Why was capitalism more successful than communism?

[ideogram]

Why did West Germany do better than East Germany? Why did South Korea do better than North Korea? Why did Taiwan do better than China? Why has China's economy taken off since Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms?

[Gawdzilla]

People want things. And they want to be rewarded for their labors.

"As long as they pretend to pay me, I'll pretend to work." etc.

[madurobob]

Because with E. Germany, China, N. Korea, etc.. the corruption was centralized within the government. giving everyone a clear and easy entity to distrust. In capitalist nations the corruption is much more distributed, making it difficult to ID the bad players. Since a great deal of that corruption is now in the private sector, citizens have more relative (misplaced?) trust that their political leaders have the citizens interests at heart.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Because communism as per the original theories doesn't work. Deep down people do not care about wether other people live in poverty, as long as they are getting what they want. Communism assumed we all want everyone to be equally rich and would work to make that happen.
None of the nations mentioned were ever truly communist, but rather state or person driven dictatorships where enormous social experiments were forced on people rather than driven by the people living there.
E.germany was a russian buffer state whose primary function was to serve the soviet union regardless of what happened to the nation itself.
The same for most of the rest of eastern europe.
The soviet union under stalin was a single man dictatorship, later turned into a small group dictatorship.
China went from personal dicatorship back to its old imperial burocracy (without an emperor). North korea is basically a theocracy built around a divine leader and his son and heir.
Cuba is a dictatorship (though how much of that is DUE to american policy is very debatable). Vietnam is run pretty much the same as any other reasonably successful SE asian country (ie lipservice to democracy/communism to keep an autocracy in power).

So in my opinion saying communism has failed is as wrong as saying pure captalism has won. There is no purely capitalistic nation in the world. If governments did not to some extent force companies to compete with each other price fixing and gouging would be far worse than it is today.

[Merko]

Define 'capitalism'. I don't think it was 'capitalism' that was more successful than communism. I think it was democracy.

[Gawdzilla]

Define 'capitalism'. I don't think it was 'capitalism' that was more successful than communism. I think it was democracy.

Perhaps better to say:

Communists practicing command-driven economics vs. Democracts practicing free-market economics?

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Perhaps better to say:

Communists practicing command-driven economics vs. Democracts practicing free-market economics?

Or so called communists practicing command driven economics vs (mostly sort of) democrats practicing mostly free market economics

[theprestige]

Or so called communists practicing command driven economics vs (mostly sort of) democrats practicing mostly free market economics

This.

The tradeoffs and flaws in democratic free markets are less horrible than the tradeoffs and flaws in communist command-driven markets. Also, they require substantially less tyranny to implement.

[HansMustermann]

I think a better question is: are we seeing an apples to apples comparison?

The Commie block had access to much less of the world market and its resources, and the majority of its population started from a much poorer industrial position. China or even the USSR didn't have all that much high-tech stuff to give someone else for resources. That the poor didn't get as rich as the richest, umm, is hardly surprising.

Additionally let's not forget that essentially the USSR drove its own economy into the ground with an excess of military spending. By mid 1980's, up to 17% of the GDP was going just on the army. (Estimated by the USA, btw. The Soviet propaganda figures were 10 times lower and barely accounted for maintenance costs.)

By comparison, the USA was spending 5-6% of its GDP on the army, and the number actually decreased to half that by the end of the 1990's. The highest spike the USA had in that indicator post-WW2 was 14.2% in 1953. Even during wars like Vietnam, the USA was actually spending less on the army than the USSR did during _peace_.

The USSR basically tried to out-spend and out-research the whole NATO militarily, and it simply didn't have the economy to do so. If nothing else, we're just seeing an illustration for why _that_ kind of a state driven by marrying the industry directly to the army doesn't work.

Mind you, I still think that communism had serious problems, but either way we just don't have an apples to apples comparison. We see that those who started poor and spent more on army than on development... ended up still poorer than the rich who didn't. Big surprise. I mean, who would have guessed?

[timhau]

The tradeoffs and flaws in democratic free markets are less horrible than the tradeoffs and flaws in communist command-driven markets. Also, they require substantially less tyranny to implement.

Yes, and free markets have feedback. If the customer/end user doesn't like your product, you'll know. Chances are, you'll know pretty quickly. In communist command-driven markets, feedback was at best ignored, and occasionally forcefully discouraged.

[Weak Kitten]

The main difference between capitalism and communism, as far as I can tell, is that capitalism is an observation of how people are whereas communism is a philosophy about how people should be.

When you are trying to make people the way you think they should be, rather than observing how they are and trying to work with that, it is not surprising that you would run into a few snags.

[lomiller]

The main difference between capitalism and communism, as far as I can tell, is that capitalism is an observation of how people are whereas communism is a philosophy about how people should be.


One could make the same statement regarding “free market” libertarians so I don’t think that’s it. Then again libertarian notions don’t seem to work any better than communist notions.

I think the main reason Capitalism works better then a command economy is that it doesn’t depend on subjective evaluations of what “should work”. Such subjective evaluations may still exist on a company scale but a form of natural selection removes the ideas that just don’t pan out while in a command economy bad ideas can persist for as long as the person who supports them remains in control.

[ServiceSoon]

One could make the same statement regarding “free market” libertarians so I don’t think that’s it. Then again libertarian notions don’t seem to work any better than communist notions.

I think the main reason Capitalism works better then a command economy is that it doesn’t depend on subjective evaluations of what “should work”. Such subjective evaluations may still exist on a company scale but a form of natural selection removes the ideas that just don’t pan out while in a command economy bad ideas can persist for as long as the person who supports them remains in control.Where didn't libertarian notions fail?

[MG1962]

Sorry could someone showed me where capitalism has worked?

[TraneWreck]

Let me begin by asserting clearly that Western Democracies using various modified forms of capitalism were superior on almost every level to their communist counterparts.

Now the BUT.

I don't think the 20th century was the definitive battle between Capitalism and COmmunism that we make it out to be. The tests were unfair from the outset.

For example, if someone said, in 1800, that in 2000 the wealthiest countries in the world would be England, France, Germany, the United States...etc., would anyone be shocked?

Now notice the sidebar, the "History of Communist States":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state

Not a single one of those countries has been wealthy or powerful in modern history. The only exceptions are China, which was beaten down during European Imperialism and then Japan immediately before becoming communist, and Russia, which, while intermittenly rich and powerful, has generally been behind Western Europe since the Mongols went sweeping through.

In other words, regardless of economic systems, over the last 200 years, the rich countries stayed rich (moving up and down relative to one another) and the poor countries stayed poor.

If you ask, "Why did communism fail in Afghanistan or Somalia or Ethiopia or Cambodia?" I think the answer is pretty clear, "because everything fails in those countries."

If you take the US and England and set them against Russia and China, the most powerful of both systems, the gap is obvious. But compare a less powerful western Democracy, say Canada, to the next tier of Communist nations: Laos? Cuba? North Korea?

So, modified capitalism is definitely preferable to communism in theory and in practice, but the test cases aren't good ones. We'd have to take a first world country, make them go communist, then see what happens.

[Gawdzilla]

Or so called communists practicing command driven economics vs (mostly sort of) democrats practicing mostly free market economics

"And everybody gets a share!";)

[Cainkane1]

You can accumulate wealth through capitalism than you can through Socialism. Working for yourself and your family instead of pooling your resources with other people gives more personal satisfaction. Capitalism makes you try harder and do better quality work.

[MG1962]

You can accumulate wealth through capitalism than you can through Socialism. Working for yourself and your family instead of pooling your resources with other people gives more personal satisfaction. Capitalism makes you try harder and do better quality work.

And where do we find this form of capitalism?

[HansMustermann]

Let me begin by asserting clearly that Western Democracies using various modified forms of capitalism were superior on almost every level to their communist counterparts.

Now the BUT.

I don't think the 20th century was the definitive battle between Capitalism and COmmunism that we make it out to be. The tests were unfair from the outset.

For example, if someone said, in 1800, that in 2000 the wealthiest countries in the world would be England, France, Germany, the United States...etc., would anyone be shocked?

Now notice the sidebar, the "History of Communist States":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state

Not a single one of those countries has been wealthy or powerful in modern history. The only exceptions are China, which was beaten down during European Imperialism and then Japan immediately before becoming communist, and Russia, which, while intermittenly rich and powerful, has generally been behind Western Europe since the Mongols went sweeping through.

In other words, regardless of economic systems, over the last 200 years, the rich countries stayed rich (moving up and down relative to one another) and the poor countries stayed poor.

If you ask, "Why did communism fail in Afghanistan or Somalia or Ethiopia or Cambodia?" I think the answer is pretty clear, "because everything fails in those countries."

If you take the US and England and set them against Russia and China, the most powerful of both systems, the gap is obvious. But compare a less powerful western Democracy, say Canada, to the next tier of Communist nations: Laos? Cuba? North Korea?

So, modified capitalism is definitely preferable to communism in theory and in practice, but the test cases aren't good ones. We'd have to take a first world country, make them go communist, then see what happens.

I think even pitting US against Russia actually makes a funny case. It doesn't matter how rich or powerful Russia may have been in the late middle ages, we need to compare when communism started. I can't find the number for 1922 on a quick googling, but for 1913 the GDP of Russia (adjusted to modern dollars) was about 232,351 millions of 1990 dollars. That of the USA was at 517,383.

Russia's population as of 1914 (I know, one year difference) was 175,100,000 people. The USA had 97,225,000 in 1913.

The USA started from having FOUR TIMES the GDP pro capita of the USSR. So, you know, even pitting the USSR vs the USA, it's still a case of the rich staying rich and the poor staying poor.

[Halfcentaur]

Define 'capitalism'. I don't think it was 'capitalism' that was more successful than communism. I think it was democracy.

I don't think so, Vietnam and China are being opened in large part to personal wealth and trade, but then this becomes a bit of a chicken and the egg thing. I think capitalism precedes.

[ideogram]

Thanks everyone for your responses. Perhaps the question is better phrased, why do free markets perform better than command economies? Also, I wanted to specifically mention the cases of E/W Germany, N/S Korea, and China pre/post Deng, since these seem to be the closest comparisons.

[Thunder]

Define 'capitalism'. I don't think it was 'capitalism' that was more successful than communism. I think it was democracy.

then why is China, which is now pretty much an authoritarian capitalist state, doing soo much better than it was 40 years ago?

[HansMustermann]

Well, ok, let's compare East and West Germany.

The decline in GDP per capita in the East, compared to West, actually started in 1936 and went downwards pretty sharply. Though "decline" is relative here, actually it's just that the western counties industrialized faster.

So we have Adolf to thank for that, rather than the commies.

There's a continuing that straight line down after the war for a couple of years, then by 1950 it had bounced back and was at the same GDP/capita ratio between East and West as when the commies first occupied the East.

Between 1950 and 1988 or so, actually the GDP pro capita in the East compared to West remains at an almost constant level. Which is to say the economic growth has been roughly the same under commies as under the free market in the west. At times it actually reduced the handicap a little, and by the end started slowing down a little. But very little.

The only sharp drop is right before the fall of the wall, partially due to psychological reasons, and partially because the Eastern Bloc market was starting to crumble as each country suddenly decided it doesn't like that bloc any more.

So in the absence of a _completely_ bat-crap crazy dictator a la Kim in North Korea, communist planned market actually didn't do too shabby in East Germany. It just stayed at the same percentage lower than the West as it had started, really. There was no catastrophic decline that anyone can tell.

[Fnord]

Why was capitalism more successful than communism?
People want things. And they want to be rewarded for their labors.
Because communism as per the original theories doesn't work. Deep down people do not care about wether other people live in poverty, as long as they are getting what they want. Communism assumed we all want everyone to be equally rich and would work to make that happen.
Communism 'failed' and capitalism 'succeeded' because of human greed -- the accumulation of wealth beyond an individual's needs. Capitalism rewards greed, while Communism punishes it.

Thanks everyone for your responses. Perhaps the question is better phrased, why do free markets perform better than command economies?
"It is far more rewarding to produce a lump of coal out of gratitude than a diamond out of duty."

[timhau]

Well, there is always the case of Czechoslovakia. It was one of the wealthiest nations on Earth before WW2. Of course, it got hit hard in the war, but so did Germany and Austria. The western part of Germany recovered, as did Austria, and reached new heights of prosperity. Czechoslovakia, not so much.

