of the period and forced into autarcy -- for political, not economic reasons.

Just the fact that it lasted for over seventy years is something of an accomplishment, don't you think?



Hence why it was also an accomplishment that it went from being a poor, backwards, isolated post-civil war state into a superpower capable of projecting it's military might across the globe and sending rockets into space, putting itself on equal footing with the United States.

Furthermore, command economies never "failed." Before the Soviet Union, but during a period spanning roughly from 1917-1921, the Bolsheviks tried to build a stable economy while being hounded by foreign and domestic foes all intent on toppling the new revolutionary regime. By the 1930's following a period of internal stability, the USSR was still being hounded politically and had been isolated earlier due to the defeat of the German and Italian revolutions.

Only after WWII was the Soviet Union able to break out of it's isolation and project it's power on a global basis, and even then it was still hounded politically.

Such hatred of one such state has been unprecedented, and finds its roots in the struggle between communism and capitalism.

Two States have been especially loathed. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Both were monstrous regimes ruled over by monsters.

ruveyn

I don't know what your point is, but I'd call it BS.

Demographics of Russia Life Expectancy
1991 63.41 (male) 74.23 (female)
2011 64.3 (male) 76.1 (female)

Demographics of Russia

Really? you are getting this worked up over someone disagreeing with you.......I disagree with your perspective yet I am able to do so without attempting to personally insult you. You've only proven that when you've run out of actual arguments you resort to personal insults. Have fun with that.

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The European Union is a Marxist state in all but name.
Ruled by faceless, unelected, commissioners who (yes, it is true) get paid more than the President of the United States.

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In what sense is it Marxist?

The EU acts largely on the interests of (big) business (and, being an institution, itself). It's why there was a big panic amongst the front bench when that anti-EU vote came up in the commons recently.

I am hearing opinions, not facts. Opinions are like ass holes. Everybody has at least one.

Your issue is with the voters who put this system into being. Argue with them.

ruveyn

IMHO

the problem that often comes up when peeps talk about marx, both marxists and non marxists alike is that their utterings is not informed with an acquaintence with much in the way of marxes writings.

David Harveys website which has a lecture course taking one through the entirety of capital volume 1 is a good place to start for peeps who dont want to fall into such pitfalls when it comes to thinking about marx.

Is that just a random, generic comment, or does this actually refer to the thread?