[keale]

then why is China, which is now pretty much an authoritarian capitalist state, doing soo much better than it was 40 years ago?


China is an interesting case and im not aware of anything else like it.

On one hand part of the reason China could accomplish so much in so little time is because of the authoritarian government. When they wanted stuff done like infrastructure they didnt have to worry about laws or politics or opposition. They brought in companies and gave them favored status along with the transfer of technology that aided their momentum till this point where they can now tell those same companies to go screw themself since they can do it on their own now.

Now on the other hand you have what amounts to the wild west of capitalism fueling their economic development. From what I have been told also is that when you want to do business there you must pay what my friend referred to as "commission" to communist party officials but its really bribes. Those same officials use the cash to buy homes and businesses here in the US and then immigrate at the first opportunity.

[TraneWreck]

Well, there is always the case of Czechoslovakia. It was one of the wealthiest nations on Earth before WW2. Of course, it got hit hard in the war, but so did Germany and Austria. The western part of Germany recovered, as did Austria, and reached new heights of prosperity. Czechoslovakia, not so much.

Again, though, Western Germany was supported by the world's largest, richest nations. Eastern Germany and Czechoslovakia (thank god they broke up so we don't have to spell that abomination of a country's name anymore--I'm glad you brought it up so I could copy) were supported by a militarily strong nation that was economically destitue.

Now, were they economically destitute because of communism or were they destitute before becoming communist? The causation is the key and I'm simply arguing that historical example doesn't show this one way or another.

Another way of looking at this: in 20 years will we guage the success of democracy and capitalism based on the performance of Afghanistan and Iraq?

Obviously they will be viewed in their full historical context. So fundamental are their problems (security, basic infrastructure, health and nutrition...etc.) that any governmental or economic ordering is likely going to fail, or at least not produce impressive outcomes.

Every nation that is or has been communist was in that sort of situation before the switch.

[Ziggurat]

Thanks everyone for your responses. Perhaps the question is better phrased, why do free markets perform better than command economies?

Because there's simply too much information in an economy for command economies to process effectively. Free markets distribute the decision-making to people who have the necessary localized information, and use price to effectively spread global information throughout the system.

There's a story about how a Soviet diplomat was shocked to find out that nobody was in charge of making sure London got enough bread each day.

[IchabodPlain]

This:

Because there's simply too much information in an economy for ecommand economies to process effectively. Free markets distribute the decision-making to people who have the necessary localized information, and use price to effectively spread global information throughout the system.

There's a story about how a Soviet diplomat was shocked to find out that nobody was in charge of making sure London got enough bread each day.

Basically it comes down to allocation of resources. Without a market, there is no way to know the price of what to charge for a good/service. Without a price, people have no way of prioritizing their wants and needs. Sure, if the car is free, me and everyone else want one. But if it costs $5,000, then I can compare what else I could buy with 5k and determine if I "really" want one.

Because people prioritize their wants and needs and purchase things, demand curves are realized, and the market "knows" how much to produce at what price. With command economies, you never really know how many of what to produce and usually end up with severe shortages (like in the early, "real-communism" days of the Soviet Union).

Then there are the problems regarding the lack of productivity incentives. Why should I bust my hump to produce an extra bushel of wheat while the guy next to me sleeps if I receive no compensation to do so? There are little to no incentives (other than the fear of being killed or going to jail) for increasing productivity.

The easiest comparison is a command or market-based economy that transitions itself to the other.

[jiggeryqua]

'Why did capitalism do better, measured by the values of capitalism, than communism did?'. I couldn't find the 'This question doesn't make sense' poll option here.

[IchabodPlain]

Communism 'failed' and capitalism 'succeeded' because of human greed -- the accumulation of wealth beyond an individual's needs. Capitalism rewards greed, while Communism punishes it.

Not quite right - you'd be more accurate to call it human selfishness. Myself and my wife do fairly well but both of us do not like clutter or otherwise having a bunch of stuff.

The difference is that we like seeing the fruits of our labor (including increases in productivity at work). We know that working overtime will yield us a better paycheck and that continued productivity may well result in promotions/pay raises, etc..

Another term, perhaps equally valid is autonomy. Humans value being able to provide and for themselves, rather than being told what they can have. Capitalism is compatible with a sense of autonomy that communism isn't. I can choose whether I want to have bread or potatoes, a cell phone or a laptop. Communism, historically, punishes this autonomy as well as increased productivity above the status quo. Look no further than the Kulaks of Soviet Russia to see how autonomy and productivity is punished.

'Why did capitalism do better, measured by the values of capitalism, than communism did?'. I couldn't find the 'This question doesn't make sense' poll option here.

Please feel free to use any measure to show that communism, as implemented anywhere in the world, preformed better than capitalism.

[MG1962]

Please feel free to use any measure to show that communism, as implemented anywhere in the world, preformed better than capitalism.

Feel free to show anywhere in the world where capitalism worked

[Fnord]

Define 'worked'.

[IchabodPlain]

Feel free to show anywhere in the world where capitalism worked

Begging the question - please give criteria for what you mean by "worked".

You'll also note that the post you quoted asked for any measure where communism was "better" than capitalism (jiggeryqua's term, not mine). The only thing I can even think of where this might be possible is income inequality - but then, it's better to have $100 and the guy next to you have $1000 than it is for you both to have $75.

[MG1962]

Begging the question - please give criteria for what you mean by "worked".

Where it has not had to be layered in successive wrappings of regulations to keep the system afloat

[MG1962]

Begging the question - please give criteria for what you mean by "worked".

You'll also note that the post you quoted asked for any measure where communism was "better" than capitalism (jiggeryqua's term, not mine). The only thing I can even think of where this might be possible is income inequality - but then, it's better to have $100 and the guy next to you have $1000 than it is for you both to have $75.

What if the person with the $1000.00 is Bernie Madoff?

[dtugg]

The main difference between capitalism and communism, as far as I can tell, is that capitalism is an observation of how people are whereas communism is a philosophy about how people should be.

When you are trying to make people the way you think they should be, rather than observing how they are and trying to work with that, it is not surprising that you would run into a few snags.

This.

[tkmikkelsen]

The one clear example that no one has mentioned yet is North and South Korea, or Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea as they are really named.
Before the Korean War, what is today North Korea was by far the most industrialized and wealthy part of the Korean peninsula. South Korea was considered no more than a bunch hillbilly farmers and they had no real industry.
50 years later, the picture is the complete opposite. South Korea is one the success stories of Asia when it come economic growth and North Korea have gone backwards like no other country in the same region and are today worse off than they where before the Korean War.
Now some will say, well they are not really communist and so on. In today's state of affairs that might be true, but they started out as communist and as such there affair today is a direct consequence of that.
North Korea is the clearest example of how communism have and will fail as long as there are people involved.

[OlegTheBatty]

So, modified capitalism is definitely preferable to communism in theory and in practice, but the test cases aren't good ones. We'd have to take a first world country, make them go communist, then see what happens.

Cuba and Haiti were comparable in 1958. While Cuba has some major problems, it is no where near the economic disaster area that Haiti still is. (And their medical system is better than the US's).

Cuba has about 3000 different companies operating there. Pretty much all of them are state owned, and they are run with much the same operating phiolosophy. Innovation is discouraged (even when they acknowledge the problem). In a capitalist system, each of those companies would have different operating methods, and innovation is encouraged.

In a (relatively) free market, there is a feedback loop between supply and demand. That loop is absent in a planned economy.

China is a mix of communism and capitalism, with state ownership and planning still predominating. Its working quite well for them.

In the industrialized west, we are operating under the assumption that financial markets are rational (in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary). It is not working so well.

[psionl0]

It would be better to define "communism" and "capitalism" before arguing about which is better.

As I understand it, under communism, the government owns all property (including the shirt on your back). It also owns all means of production and distribution and can direct any individual as to the job he or she must perform. It is an attempt to create a Utopian society where everybody works for the common good.

Capitalism is the exact opposite. There is no government economic involvement at all and everything is in the hands of individuals who can deal with each other on any terms they please.

No nation is purely communistic nor purely capitalistic. There is always some government involvement in the economy. Less government seems to be better than more government partly because people are more motivated when self gain is involved and partly because governments (being made up of people) tend to be corrupt and not as interested in the common good as they make themselves out to be.

[daenku32]

Capitalism motivates more managers to punish their workers for not performing. In Communism, the punishment had to come from higher up. A manager wasn't very motivated to punish as long as their manager didn't know about the situation. Ironically, that how it works in corporate environment as well. Both systems rely on punishment as the primary motivation for work.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

"And everybody gets a share!";)

My point was mostly that while there have never been truly communist states, there have never been truly 100% capitalist states either. (well maybe somalia right now)
Even in the US there is a large set of regulations and laws regarding what is and isn't allowed set by the government. In a truly free market Bernie Madoff for instance would not have been jailed. The market does not care if you lie or price fix or form a total monopoly or use slave labor... etc.

[Darat]

Well, there is always the case of Czechoslovakia. It was one of the wealthiest nations on Earth before WW2. Of course, it got hit hard in the war, but so did Germany and Austria. The western part of Germany recovered, as did Austria, and reached new heights of prosperity. Czechoslovakia, not so much.

WW2 is a interesting point of time to pick because it saw one of the biggest "redistribution of wealth" between countries we've probably ever had. I've read (so ready to be schooled about this!) that the UK already financially crippled by the costs of WWI had to bankrupt itself to pay for WWII, and a lot of that was transferred to the USA.

[HansMustermann]

The one clear example that no one has mentioned yet is North and South Korea, or Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea as they are really named.
Before the Korean War, what is today North Korea was by far the most industrialized and wealthy part of the Korean peninsula. South Korea was considered no more than a bunch hillbilly farmers and they had no real industry.
50 years later, the picture is the complete opposite. South Korea is one the success stories of Asia when it come economic growth and North Korea have gone backwards like no other country in the same region and are today worse off than they where before the Korean War.
Now some will say, well they are not really communist and so on. In today's state of affairs that might be true, but they started out as communist and as such there affair today is a direct consequence of that.
North Korea is the clearest example of how communism have and will fail as long as there are people involved.

Well, yes, let's talk Korea.

The South Korea wasn't really going anywhere until 1960 or so, and even then it took a bunch of government initiatives and intervention to get the ball rolling. So a success of just laissez-faire economics it is not. It's more like a success of a mixed model, like we've been saying all along.

Second, see that access to markets part. South Korea has them and uses them well. That's in fact the main thing that happened in 1960. Kim Il-Sung on the other hand had the bat-crap crazy idea that his country must be entirely self-reliant. They didn't even trade with China or the USSR much. Even as dysfunctional as the Warsaw Pact internal commie-bloc market was, North Korea stayed out of that too.

You're not seeing an economical or communist problem there. You're seeing a political problem, namely that isolationism doesn't work. Especially when you're not starting from that great a position in the first place.

Third, see what I said before about the USSR and overspending on the army. North Korea took even that to ridiculous extremes. North Korea spends 33.9% of its GDP on the army. That's twice the percentage that drove the USSR economy into the ground, and a full TEN TIMES what the USA was spending in peace times in, say, the '90s. Other countries don't even get that much of the GDP in taxes total, much less as the military budget alone.

Again, that's not communism or capitalism in action. It's that if you spend all your money on the army and buggerall on development -- and again, that's on top of hobbling the economy with a crazy autarky -- of course it'll be a problem.

You could drive any country into the ground, regardless of whether they're free market, communist planned economy, feudalism, or whatever, with that kind of crazy spending _and_ not exporting much.

Again, it's really a political problem.

[Ziggurat]

it's better to have $100 and the guy next to you have $1000 than it is for you both to have $75.

I think so, but not everyone agrees. Jealousy can be a powerful motivator, and some people really would be happier with less if it meant other people didn't have more.

[OlegTheBatty]

My point was mostly that while there have never been truly communist states, there have never been truly 100% capitalist states either. (well maybe somalia right now)
Even in the US there is a large set of regulations and laws regarding what is and isn't allowed set by the government. In a truly free market Bernie Madoff for instance would not have been jailed. The market does not care if you lie or price fix or form a total monopoly or use slave labor... etc.

The illegal drug trade is an example of a free market in action. It is not governed by any laws. The laws try to prevent it, but they are about as effective as tides are at eroding continents.

[Ziggurat]

My point was mostly that while there have never been truly communist states, there have never been truly 100% capitalist states either. (well maybe somalia right now)

Somalia doesn't count. Free markets might not have any regulations, but they still need reliable contract enforcement. And Somalia doesn't have that. Somalia is an anarchy, not a free market.

In a truly free market Bernie Madoff for instance would not have been jailed.

Oh yes he would have. He committed fraud. Fraud is a form of contract violation. While a truly free market might allow any form of voluntary contract, it must still enforce those contracts.

The market does not care if you lie

Yes it does. Or more precisely, it cares if you lie about certain things. And what Madoff lied about falls under the heading of things the market cares about.

or price fix or form a total monopoly

That might be OK, but this:

or use slave labor

is not OK. The only form of "slavery" a free market can tolerate is voluntary slavery. If you're an involuntary slave, then you aren't engaging in commercial activity willingly. The market for your labor is as unfree as possible.

We don't have truly free markets. We might never, because generally speaking that's not what people want. Since it's not what people want, democracies won't enact totally free markets, and it's hard to imagine any form of dictatorship ever allowing them. And totally free markets wouldn't be without problems. But I think you're confusing free markets with anarchy. They aren't the same. Free markets require that participants be free, and that contracts are enforced. Anarchy... doesn't.

[Trifikas]

The illegal drug trade is an example of a free market in action. It is not governed by any laws. The laws try to prevent it, but they are about as effective as tides are at eroding continents.

I'm not so sure I would agree with you. The law of the Gun can still control markets, even if it's not any "Recognized" government making the laws. If you don't like what gang "A" is selling, you might be out of luck if they've run gang "B" out of town.

Now, I'm going to preface this with the fact that i've not studied much of Economic theory, so this is just an idea I noodled around with, but I think that Communism's Achille's Heel is distribution. As was mentioned above, someone had to make sure the Soviet cities had enough bread. If we could perfect something akin to Star Trek's Replicators, where anyone could simply walk up and get whatever food they wanted, for all intents and purposes instantly, Could communism then work?

[psionl0]

If we could perfect something akin to Star Trek's Replicators, where anyone could simply walk up and get whatever food they wanted, for all intents and purposes instantly, Could communism then work?
I doubt it. The fact that oxygen is freely available to all living things doesn't seem to have helped communism much.

[lomiller]

Somalia doesn't count. Free markets might not have any regulations, but they still need reliable contract enforcement. And Somalia doesn't have that. Somalia is an anarchy, not a free market.

Actually one of the cornerstones of free markets that actually function is bankruptcy laws which are, in effect, a complete bypass of contract laws.


Oh yes he would have. He committed fraud. Fraud is a form of contract violation. While a truly free market might allow any form of voluntary contract, it must still enforce those contracts.

Fraud is a criminal offence contract laws are a part of civil law, so they are not even remotely the same thing. Dealing with contract law as a criminal matter has failed miserably


The only form of "slavery" a free market can tolerate is voluntary slavery. If you're an involuntary slave, then you aren't engaging in commercial activity willingly. The market for your labor is as unfree as possible.
Left to it’s own devices the free market developed processes that were the function equivalent of slavery. In accompany town, for example, you would be paid in tokens only redeemable at the company store, rent you lodgings from the company, be paid insufficiently to meet your weekly obligations to the company. If you ever wanted to leave the employ of the company you did so on the run with no money, possessions or means of survival.

The real danger to most people’s freedom is their wealthy neighbour not their democratically elected government. When your government isn’t democratically elected or isn’t capable of restraining your wealthy neighbour all bets are off. This is why pretty much every successful economy is, or is moving towards a mixed model of restricted capitalism.

[stilicho]

If you take the US and England and set them against Russia and China, the most powerful of both systems, the gap is obvious. But compare a less powerful western Democracy, say Canada, to the next tier of Communist nations: Laos? Cuba? North Korea?

So, modified capitalism is definitely preferable to communism in theory and in practice, but the test cases aren't good ones. We'd have to take a first world country, make them go communist, then see what happens.

We've been doing our best to go communist with agricultural marketing boards, a heavily subsidised yet bankrupt national air carrier, powerful public services unions, oppressive bank regulations, and so on. Give us a few more decades and we can be just like North Korea. Half credit for trying?

[Astrodude]

No nation is purely communistic nor purely capitalistic. There is always some government involvement in the economy. Less government seems to be better than more government partly because people are more motivated when self gain is involved and partly because governments (being made up of people) tend to be corrupt and not as interested in the common good as they make themselves out to be.

I think the government should be limited to maintaining order and preventing anarchy. This includes some social functions and welfare obviously because nothing screams anarchy like millions of homeless children. However, it's important to limit the government in such a way that it doesn't interfere with people's pursuits and ambitions day to day. In a Communist and/or Fascist system, there is no independent thought which is why these systems ultimately crumble where a capitalist system can evolve and flexibly adapt.

[Ziggurat]

Actually one of the cornerstones of free markets that actually function is bankruptcy laws which are, in effect, a complete bypass of contract laws.

It's not a bypass if they're both part of the same governing laws. Rather, it's a restriction on contracts.

Left to it’s own devices the free market developed processes that were the function equivalent of slavery.

Left to their own devices, free markets don't remain free. This is not surprising or novel.

The real danger to most people’s freedom is their wealthy neighbour not their democratically elected government.

Kelo vs. New London. You don't think those threats can ever be related?

In the US, a wealthy man can do nothing to me with impunity. But the government... well, the government can do quite a lot that I can do nothing about. They can take my property. They can take my wealth. They can keep me from doing what I do for a living. Government, not private individuals, constrains my liberty. Now, maybe that's all worth it. Maybe government is a bigger threat to me than Bill Gates because government is so successful in neutralizing the risk that Gates could pose. Nonetheless, it remains government, not wealthy people, that can do me the most harm.

When your government isn’t democratically elected or isn’t capable of restraining your wealthy neighbour all bets are off.

Well, sure. And when your government isn't democratically elected, nobody can protect you from that government either. And when it's not capable, it can't protect me from my poor neighbors either.

This is why pretty much every successful economy is, or is moving towards a mixed model of restricted capitalism.

Moving towards? Every successful economy already is. And the reason is fairly simple: even mostly free markets need democracy to survive, and people don't want completely free markets. So there are none, or at least none that last.

[IchabodPlain]

Where it has not had to be layered in successive wrappings of regulations to keep the system afloat

Markets need government in the form of contract enforcement, fraud prevention, quality control, etc... to protect the integrity of claims, agreements, and public confidence. Government regulations are not inherently incompatible with capitalism, except for those who maintain the strawman that capitalism = anarchy.

[Wowbagger]

Like everything else in the world, there are different levels of factors at play, here: Both proximate and ultimate. Niether are mutually exclusive.

Communism would ultimately fail because the assumptions it makes on human nature were not accurate. Some examples have already been pointed out: worker motivation, etc.

The specific proximate reasons are worth examining, perhaps: military spending, etc. But, even if those details were different, communism would not have lasted long, anyway. And, the ultimate reasons tell us why.

[hodgy]

Well, ok, let's compare East and West Germany.

The decline in GDP per capita in the East, compared to West, actually started in 1936 and went downwards pretty sharply. Though "decline" is relative here, actually it's just that the western counties industrialized faster.

So we have Adolf to thank for that, rather than the commies.

There's a continuing that straight line down after the war for a couple of years, then by 1950 it had bounced back and was at the same GDP/capita ratio between East and West as when the commies first occupied the East.

Between 1950 and 1988 or so, actually the GDP pro capita in the East compared to West remains at an almost constant level. Which is to say the economic growth has been roughly the same under commies as under the free market in the west. At times it actually reduced the handicap a little, and by the end started slowing down a little. But very little.

The only sharp drop is right before the fall of the wall, partially due to psychological reasons, and partially because the Eastern Bloc market was starting to crumble as each country suddenly decided it doesn't like that bloc any more.

So in the absence of a _completely_ bat-crap crazy dictator a la Kim in North Korea, communist planned market actually didn't do too shabby in East Germany. It just stayed at the same percentage lower than the West as it had started, really. There was no catastrophic decline that anyone can tell.

hmmm - i know where i would rather live
are you really trying to claim that economic conditions were as favourable in east germany as west?

[Travis]

Strange how Communism always needs a brutal dictator to implement it and then always seems to collapse as soon as the government goes "soft".

I see a lot of talk about access to markets.....well what was preventing the Communist countries from trading with everyone else?

[bikerdruid]

Strange how Communism always needs a brutal dictator to implement it and then always seems to collapse as soon as the government goes "soft".

I see a lot of talk about access to markets.....well what was preventing the Communist countries from trading with everyone else?

canada sold a lot of wheat to the ussr.
we also deal with cuba.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Strange how Communism always needs a brutal dictator to implement it and then always seems to collapse as soon as the government goes "soft".

I see a lot of talk about access to markets.....well what was preventing the Communist countries from trading with everyone else?

Part of it was pure stubbornness. If they'd actively traded on the international market it showed that their perfect system needed others to survive.
Part of it was incompatibility. The communist nations did not have things like a stock exchange. Their currencies were kept stable trough ways not accepted by the rest of the world.. etc
And part of it was the cold war. Independent and critical thinking was discouraged, so they tended to invent less new things. But at the same time trade embargoes also prevented new technology invented in the west from being bought, causing a slow decline in technology levels.

[psionl0]

I think the government should be limited to maintaining order and preventing anarchy. This includes some social functions and welfare obviously because nothing screams anarchy like millions of homeless children. However, it's important to limit the government in such a way that it doesn't interfere with people's pursuits and ambitions day to day.

It's a pity that politicians don't share that view (in spite of what they might SAY). They are constantly seeking ever increasing power over the people and they stack the supreme courts with judges that will give it to them. They have the power to confiscate your property and even your children on the flimsiest of contexts. This is communism in everything but name.

[HansMustermann]

hmmm - i know where i would rather live
are you really trying to claim that economic conditions were as favourable in east germany as west?

Again: economic conditions largely maintained the same disparity between East and West as before the commies got anywhere near there. The richer stayed richer and the poorer stayed poorer, by the same percentage.

That said, if you're trying to tell me that you'd rather live in a richer country, well, that's nothing new. That's why Mexicans or Indians come to the USA, although neither Mexico nor India are communist. That's hardly an indication that communism is good or bad.

[HansMustermann]

Strange how Communism always needs a brutal dictator to implement it and then always seems to collapse as soon as the government goes "soft".

I see a lot of talk about access to markets.....well what was preventing the Communist countries from trading with everyone else?

Right. Whatever was preventing Cuba from trading with the USA, I wonder? It's not like they had embargoes against commies, right? ;)

That said, in North Korea's case the autarky is self-imposed. That country isn't as much a failure of communism as basically a failure of artificial cutting oneself off from trading even with the other commie countries, _and_ spending waaay too much. You could drive any economy into the ground that way. You could take even the USA and, if you forbade any foreign trade at all, _and_ taxed it so high that you can spend over a third of the GDP on army alone, it would fail majorly too. Even if you left the free market as it is or even deregulated some more, there's still no way it could survive that kind of crazy.

[Belz...]

Why was capitalism more successful than communism?

Self-regulation.

[TraneWreck]

Self-regulation.

Assuming you lived through the last three years, I sincerely hope that's sarcasm.

[TraneWreck]

hmmm - i know where i would rather live
are you really trying to claim that economic conditions were as favourable in east germany as west?

No, he's not.

[AsleepAtTheKeyboard]

I think if you're contrasting collectivism with private property systems, you should start by seeing which works better at a community level. The pilgrims trying collectivism then starving is often cited nowadays, and I think likely a true account, but only a single data point.

You could look at the disastrous forced collectivization of the Russian peasantry, but the fact that it was forced makes it dishonest to assign all blame to the collective organization. You could also look at the numerous attempts to form collective societies in the US in the 1800s, most of which failed quickly. However, I'm not sure what the proper comparison or control group to those societies would be. Finding a bunch of idealist intellectuals to live together on a farm is definitely a selection effect.

Perhaps there is data among the Israeli kibbutzim - I read that they are shifting away from totally collective structures. Maybe output of kibbutzim can be compared by level of collectivization?

[TraneWreck]

I think if you're contrasting collectivism with private property systems, you should start by seeing which works better at a community level. The pilgrims trying collectivism then starving is often cited nowadays, and I think likely a true account, but only a single data point.

Oh boy, Rush Limbaugh's ******** has managed to trickle all through society.

As for Jamestown, there was famine. But historians dispute the characterization of the colony as a collectivist society. “To call it socialism is wildly inaccurate,” said Karen Ordahl Kupperman, a historian at New York University and the author of “The Jamestown Project.” “It was a contracted company, and everybody worked for the company. I mean, is Halliburton a socialist scheme?”

The widespread deaths resulted mostly from malaria. Tree ring studies suggest that the settlement was also plagued by drought.

But the biggest problem, Professor Kupperman said, was the lack of planning. The Virginia settlers came to the New World thinking that they could find gold or a route to the Pacific Ocean via the Chesapeake Bay, and make a quick buck by setting up a trading station like others were establishing in the East Indies.

“It was just wishful thinking,” she said, “a failure to recognize that these things are really, really difficult.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/weekinreview/21zernike.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2

The article is pretty interesting. This fable about socialism causing problems for the Pilgrims is rooted in Cold War propaganda.

National Geographic did a comprehensive study of Jamestown and what caused its failure. Here's a cool interactive site with some of the info:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/05/jamestown/jamestown-standalone

[Travis]

Again: economic conditions largely maintained the same disparity between East and West as before the commies got anywhere near there. The richer stayed richer and the poorer stayed poorer, by the same percentage.

So communism was not any better at building a nations wealth then.

And I think it's interesting to look at why those countries were poor to begin with.

Right. Whatever was preventing Cuba from trading with the USA, I wonder? It's not like they had embargoes against commies, right? ;)

Yes but nothing stopped Cuba from trading with everyone else and becoming a technological innovation center. Why is it that Silicon Valley is where it is and not in Havana?

[chris epic]

consumer goods

[chris epic]

Capitalism motivates more managers to punish their workers for not performing Capitalism only punishes? Carrots and sticks, my boy. Carrots and sticks.

In Communism, the punishment had to come from higher up. then its obviously not communism because "higher up" would be counterintuitive of it.

A manager wasn't very motivated to punish as long as their manager didn't know about the situation. in which/who's 'communism'. Ironically, that how it works in corporate environment as well. Both systems rely on punishment as the primary motivation for work.nope...again, carrots and sticks... geeze, you're so negetive

[chris epic]

there's actually no such thing as forced collectivism. If it's forced, its something else entirely. It would be akin to calling prison forced collectivism. It's not forced collectivism, it's PRISON.

Here's another: FORCED ALTRUISM. Nope... that's actually practical socialism.

[PixyMisa]

Because capitalism seeks local short-term economic optima, and communism rounds up the peasants and shoots them.

[PixyMisa]

You could drive any country into the ground, regardless of whether they're free market, communist planned economy, feudalism, or whatever, with that kind of crazy spending _and_ not exporting much.

Again, it's really a political problem.
Well, of course it is. Communism is not just a failed economic system, it's a failed political system.

Communism on a national scale means that you don't see any measurable benefit from your labour. That means that nobody wants to work. That sends the country straight down the tubes, and everyone who has the means to do so, leaves. That means that the people in charge are forced either to abandon communism or turn the country into a prison camp, or, in at least one instance, both.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

So communism was not any better at building a nations wealth then.

And I think it's interesting to look at why those countries were poor to begin with.



Yes but nothing stopped Cuba from trading with everyone else and becoming a technological innovation center. Why is it that Silicon Valley is where it is and not in Havana?

Actually the US threathened (and as far as I know still does) to severely sanction any country trading with cuba. Especially when it comes to any goods that could concievably be used in any way to make any form of advanced weaponry. The USSR had the navy to counter this threat and thus could to some degree trade with (give to) cuba. But the rest of the world just doesn't care enough about some small nation starving to risk losing the US market.

[bikerdruid]

Actually the US threathened (and as far as I know still does) to severely sanction any country trading with cuba. .

the 'helms-burton law' fell flat on its ass.
jessie helms tried to sue canada for trading with cuba. he failed.
canada and cuba have good trade relations.
a huge canadian fertilizer company has a plant in cuba and we are free to buy cuban coffee, rum and cigars.
jealous?

[CDFingers]

Capitalism is more successful than communism because Latinum is more attractive than cooperation.

CDFingers

[TraneWreck]

Yes but nothing stopped Cuba from trading with everyone else and becoming a technological innovation center. Why is it that Silicon Valley is where it is and not in Havana?

That's just not true. We have weilded our international influence to limit the ability of other nations to trade with Cuba. Some of them have decided to do so anyway, but in negotiations we have long given favorable status and denied beneficial agreements based on how other nations interacted with Cuba.

[TraneWreck]

the 'helms-burton law' fell flat on its ass.
jessie helms tried to sue canada for trading with cuba. he failed.
canada and cuba have good trade relations.
a huge canadian fertilizer company has a plant in cuba and we are free to buy cuban coffee, rum and cigars.
jealous?

True, but most trade with Cuba has occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union. We're just entering our third decade of other countries getting up the courage to engage with Cuba despite our protests.

So, for about 40 years Cuba's only trading partners (with a few exceptions) were other rat-**** poor communist nations. The massive Western economies basically isolated the tiny island nation.

This is why the better arguments against communism are based on economic modelling and theory. The test cases in the world were horrible.

Set aside all knowledge of ideology, who has what system. If, in 1940, you were told that the world would basically be split into two competing halves as follows:

Group 1:
Russia
China
Laos
Vietnam
Cuba
Cambodia
Somalia
Afghanistan

Group 2:
United States
England
France
Germany
Canada
Australia
Japan

Each group interacts within itself but not the other group, it's hard to imagine what sort of political system you could put in place that would stop group 2 from overwhelming dominance.

Once again, it's important to remember that until very recently China was a pathetic economic performer. Was it because of communism or was it the years of Western Imperialism immediately followed by complete destruction at the hands of the Japanese and then an insanely bloody civil war? In the long view of history, the 60 years since the commies took over China is a reasonable time for a nation to recover from that type of devestation regardless of ideology.

And then, of course, the Soviet Union's power was vastly overstated as post-Cold War information has shown. They had a formidable military, but that was about it. They were a pathetic economy. Again, is communism to blame, or the century and a half of insane warfare beginning with Napoleon and the two World Wars. Then, as a reward, they deal with Stalin's purges. There's nothing in Marx about the necessity of brutally murdering 50,000,000 (some say 100,000,000 for Mao). Though every communist nation has engaged in such. Of course, every capitalist nation went through similar periods of blood-shed (based on % of population).

Again, I'm not arguing in favor of communism, I'm very glad to have been born in the US, but simply observing how communist nations performed in the 20th century isn't very compelling.

[PixyMisa]

Again, is communism to blame, or the century and a half of insane warfare beginning with Napoleon and the two World Wars.
Communism. The whole of Europe got clobbered by the Napoleonic Wars and the two World Wars as well.

Admittedly, Russia and China got whipsawed by going from utterly corrupt aristocracies to utterly corrupt communist party leaders without honest government ever getting a look in.

Then, as a reward, they deal with Stalin's purges. There's nothing in Marx about the necessity of brutally murdering 50,000,000 (some say 100,000,000 for Mao). Though every communist nation has engaged in such.Not all of them, at least, not to such a scale, but it is a predominant theme.

Of course, every capitalist nation went through similar periods of blood-shed (based on % of population).No. When it comes to murdering their own people, the communists are really in a class by themselves.

Again, I'm not arguing in favor of communism, I'm very glad to have been born in the US, but simply observing how communist nations performed in the 20th century isn't very compelling.100 million dead, entire nations turned into prison camps, universal poverty, hunger, and despair. Depends on your definition of "compelling", I suppose.

Communism is the mid-latitude answer to malaria and rinderpest, turning perfectly good countries into sub-Saharan disaster zones.

[PixyMisa]

Communism doesn't work on a large scale (where "large" is bigger than, say, Liechtenstein) because it sets a fundamentally intractable optimisation problem while at the same time deliberately removing the information needed to even approximate a solution.

Capitalism provides that information but doesn't actually attempt to solve the global optimisation problem. And while it can go off the rails - even badly - when signals get distorted, the fact that it is decentralised means that it will, in and of itself, reset and correct the problem fairly quickly.

J.B.S. Haldane - himself a communist - noted all this (http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html) over 80 years ago.

[Belz...]

Assuming you lived through the last three years, I sincerely hope that's sarcasm.

Actually, it wasn't. By definition capitalism requires less government involvment in order to function, imo.

What's wrong about the last three years ? Up in Québec we barely noticed the recession, yet.

[TraneWreck]

Communism. The whole of Europe got clobbered by the Napoleonic Wars and the two World Wars as well.

Admittedly, Russia and China got whipsawed by going from utterly corrupt aristocracies to utterly corrupt communist party leaders without honest government ever getting a look in.

Right, but the worlds most massive economy rebuilt the Western European countries. No one served a similar function for the communist nations.


No. When it comes to murdering their own people, the communists are really in a class by themselves.

Their murdering occurred in a century with exponentially more people on the planet. There were about as many people in China in 1950 as there were in the whole world in 1700.

The Wars and internal revolts and violent repressions that occurred in the Western world happened centuries earlier. By the time China and Russia were in revolution, those nations were internally stable. This is yet another reason why the historical comparison is bad.

Let's set the nacent democracies of Iraq and Afghanistan against the stable communist nations of Vietnam and China and compare their progress over the next century. Would this be a good test of democracy and capitalism?



100 million dead, entire nations turned into prison camps, universal poverty, hunger, and despair. Depends on your definition of "compelling", I suppose.

How different is that than Europe from 1500-1800? How different is that than 19th Century America with all of our slaves?

The numbers are always going to be skewed because of the incredible population differences, but in terms of quality of life, free markets took centuries to build stable, quality countries. The oldest remaining communist nation is a half century old.


Communism is the mid-latitude answer to malaria and rinderpest, turning perfectly good countries into sub-Saharan disaster zones.

What country are you talking about? Where were these perfectly good countries?

[TraneWreck]

Actually, it wasn't. By definition capitalism requires less government involvment in order to function, imo.

What's wrong about the last three years ? Up in Québec we barely noticed the recession, yet.

Wonder why that is. With no one having to declare bankruptcy or having houses foreclosed on because of medical bills, I can imagine you've weathered things pretty nicely.

You may have heard, but there was a bit of a financial disaster that occurred in, well, the entire world beginning in 2008. It was spurned by deregulation and excessive greed. Here's one place to begin reading:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

It was the dismantling of Depression Era regulations beginning in the 80's that allowed, for example, the shadow banking system to emerge.

Anyone arguing that the free market is self-regulating must literally have been in a coma since 2008. I honestly don't know how one could have been alive during this period and still make such an assertion.

[AvalonXQ]

Anyone arguing that the free market is self-regulating must literally have been in a coma since 2008. I honestly don't know how one could have been alive during this period and still make such an assertion.

I still make the assertion, because I still believe that it was government interference in the market that caused the bubble and crash.
I will read your link above and see if more information changes my opinion.

EDIT: I misspoke; I'm not going to read it. Have anything with the salient facts and a little less... well... vitriole?

[TraneWreck]

I still make the assertion, because I still believe that it was government interference in the market that caused the bubble and crash.
I will read your link above and see if more information changes my opinion.

How would that even work? The trend since the 80's was deregulation. Can you name a single regulation that was imposed since 1980 that would have had the effect you claim?

The go to vapid right-wing argument has been that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were responsible for housing bubble.

During the peak of the housing bubble, Fannie and Freddie basically stopped providing net lending for home purchases, while private securitizers rushed in.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/fannie-freddie-further/

You'll also get a canard about the community reinvestment act.

It was deeply depressing to see Raguram Rajan write this:

The tsunami of money directed by a US Congress, worried about growing income inequality, towards expanding low income housing, joined with the flood of foreign capital inflows to remove any discipline on home loans.
That’s a claim that has been refuted over and over again. But what happens, I believe, is that in Chicago they don’t listen at all to what the unbelievers say and write; and so the fact that those libruls in Congress caused the bubble is just part of what everyone knows, even though it’s not true.

Just to repeat the basic facts here:

1. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was irrelevant to the subprime boom, which was overwhelmingly driven by loan originators not subject to the Act.

2. The housing bubble reached its point of maximum inflation in the middle years of the naughties:

3. During those same years, Fannie and Freddie were sidelined by Congressional pressure, and saw a sharp drop in their share of securitization...while securitization by private players surged
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/things-everyone-in-chicago-knows/

Pretty Graphs at the link.

It's also important to remember the following:

1) Subprime lending was a huge problem, but doesn't alone explain the bubble. THere was little such lending in Europe and they had a bubble. There was a bubble in commercial real estate, as well, and that foreclosure rate surged, too.

2) Even if we simply focus on subprime, the problem was not just the houses. Those mortgages were leverage dozens of times, chopped up into securitized instruments, and passed around as credit default swaps.



EDIT: I misspoke; I'm not going to read it. Have anything with the salient facts and a little less... well... vitriole?

Sometimes vitriole is warranted. This is such a case. My guess is that if you devote yourself to understanding how mortgage-backed securities were leveraged and how ratings agency colluded with banks to give AAA ratings to junk securities, you won't be all that happy, either.

There are only two groups of people who aren't pissed about what happened: those that don't understand it and those that did it.

[AvalonXQ]

Sometimes vitriole is warranted.

Not if you're interested in reaching me, it isn't.
I enjoy becoming more educated on issues, but I'm not interested in listening to emotionally-charged chest-beating or propogandizing. Vitriole is tiring. If you feel the need to use it then I'll assume you're relying on emotion because you don't have the facts to back up your argument, and I'll look for my commentary elsewhere.
If you don't have a source that will express the facts politely, then you don't have a source that can educate me -- and I understand I'm nowhere near alone on this point.

[TraneWreck]

Not if you're interested in reaching me, it isn't.
I enjoy becoming more educated on issues, but I'm not interested in listening to emotionally-charged chest-beating or propogandizing. Vitriole is tiring. If you feel the need to use it then I'll assume you're relying on emotion because you don't have the facts to back up your argument, and I'll look for my commentary elsewhere.
If you don't have a source that will express the facts politely, then you don't have a source that can educate me -- and I understand I'm nowhere near alone on this point.

Well, first of all, there are plenty facts in that article, but if you're turned off by harsh words, fine.

That's why I offered you sources that were not vitriolic. Even if you find Krugmans mild sarcasm to be too much, it's hard to make a vitriolic graph.

[PixyMisa]

How different is that than Europe from 1500-1800? How different is that than 19th Century America with all of our slaves?
Where in Europe was there a deliberate program of depopulation between 1500 and 1800?

The numbers are always going to be skewed because of the incredible population differences, but in terms of quality of life, free markets took centuries to build stable, quality countries.No, the numbers are directly comparable. Every communist country started out as a free market country and then ran itself into the ground.

What country are you talking about? Where were these perfectly good countries?Eastern Europe. Korea. Russia had problems, but they certainly traded them in for worse problems.

[BeAChooser]

then why is China, which is now pretty much an authoritarian capitalist state, doing soo much better than it was 40 years ago?

Good question.


Here is the nominal GDP of China over many years:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Prc1952-2005gdp.gif

Do you notice when it's GDP started to grow? In 1978. And do you notice what happened in 1978? China began to adopt capitalistic approaches to it's economy. And as it has adopted more and more of them, it's economy has exploded. And it did not collapse like the Soviet Union did, precisely because of that … because it began making more and more of it's population dramatically better off economically. Even so, it was close thing. Recall that Tiananmen Square took place in 1989. Now look what happened to the Chinese economy in 1989. That's when it really took off. They saved China with capitalism. A fact that leftists will never understand or accept. :D

[TraneWreck]

Where in Europe was there a deliberate program of depopulation between 1500 and 1800?

We're just decending into semantics. The various factional wars in the European countries during that period are well known. Consider the relationship between Scotland and England, for example. Is that radically different than Ho Chi Minh vs. South Vietnam?

If you look at the deaths in conflicts per capita from the late middle ages into the 19th century, they were insane. There were just far fewer people to kill.

There were inquisitions and purges and attacks on intellectuals, other religions, and competing political groups.

And, by the way, a rather large population of people became almost extinct at the hands of the Europeans during that period. If you consider the number of people killed by Imperialism during that period as a percent of the world population, it dwarfs the deaths caused by communism. It's possible that 50-100 million people were killed in the new world, alone. That's almost the same amount killed by Mao and Stalin in unadjusted numbers.

Add in slavery and it's difficult to say that communism was uniquely amoral. This is not an argument in favor of either group of attrocities, just pointing out that our focus on the recent past distorts our understanding of the longer view.



No, the numbers are directly comparable. Every communist country started out as a free market country and then ran itself into the ground.

Good. So let's guage the success of capitalism by how Afghanistan and Iraq do over the next half century.


Eastern Europe. Korea. Russia had problems, but they certainly traded them in for worse problems.

Eastern Europe and Russia struggled because they were poor before becoming communist and decided to stand in opposition to the rich nations. Whatever economic system those countries chose to adopt, the deadly decision was turning inside, building up walls against the rich.

As China has shown, just calling oneself "communist" won't stop us from interacting with a nation.

[bikerdruid]

We're just decending into semantics. The various factional wars in the European countries during that period are well known. Consider the relationship between Scotland and England, for example. Is that radically different than Ho Chi Minh vs. South Vietnam?

If you look at the deaths in conflicts per capita from the late middle ages into the 19th century, they were insane. There were just far fewer people to kill.

There were inquisitions and purges and attacks on intellectuals, other religions, and competing political groups.

And, by the way, a rather large population of people became almost extinct at the hands of the Europeans during that period. If you consider the number of people killed by Imperialism during that period as a percent of the world population, it dwarfs the deaths caused by communism. It's possible that 50-100 million people were killed in the new world, alone. That's almost the same amount killed by Mao and Stalin in unadjusted numbers.

Add in slavery and it's difficult to say that communism was uniquely amoral. This is not an argument in favor of either group of attrocities, just pointing out that our focus on the recent past distorts our understanding of the longer view.




Good. So let's guage the success of capitalism by how Afghanistan and Iraq do over the next half century.



Eastern Europe and Russia struggled because they were poor before becoming communist and decided to stand in opposition to the rich nations. Whatever economic system those countries chose to adopt, the deadly decision was turning inside, building up walls against the rich.

As China has shown, just calling oneself "communist" won't stop us from interacting with a nation.

excellent post, sir. thank you.

[PixyMisa]

We're just decending into semantics. The various factional wars in the European countries during that period are well known. Consider the relationship between Scotland and England, for example. Is that radically different than Ho Chi Minh vs. South Vietnam?
Yes, actually.

If you look at the deaths in conflicts per capita from the late middle ages into the 19th century, they were insane.
Evidence?

Add in slavery and it's difficult to say that communism was uniquely amoral.
It's not a question of morality, it's a question of efficiency. Communism is inherently self-destructive.

Good. So let's guage the success of capitalism by how Afghanistan and Iraq do over the next half century.
That's just abjectly dishonest.

We're gauging the failure of communism based on every communist state in history.

Some capitalist states may fail. Every communist state fails.

Eastern Europe and Russia struggled because they were poor before becoming communist and decided to stand in opposition to the rich nations.
I have seldom seen a more facile and absurd case of historical revisionism.

Whatever economic system those countries chose to adopt, the deadly decision was turning inside, building up walls against the rich.
Eastern Europe made no such decision. They had communism imposed upon them by the USSR and were then fenced in - literally - to prevent escape or unauthorised trade or communication. Communism always does that, because communism does not work.

As China has shown, just calling oneself "communist" won't stop us from interacting with a nation.
China hasn't been communist, as noted above, for thirty years. Still totalitarian, sure. But not communist.

[Travis]

That's just not true. We have weilded our international influence to limit the ability of other nations to trade with Cuba. Some of them have decided to do so anyway, but in negotiations we have long given favorable status and denied beneficial agreements based on how other nations interacted with Cuba.

What stopped them from building their own huge navy then telling us to go "**** ourselves?"

In international affairs might makes right.

True, but most trade with Cuba has occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union. We're just entering our third decade of other countries getting up the courage to engage with Cuba despite our protests.

So, for about 40 years Cuba's only trading partners (with a few exceptions) were other rat-**** poor communist nations. The massive Western economies basically isolated the tiny island nation.

This is why the better arguments against communism are based on economic modelling and theory. The test cases in the world were horrible.

Set aside all knowledge of ideology, who has what system. If, in 1940, you were told that the world would basically be split into two competing halves as follows:

Group 1:
Russia
China
Laos
Vietnam
Cuba
Cambodia
Somalia
Afghanistan

Group 2:
United States
England
France
Germany
Canada
Australia
Japan

Each group interacts within itself but not the other group, it's hard to imagine what sort of political system you could put in place that would stop group 2 from overwhelming dominance.

Once again, it's important to remember that until very recently China was a pathetic economic performer. Was it because of communism or was it the years of Western Imperialism immediately followed by complete destruction at the hands of the Japanese and then an insanely bloody civil war? In the long view of history, the 60 years since the commies took over China is a reasonable time for a nation to recover from that type of devestation regardless of ideology.

And then, of course, the Soviet Union's power was vastly overstated as post-Cold War information has shown. They had a formidable military, but that was about it. They were a pathetic economy. Again, is communism to blame, or the century and a half of insane warfare beginning with Napoleon and the two World Wars. Then, as a reward, they deal with Stalin's purges. There's nothing in Marx about the necessity of brutally murdering 50,000,000 (some say 100,000,000 for Mao). Though every communist nation has engaged in such. Of course, every capitalist nation went through similar periods of blood-shed (based on % of population).

Again, I'm not arguing in favor of communism, I'm very glad to have been born in the US, but simply observing how communist nations performed in the 20th century isn't very compelling.


But if Communism is inherently superior then it shouldn't have mattered what countries it started in. It should have made those countries better to live in regardless and then it should have taken over countries that were already wealthy.

In essence if Communism was the superior ideology even a wealthy country should have been gung-ho to adopt it and not just countries that were emerging from serfdom and backwards autocratic monarchies.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Why was capitalism more successful than communism?Human nature.

[PixyMisa]

That's certainly a big part of it, but it's not the whole story. It's not impossible to make communism work, it's just that even if everyone is willing, the effort required to co-ordinate it scales superlinearly with the number of individuals. Beyond a certain population, and certainly on the scale of any significant nation-state, communism is always less efficient than capitalism, and for countries as large as Russia or China, horrifyingly so.

[HansMustermann]

So communism was not any better at building a nations wealth then.

So basically we're at: it's bad because it didn't produce 4 times the economic growth of capitalism, which is what would be required for the USSR to achieve economic parity with the USA? Then by that criterion, a Porsche is a very bad car because it doesn't go four times faster than my cheap VW.

And I think it's interesting to look at why those countries were poor to begin with.

Certainly not because of Communism.

Yes but nothing stopped Cuba from trading with everyone else and becoming a technological innovation center. Why is it that Silicon Valley is where it is and not in Havana?

Yes, let's talk about Cuba. By all means.

During the Soviet Bloc years, its worst years were actually during trying to liberalize agriculture between 1959 and 1962 (based, ironically, on Che Guevara's ideas.) After going full tilt planned economy, the GDP growth of Cuba was as high as 10% per year during the 1970's, and "only" as low as 4.4% in the late 1980's. It also didn't experience such stuff as the third world debt crisis.

The big crash only came in 1989 when the Eastern Bloc came apart and the West was still embargoing them.

But wait, here comes the good part:

As eventually more and more countries started trading with it after the collapse of the USSR, actually Cuba started very much getting back on track. The PPP GDP per capita rose between 2001 and 2008 from 1,700$ to 11,000$. As the 2008 crisis hit, the PPP GDP per capita slid back to "only" 8,500$ in 2009, i.e., on par with, say, Russia. Even taking that final number and discounting the extra growth in 2007 and early 2008, we're still talking an increase of exactly 5 TIMES during 8 years.

That's what happened when Cuba was no longer embargoed.

[HansMustermann]

Well, of course it is. Communism is not just a failed economic system, it's a failed political system.

Communism on a national scale means that you don't see any measurable benefit from your labour. That means that nobody wants to work. That sends the country straight down the tubes, and everyone who has the means to do so, leaves. That means that the people in charge are forced either to abandon communism or turn the country into a prison camp, or, in at least one instance, both.

Except for the small niggling detail that the above has nothing to do with what I was saying. NK's problem isn't the "OMG people not wanting to work" canard, and it's way above it being "a prison camp." We're not talking about their not being allowed to go abroad, we're talking about the Kims self-embargoing practically all exports and imports. _That_ was a far bigger factor in driving their economy into the freaking ground than people wanting or not wanting to work.

Going closed economy just plain old doesn't work in this day and age. You could have the most enthusiastic people in the world about working, or you could make even the most draconic slave labour camp, and either still just won't work if you refuse to sell the products or buy resources you need.

Feudal closed economies were crap even in the middle ages. Going closed economy in the 20'th century is just plain old nuts.

[TraneWreck]

Yes, actually.

You're just engaging in childish literalism. The world was a different place.

Capitalism generates attrocities by seeking new markets and extorting cheap labor. Communism generates attrocities through totalitarian control.

Which system is better? Well, the Western world had a couple of centuries to sort out and eliminate their attrocities, the communist nations haven't been around that long. I would enjoy hearing an argument about the morality of the United States in 1850, as they exterminated the indigenous population and engaged in the slave trade.


Evidence?

http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html


It's not a question of morality, it's a question of efficiency. Communism is inherently self-destructive.

You're just reasserting the point at issue. That's not argument, it's stubborness.



That's just abjectly dishonest.

We're gauging the failure of communism based on every communist state in history.

Some capitalist states may fail. Every communist state fails.

Yes, and I'm explaining why that's a fairly uninformative task. The communist nations have, without exception, been in pitiful states when becoming communist. They also haven't been around in internally stable states nearly as long as the capitalist countries.

Russia was the only remotely stable state, and they were engaged in massive purges and suffering from famine as a result of Stalin's insanity and a century and a half of constant warfare. Unlike the rest of Europe, they weren't rebuilt by the richest nation on that planet whose industrial base wasn't affected by the war.

Obviously Afghanistan and Iraq are terrible examples for gauging the success of capitalism. The point is that the examples of communism aren't much better.

And it would be rather absurd to call Vietnam and China "failed states."


I have seldom seen a more facile and absurd case of historical revisionism.

You should reread your posts.

We've had multiple submissions of information concerning the vast difference in wealth and stability between Russia and the Western nations. They were economically pitiful compared to their competitors.


Eastern Europe made no such decision. They had communism imposed upon them by the USSR and were then fenced in - literally - to prevent escape or unauthorised trade or communication. Communism always does that, because communism does not work.

Ok, and how did capitalism work out for Central America? Observe the time period in which we dominated those nations to a degree similar to the Soviet control of Eastern Europe.

Perhaps the better analogy would be to ask how Imperialism worked out for the countries under Western control. I seem to remember more then one of them fighting wars to end such a system. Having capitalism imposed in such a way didn't do any more for those nations than Soviet control did for Eastern Europe.


China hasn't been communist, as noted above, for thirty years. Still totalitarian, sure. But not communist.

Once again, you're just fooling around with the meaning of the word "communism."

Did the US stop becoming a capitalist nation after the Great Depression? Because the nation almost failed, without any foreign agressor, the markets had to be controlled and regulated. Capitalism proved incapable of sustaining a functioning country without massive governmental oversight:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/12/what-does-an-unmanaged-macroeconomy-look-like.html

If we're going to argue that China freeing its markets is evidence of the unsustainability of communism, then America restraining its markets must be evidence of the unsustainability of capitalism.

[TraneWreck]

What stopped them from building their own huge navy then telling us to go "**** ourselves?"

In international affairs might makes right.

Interesting that this was the position the Soviet Union took. We argued against that until very recently.




But if Communism is inherently superior then it shouldn't have mattered what countries it started in. It should have made those countries better to live in regardless and then it should have taken over countries that were already wealthy.

At what point has anyone argued communism is inherently superior? I know I certainly haven't. In fact, I think it's a very poor system, not in the least because Marx never bothered to explain what the hell it was. He simply claimed the people would revolt and didn't give any indication of what was supposed to happen next.

My argument is simply that historical examples are not the way to make the case.

[HansMustermann]

Good question.


Here is the nominal GDP of China over many years:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Prc1952-2005gdp.gif

Do you notice when it's GDP started to grow? In 1978. And do you notice what happened in 1978? China began to adopt capitalistic approaches to it's economy. And as it has adopted more and more of them, it's economy has exploded. And it did not collapse like the Soviet Union did, precisely because of that … because it began making more and more of it's population dramatically better off economically. Even so, it was close thing. Recall that Tiananmen Square took place in 1989. Now look what happened to the Chinese economy in 1989. That's when it really took off. They saved China with capitalism. A fact that leftists will never understand or accept. :D

Do you notice a BS arbitrary line drawn on the map, for people who don't understand exponentials? No, I didn't think so.

That's the nature of exponentials, dude. There are a lot of points barely getting above the arbitrarily placed start point, and then it starts more visibly going up.

I mean, take the following bogus graph I just generated for the economy of Elbonia, starting from the exact same 67.9 millions figure in 1952 as China has in your graph:

http://forums.randi.org/picture.php?albumid=540&pictureid=4125

Can you see how the real growth starts happening after the Elbonian reforms of 1964? Well, too bad, the graph is generated with a constant growth rate of 11%.

Additionally your graph of China is _nominal_ GDP and in their own currency. So basically devaluing the currency produces an apparent rise in GDP by itself. Even if you didn't improve anything, simple inflation would push the line upwards. Nice for propaganda, and the kind of people who swallow propaganda.

If you look at the actual figures for GDP growth for China, they're more like this:

http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/COE/Japanese/online_data/china/tablea8.htm

The biggest growth figures are actually _before_ those reforms, though partially offset by a big recession in 1961. And while 1978 itself makes a nice showcase year with 11.1% growth to show for the reforms, the next year, 1979 actually falls back in line with 1977, at 7.6%. And generally most years after 1978 aren't actually that special, compared to the years before 1978.

There simply is no miracle happening after those reforms.

But thanks for illustrating that you can sell any lie to the innumerate by packing it in a misleading graph.

[brenn]

Define 'capitalism'. I don't think it was 'capitalism' that was more successful than communism. I think it was democracy.

You can't have communism in a society where the citizenry have any real control. Enforcing an economic system that deprives some of the benefits of their labor and ability requires an authoritarian government that is not responsive to the will of the majority - ironically, considering the rhetoric of the typical communist.

[AvalonXQ]

You can't have communism in a society where the citizenry have any real control. Enforcing an economic system that deprives some of the benefits of their labor and ability requires an authoritarian government that is not responsive to the will of the majority - ironically, considering the rhetoric of the typical communist.

I disagree. Wealth distribution is a popular target of government policies. It would seem perfectly reasonable to me to have "the people" (who by and large make a lot less than "the elite") vote a communist resource distribution system into place. There doesn't seem to be any inherent reason why a communist community couldn't be democratically run.

[BeAChooser]

There are a lot of points barely getting above the arbitrarily placed start point

You mean the "arbitrarily" chosen zero GDP line? :rolleyes:

I mean, take the following bogus graph I just generated for the economy of Elbonia, starting from the exact same 67.9 millions figure in 1952 as China has in your graph:

http://forums.randi.org/picture.php?albumid=540&pictureid=4125


You might want to take another look at your graph, Sherlock. It is all of 1 pixel by 1 pixel. Doesn't really show all that much. ;)

Additionally your graph of China is _nominal_ GDP and in their own currency. So basically devaluing the currency produces an apparent rise in GDP by itself.

It's true that the yuan was devalued from 1982 to 1994 relative to the US dollar so what you say is partially true. In fact, here's a link with a chart that shows how much the yuan was devalued in that timeframe:

http://www.businessinsider.com/yuan-dollar-conflict-2010-4

According to that, it was devalued a factor of 4 overall in that timeframe. Now even if we reduce the value of the GDP in 1994 from 4000 billion to 1000 billion yuan, that's still a large increase over what it had been (over 500 billion yuan) when privatization began and the Shenzhen SEZ was first established. And that was the effect of changes to only a tiny fraction of China's economy.

Moreover, notice that when the Chinese government suddenly devalued the yuan by between 1/3 and 1/2 in 1994, Chinese GDP didn't just double over night, as one might expect if what you were saying were the cause. Plus, you can see that even before the 1994 devaluation occurred, the increase in the GDP had already begun … starting just when the Shanghai SEZ was established, not when the sudden devaluation occurred. I think the cause and effect is rather obvious.

And since 1994 the reverse has been true. The yuan has been stable or getting stronger relative to the US dollar. Yet we can see that the Chinese GDP continued to climb rapidly … in a way that it never did before the free market came to China. Even the details of your own table (http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/COE/Japanese/online_data/china/tablea8.htm ) shows the effect the free market has had in China.

In 1980 the Shenzhen SEZ was established. And GDP growth went from an average of 5 percent a year over the previous 10 years to an average of almost 9 percent over the next 8 years. Then it slowed down over the next 3 years as (according to http://www.chinability.com/GDP.htm ) "the government braked the overheating economy following an aborted effort at wholesale price reform in 1988 which resulted in panic buying and runaway inflation." During those three years, GDP grew at an average of only 3.4 percent. Then after the Shanghai SEZ was created, GDP immediately began growing … at an average rate of 12.7 percent per year. And you think that's just coincidence? :rolleyes:

Furthermore, it's widely recognized that the yuan is seriously undervalued relative to the dollar (even Obama seems to agree). Correct for that and Chinese GDP would be significantly higher than any of our charts, yours or mine, suggest. Making the point I've been trying to make even more starkly clear. :D

The biggest growth figures are actually _before_ those reforms, though partially offset by a big recession in 1961.

As noted in http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/issues8/index.htm , pre-1978 China saw annual growth averaging 6 percent a year, but post-1978 China has seen average real growth of more than 9 percent a year (with fewer ups and downs). Why? Post-1978 reforms have given enterprise managers much more autonomy. They were given more freedom to set production goals. They were allowed to sell some products in the private market at competitive prices. They could grant bonuses to good workers and fire bad ones. And they were allowed to retain a portion of their firm's earnings for future growth. In other words, for the first time, they were allowed to act like businessmen in a capitalist, free market society. And the result was much higher GDP growth. As pointed out in that source, the reforms also gave greater room for private ownership of businesses and those privately held businesses created jobs, developed consumer products, and gave the Chinese economy more flexibility and resiliency. Given all of those facts, you can't be seriously trying to claim that the change in growth rates was just a coincidence? Don't be silly. :D

And by the way, do you know what happened from 1963 to 1966 (just before the Cultural Revolution … i.e., that great *socialist* and *community organizing* endeavor) when the double digit GDP growth you refer to in your table occurred? This:

http://www.chinability.com/GDP.htm


1963-66 Partial restoration of market economy in the countryside promoted faster growth of agriculture.


And the double digit growth from 1969 to 1970 in your table? That was the natural result of the end of the Cultural Revolution which so seriously damaged the Chinese economy. It had little to do with the form of China's economic system. From the above source again:


1969-70 High growth rates followed the restoration of order after the "cultural revolution".


But after that, it was the economic system that determined how China would grow. And the verdict is in. Free market reforms significantly improved that growth. Perhaps only a hardcore socialist or communist would argue it didn't. Do either of those terms describe you? :D

[IchabodPlain]

If you look at the actual figures for GDP growth for China, they're more like this:

http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/COE/Japanese/online_data/china/tablea8.htm

The biggest growth figures are actually _before_ those reforms, though partially offset by a big recession in 1961. And while 1978 itself makes a nice showcase year with 11.1% growth to show for the reforms, the next year, 1979 actually falls back in line with 1977, at 7.6%. And generally most years after 1978 aren't actually that special, compared to the years before 1978.

There simply is no miracle happening after those reforms.

But thanks for illustrating that you can sell any lie to the innumerate by packing it in a misleading graph.


From the data, China had quite a boom-bust economy for the first quarter century. Your analysis of the 1961 depression is not complete. GDP experienced negative growth from 1960-1962 - three straight years with the largest contraction being over 25% in 1961. GDP also went negative in 1967 & '68 and again in 1976 (the last time it has since happened).

The "Chinese Economic Miracle" is usually thought to be at the end of 1978. From the data, China's GDP growth has averaged 9.9% since 1978, while it before averaged an otherwise respectable 6.6% pre-1979, but lacked continuity and stability as on average, one out of every four years saw economic contraction.

Even if you disagree about the dividing date of 1978 - pick your date. 1973 and on is better than pre-'73. Looking at it from '73 on makes things interesting because it gives credence (whether due or undue) to the idea that Nixon and Kissinger did indeed "open-up China to the west". China's expansion from 83-88 and again from 92-95 are quite booming years as well, but the period is more notably marked by the lack of contractionary years.

[BeAChooser]

Yes, let's talk about Cuba. By all means.

Which you know even less about than China.

After going full tilt planned economy, the GDP growth of Cuba was as high as 10% per year during the 1970's, and "only" as low as 4.4% in the late 1980's.

Which of course is why between 1960 and 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled Cuba for the US. They were doing soooooooo well. Which explains why during the 1980s, another 100,000 fled the country for the US risking the hazards of the open ocean on small boats to do it. Which explains why Cubans continue to arrive in the US on small boats. Because life under the Castro brothers has been so wonderful ... :rolleyes:

The big crash only came in 1989 when the Eastern Bloc came apart and the West was still embargoing them.

Cuba's socialist/communist system resulted in a per capita GDP that is a fraction of that in countries that aren't communist and that were in even worse shape than Cuba about the time Castro took over. Cuba's communist regime squandered the opportunity for Cuba to be more than what it now is, thanks to the communist party's *guidance*.

This source (http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/gdp_country_desc.php ) indicates Cuba's per capita GDP was $2800 in 2004 ... 155th place in the world. Here's a book from 2006 (http://books.google.com/books?id=H-MOafZLjq4C&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=cuba+per+capita+gdp+by+country+latin+america&source=bl&ots=NJ0z7b8Teq&sig=Y1-jGa1K0SVr1LdVY2w9ZeOIZCc&hl=en&ei=3kKMSvn4FoSsswPu7dG5CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false ) that lists the per capita GDP of various Latin American countries. It states Cuba's per capita GDP is $2600 and indicates only Honduras' is lower ... at $2500. This source (http://www.nationmaster.com/country/cu-cuba ) lists the per capita GDP as $2863.

According to http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article14619 , in 1950 (before Castro took over) Cuba's per capita GDP was 7th highest amongst the 47 countries that made up Latin America and the Carribean. The source indicates that Cuba is now the third poorest country in Latin America and only Nicaragua (also communist controlled) and Haiti rank lower. In just two generations under Fidel, Cuba fell from being one of the more prosperous to one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Here's another source for the above study: http://rrp.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/37/3/311?ck=nck .

Here's another source that agrees with the above conclusion: http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/bert-corzo-1eng.htm . It notes that in 1958 (the year before Castro came to power) the per capita GDP of Cuba was $356, in comparison to Chile ($360), Costa Rica ($230), Spain ($180) and Mexico ($284). Forty years later ... in 2000, Cuba's per capita GDP is listed as $1,700 compared to Chile ($10,100), Costa Rica ($6,700), Spain ($18,000) and Mexico ($9,100).

Here's still another source on this topic:

http://www.smokeincuba.com/?p=132


In 1957, Cuba’s real income per capita (national income divided by population) was $378, or fourth in Latin America, according to Eric Baklanoff, a research professor emeritus at the University of Alabama. Today, Cuba ranks as the fifth-poorest country in Latin America measured by purchasing-power-parity (PPP) per capita GDP, according to an analysis of CIA and IMF data for 2007.

... snip ...

Cuba’s high rate of 24 cars per 1,000 inhabitants in 1958 continued at the very same level through 1998, while Japan in the same period went from four to 251 per 1,000, according to Jose Azel, director of the Cuba Business Roundtable at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies.

... snip ...

In 1959, Cuba ranked third in Latin America in telephones per capita, according to British historian Hugh Thomas. Today, Cuba ranks sixth from the bottom, according to an analysis of 2006 data from the International Telecommunications Union.


And now you can't even use the internet in Cuba: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-cuba-internet-cutoff-050709,0,4376220.story ). :rolleyes:

In short, Cuba is an economic basket case of Castro's making. One can only wonder what Cuba would now have achieved had it not been for Castro and the socialist/communist policies his *revolution* brought into being. As http://www.lanuevacuba.com/archivo/bert-corzo-1eng.htm notes "it would be reasonable to assume that between 1958 and 2000, Cuba’s economy should have growth along the same parameters of the countries included in this study. This economic growth would have happened under any type of government, except under Castro’s tyrannical regime. The difference among the results shown here and those of Castro’s tyranny can be attributed to the catastrophic results of it over the Cuban economy."

But wait, here comes the good part:

No, the good part is this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro_5


Report: Castro says Cuban model doesn't work


LOL!

[bikerdruid]

cuba has the highest literacy rate on the planet, excellent medical care and no starvation.
ever been there?
i thought not.

[DC]

cuba has the highest literacy rate on the planet, excellent medical care and no starvation.
ever been there?
i thought not.

traded for freedom.

Cubans partially finance a international TV station they are not allowed to watch. And the people have no real say how they want to life.

Cuba sure ain't the hell it often is portrayed as but sure it ain't the paradise some others claim it to be.

[BeAChooser]

cuba has the highest literacy rate on the planet, excellent medical care and no starvation.

LOL!

Except what you get to read is controlled. Like I noted earlier, in 2009, Cuba even further limited access to the WWW for it's citizens (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-cuba-internet-cutoff-050709,0,4376220.story ). But then maybe you're an elitist and one of the 2% who do have access? Although even if you are, you might be one of those who now fears to talk truthfully about conditions in Cuba (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8009114/Another-“Special-Period”-in-Cuba-How-Citizens-View-Their ).

And as for your comparison of medical care and starvation, if you want to make America meet Cuba's *standard*, the first thing you will have to do is cut the calorie intact of Americans by half and force everyone to walk to work. Because we know both calorie input and exercise have a lot to do with longevity. When the USSR collapsed in 1989, they stopped sending food and fuel to Cuba and as a result, over the next few years, Cuban's got to eat a lot less and had to walk or bike to work. Dr Manual Franco, lead author of a recent study in the American Journal of Epidemiology, says that a third fewer people died of heart disease, and diabetes deaths were halved. In fact the drop in calorie intact may have been even greater than noted above since according the the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the calorie intact of the average Cuban fell from 2,600 calories a day in the late 1980s to between 1000 and 1500 calories a day by 1994. And this, if scientists are right about the link between calorie intact and longevity (and they appear to be), had a marked effect on Cuban life expectancy (which I'm sure is the parameter that leads you to believe Cuban's get excellent medical care). Now one way to lower our calorie input and increase exercise might be to let the anti-capitalists who ran/run Cuba run America's economy into the ground like they ran Cuba's. In just two generations, they helped Cuba go from being one of the most prosperous countries to one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Thus forcing the reductions in calorie input and increased exercise that led to better longevity.

I suspect your rather naive view of Cuba's medical system is the result of their very controlled media and the liberal media in this country. I think accounts like the one's below are much more the reality of Cuban health care:

http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

http://www.finlay-online.com/tomasromay/darsi7.htm "Cuban Doctor Pays A High Price for Truth"

http://www.nowpublic.com/ouch_visiting_cuban_hospital "Ouch!!!! Visiting a Cuban Hospital"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_RgM1jHeo "Cuba Healthcare, the Hospitals Michael Moore won't show 1"

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA557_Cuban_Health_Care.html

Why even wikipedia would give you a better picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba#Health


Challenges include low pay of doctors (only 15 dollars a month[128]), poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and frequent absence of essential drugs.


As to life in general in Cuba? Here, maybe this source will open your eyes:

http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/brutally-honest-assement-of-current-life-in-cuba/


Brutally honest asse[ss]ment of current life in Cuba, January 27, 2010

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's certainly a big part of it, but it's not the whole story. It's not impossible to make communism work, it's just that even if everyone is willing, the effort required to co-ordinate it scales superlinearly with the number of individuals. Beyond a certain population, and certainly on the scale of any significant nation-state, communism is always less efficient than capitalism, and for countries as large as Russia or China, horrifyingly so.

We have evidence that capitalism is successful. What evidence do you have that beyond a Kibbutz or small tribe size group (which is more akin to a family than a society) that communism is?


Looking at the Cuban example, it is dependent upon totalitarian control. So how would you say that was successful? I would think the system needs to be desired by the population to be considered successful. Would the Cubans not engage in private enterprise if given the chance?

I do agree many Cubans are better off and out of control capitalism where the rich and poor become too divided is an example of failed capitalism.

[Skeptic Ginger]

LOL!...
As to life in general in Cuba? Here, maybe this source will open your eyes: [snip]

http://havanajournal.com/politics/entry/brutally-honest-assement-of-current-life-in-cuba/BAC, you cannot blame conditions entirely on the Cuban government. The economic embargo by the US has a huge impact keeping that country poor.

I suggest you consider just how many peasant revolts have occurred throughout history in country after country when unrestrained capitalism results in the rich and poor divides.

[BeAChooser]

BAC, you cannot blame conditions entirely on the Cuban government. The economic embargo by the US has a huge impact keeping that country poor.

I think that's a little like claiming the hundreds of thousands of children who died in Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s are the fault of sanctions, rather than the fault of Saddam. Castro could have ended that embargo at any time simply by moving towards "democratization and greater respect for human rights".

And even President Barack Obama extended the embargo through September 14, 2011, determining that the embargo "is in the national interest of the United States." :D

But yes, I suppose that without the embargo Cuba's economy might have done somewhat better. Perhaps as well as one of those socialist/communist Warsaw Pact countries which had no embargo on commercial goods. Oh wait … they turned out to be economic failures too? Hmmmmmmm.

[bikerdruid]

traded for freedom.

Cubans partially finance a international TV station they are not allowed to watch. And the people have no real say how they want to life.

Cuba sure ain't the hell it often is portrayed as but sure it ain't the paradise some others claim it to be.

very true.....however, if you can feed and clothe and house your populace in a third world country, paradise is somewhat less important.
i have travelled in cuba, met with farmers and eaten with cuban families.
compared to other third world countries, it is a paradise.

[TraneWreck]

very true.....however, if you can feed and clothe and house your populace in a third world country, paradise is somewhat less important.
i have travelled in cuba, met with farmers and eaten with cuban families.
compared to other third world countries, it is a paradise.

Yes, contrast that with the most free country on the planet, Somalia. No government intervention there.

[BeAChooser]

i have travelled in cuba, met with farmers and eaten with cuban families.

Were you free to travel anywhere in Cuba? Did you have a monitor? And did the families really feel safe to tell you the truth about their situation?

compared to other third world countries, it is a paradise.

But that isn't the point, is it, because Cuba didn't have to still be a third world country. :rolleyes:

[Trakar]

Why did West Germany do better than East Germany? Why did South Korea do better than North Korea? Why did Taiwan do better than China? Why has China's economy taken off since Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms?

You do realize that all of these are examples of mixed systems not capitalism or communism, and that the leaders and administrators of the economic systems are probably more important than the general economic system followed in determining the economic success of the system pursued,...don't you?

[bikerdruid]

cuba has the highest literacy rate on the planet, excellent medical care and no starvation.
ever been there?
i thought not.

Were you free to travel anywhere in Cuba? Did you have a monitor? And did the families really feel safe to tell you the truth about their situation?



But that isn't the point, is it, because Cuba didn't have to still be a third world country. :rolleyes:

no...i was able to travel freely...no monitor. i didn't discuss politics with them.
i never discuss politics when i travel.
farmers can own their land...and have to produce a moderate amount of produce for their contribution. they are free to sell surplus in the markets.
there have been great strides in sustainable agricultural practises, which makes their quota easy to meet.

it was a corrupt third world country under batista. great dispartity and a lot of poverty.
there are no homeless, no starvation, and universal healthcare and education.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

[BeAChooser]

Yes, contrast that with the most free country on the planet, Somalia. No government intervention there.

Actually, you should also thank Socialists for the state Somalia is in, Tranewreck. The Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (XHKS) was created under Siad Barre in 1976. He remained in power until 1991 when, because they were so successful economically (:rolleyes:), civil war broke out and the government fell. Then the Somali National Front was formed to try and reinstate Barre's regime. And they too brought all sorts of misery to Somalia.

[ideogram]

You do realize that all of these are examples of mixed systems not capitalism or communism ...

Yes.

and that the leaders and administrators of the economic systems are probably more important than the general economic system followed in determining the economic success of the system pursued,...don't you?

Are they?

[Trakar]

Yes.

So your statements are completely irrelevent to the thread title you chose?

[ideogram]

So your statements are completely irrelevent to the thread title you chose?

I think the terms "capitalist" and "communist" are commonly understood to apply to the examples I chose, even though they are not "pure" examples. However, I did note later in the thread that the question might be better phrased, "why do free markets perform better than command economies?"

[BeAChooser]

no...i was able to travel freely...no monitor.

My, what made you so privileged? Party affiliation?

i didn't discuss politics with them.

That's not what I asked. I asked if the families felt safe enough to be honest with you about their situation. As noted in http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8009114/Another-“Special-Period”-in-Cuba-How-Citizens-View-Their ,


Citizens nonetheless remain fearful of retaliation against public expressions of opposition to the government. One woman warned that "if you walk outside with a sign against Fidel, you will never see the light of day again." The government's neighborhood watch organizations, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), continue to have a stronghold on power at the local level.

... snip ...

Many Cubans are resigned to the current situation and continue to live day to day ... snip ... Two young students, when asked about life in Cuba, responded sarcastically, "We have to like it. It's our country and we can't leave."


And note this from the above survey's methodology section:


Sampling for the interviews was affected by the availability of respondents and locations conducive to private conversation. Cubans are aware that chivatos (informants) might report on anyone who is deemed counterrevolutionary, and as a result, they are unaccustomed to expressing their opinions in public.


:D

farmers can own their land...and have to produce a moderate amount of produce for their contribution. they are free to sell surplus in the markets.
there have been great strides in sustainable agricultural practises, which makes their quota easy to meet.



LOL! You call having more than a 20% of the adults working in agriculture, cultivating 30% of the country's land to provide just 20-30 percent of the food they eat, 30% of the calories they consume and generate only 10 percent of the GDP ... success? :rolleyes: (Those are Wikipedia statistics, by the way ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Cuba ... so they no doubt cast Cuba in a good light.)

Let's compare that to the US where 2% of the population cultivate just 14% of the land, and not only feed the US population but export $30 billion more than we import in agricultural products. And those 2% of the population generate about 8% of the GDP. :D

Also, what you call ownership is a bit of dishonesty. Only the wealthy *own* land. Most farmers essentially lease the land from the government. And the amount of food they have to give to the government varies. Until recently, it was often as much as 80% of what they grew. But things are starting to improve. Here, you might find this somewhat informative:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129757511 :


Pena is the new face of Cuban socialism, a private entrepreneur with a sense of social responsibility. She was trained as a veterinarian, but like many in Cuba who aren't inspired by $20-a-month government salaries, she dropped out of the workforce.

Now, she's working seven days a week and studying pest control methods at night. As part of her deal with the government, she will give one-third of her produce to the state and sell the rest for a profit.

… snip …

The Castro government has approved more than 100,000 applications for state land, but so far that hasn't led to an increase in food production.

As usual, bureaucratic absurdities are to blame. Farmers can't buy tractors or trucks without government permission. Irrigation equipment and tools have to be assigned by the state.

Police checkpoints surround Havana to make sure no one is illegally sneaking produce into the city for sale on the black market.


:D

there are no homeless, no starvation, and universal healthcare and education.

You didn't bother to look at any of the sources I supplied, did you?

Here, from one of them:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA557_Cuban_Health_Care.html


Are Cuba's health care woes the result of the longstanding U.S. economic embargo? Not a chance, according to a group of 18 exiled Cuban doctors. The doctors made their personal views clear in a joint letter in 1997:

We remain mystified as to why people of ordinarily good will and faith would seek to find fault with the United States for the disastrous situation inside Cuba, while failing to direct the blame squarely where it belongs - at the feet of Fidel Castro, who continues to rule our country with an iron fist after 38 years in power.



And by all means, I hope readers will read the entire link to see what a wonderful universal healthcare system Cuba enjoys. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

And again, what use is literacy if the state controls what you read?

http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/internet-access-in-cuba-maybe-in-2010/


Last week, the Cuban government announced that ordinary Cubans will not be allowed to have Internet access in the short term, even though the government authorised ordinary citizens to buy computers and own mobile phones on 1 April 2008.

[bikerdruid]

My, what made you so privileged? Party affiliation?



That's not what I asked. I asked if the families felt safe enough to be honest with you about their situation. As noted in http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8009114/Another-“Special-Period”-in-Cuba-How-Citizens-View-Their ,



And note this from the above survey's methodology section:



:D




LOL! You call having more than a 20% of the adults working in agriculture, cultivating 30% of the country's land to provide just 20-30 percent of the food they eat, 30% of the calories they consume and generate only 10 percent of the GDP ... success? :rolleyes: (Those are Wikipedia statistics, by the way ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Cuba ... so they no doubt cast Cuba in a good light.)

Let's compare that to the US where 2% of the population cultivate just 14% of the land, and not only feed the US population but export $30 billion more than we import in agricultural products. And those 2% of the population generate about 8% of the GDP. :D

Also, what you call ownership is a bit of dishonesty. Only the wealthy *own* land. Most farmers essentially lease the land from the government. And the amount of food they have to give to the government varies. Until recently, it was often as much as 80% of what they grew. But things are starting to improve. Here, you might find this somewhat informative:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129757511 :



:D



You didn't bother to look at any of the sources I supplied, did you?

Here, from one of them:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA557_Cuban_Health_Care.html



And by all means, I hope readers will read the entire link to see what a wonderful universal healthcare system Cuba enjoys. :D



And again, what use is literacy if the state controls what you read?

http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/internet-access-in-cuba-maybe-in-2010/

tourists can travel the island freely. i'm canadian...they like us.
no use discussing any further.
you believe what you read...i believe what i see.
think what you wish.
far be it for me to discourage your pre-conceived notions.

[TraneWreck]

Actually, you should also thank Socialists for the state Somalia is in, Tranewreck. The Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party (XHKS) was created under Siad Barre in 1976. He remained in power until 1991 when, because they were so successful economically (:rolleyes:), civil war broke out and the government fell. Then the Somali National Front was formed to try and reinstate Barre's regime. And they too brought all sorts of misery to Somalia.

What a revelation. It would be more incredible if I hadn't already mentioned Somolia about 5 times in this thread as an example of a former communist state.

BAC, revealing the known to those who already know, but still managing to act as though something impressive has been accomplished.

[BeAChooser]

tourists can travel the island freely. i'm canadian...they like us.

Well I'm sure they like your dollars. You are a country that has traded with Cuba despite the embargo. And in so doing, perhaps prolonged the Cuban dictatorship. No, Canada certainly has been a good friend of Cuba. In the 2000 funeral of Prime Minister Trudeau, Castro was even an honored pallbearer. But I still wonder whether ordinary Cubans are honest in telling you their situation?

In fact, you spoke highly of Cuba's medical system. Is that from personal experience? I hear that foreigners flock to Cuba for medical procedures because the prices are low. But I wonder if they get an accurate picture in doing so? Because it turns out there are separate hospitals for Canadians like you. That those farmers you say you visited don't get to use. Those sources I supplied … the ones you apparently won't read … show the sort of medical care they get.

far be it for me to discourage your pre-conceived notions.

… which seem to be backed up by the only verifiable sourced material posted to this thread. ;)

Oh, did you hear the latest news from that worker's paradise?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11291267


14 September 2010

Cuba to cut one million public sector jobs

… snip …

As many as one-in-five of all workers could lose their jobs.


So I wonder how Cuban's will seem to you the next time you vacation there. Happy and dancing in the streets?

:D

[bikerdruid]

Well I'm sure they like your dollars. You are a country that has traded with Cuba despite the embargo. And in so doing, perhaps prolonged the Cuban dictatorship. No, Canada certainly has been a good friend of Cuba. In the 2000 funeral of Prime Minister Trudeau, Castro was even an honored pallbearer. But I still wonder whether ordinary Cubans are honest in telling you their situation?

In fact, you spoke highly of Cuba's medical system. Is that from personal experience? I hear that foreigners flock to Cuba for medical procedures because the prices are low. But I wonder if they get an accurate picture in doing so? Because it turns out there are separate hospitals for Canadians like you. That those farmers you say you visited don't get to use. Those sources I supplied … the ones you apparently won't read … show the sort of medical care they get.



… which seem to be backed up by the only verifiable sourced material posted to this thread. ;)

Oh, did you hear the latest news from that worker's paradise?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11291267



So I wonder how Cuban's will seem to you the next time you vacation there. Happy and dancing in the streets?

:D

trudeau and castro were friends. i'm proud of them both. i admire both.
please do continue to wallow in your preconceptions.
it seems you know everything already.

[BeAChooser]

What a revelation. It would be more incredible if I hadn't already mentioned Somolia about 5 times in this thread as an example of a former communist state.

Yeah, but you didn't blame socialism or communism for Somalia's failure. In fact you said

"I think the answer is pretty clear, "because everything fails in those countries."


And you said


No government intervention there.


Which is hardly what happened when socialists were in power.

[Tero]

Because the economy, and the population is growing. Capitalism needs a growing market. Stalls when it does not.

[BeAChooser]

trudeau and castro were friends. i'm proud of them both. i admire both.

"Proud"? "Admire"? Maybe someone should give you this for Christmas:

http://rlv.zcache.com/i_love_heart_fidel_castro_tshirt-p2355985171902146373315_400.jpg

:D

[TraneWreck]

Yeah, but you didn't blame socialism or communism for Somalia's failure. In fact you said

And you said

Which is hardly what happened when socialists were in power.

That would be because communism isn't "to blame" for Somalia's failure.

After an extended battle against Imperialist forces that culminated in being bombed into oblivion by Britain in 1920, then the Italian facists poured in from Ethiopia two decades and later.

Less than a decade after becoming independent, a military coup led to the establishment of a communist regime. This regime lasted for about 20 years, supported by the Soviets. They managed to increase the literacy rates and improve life modestly until the fall of the Soviet Union. The regime, weakened without support, became more totalitarian and brutal until Civial War erupted.

It only recently put a government in place, and it is hardly impressive.

So,the worst you can say about communism is that it failed to turn a war-torn former colony that was ravaged by Imperialists and Facists into a functioning nation.

The same thing happened to a sizeable percentage of African countries, most of which did not become communist.

That's not an argument "for" communism, just an explanation of the many factors beyond political structure that have caused Somalia to be in the state it finds itself.

As for now, it's a libertarian paradise. No government interfering with the rights of people to live how they want. At least the communists managed to improve life slightly and build up some infrastructure. This experiment with wholesale freedom has been a total disaster.

[BeAChooser]

So,the worst you can say about communism is that it failed to turn a war-torn former colony that was ravaged by Imperialists and Facists into a functioning nation.

Really? Is that the "worst"? :rolleyes:

[Travis]

At what point has anyone argued communism is inherently superior?

I recall numerous students in college that thought this.

I know I certainly haven't. In fact, I think it's a very poor system, not in the least because Marx never bothered to explain what the hell it was. He simply claimed the people would revolt and didn't give any indication of what was supposed to happen next.

My argument is simply that historical examples are not the way to make the case.

Would you agree that we can use history to note that a totalitarian theocracy is always a bad idea?

very true.....however, if you can feed and clothe and house your populace in a third world country, paradise is somewhat less important.
i have travelled in cuba, met with farmers and eaten with cuban families.
compared to other third world countries, it is a paradise.

However Cuba need not be a third world country at all.

[TraneWreck]

I recall numerous students in college that thought this.

Well, they're wrong.



Would you agree that we can use history to note that a totalitarian theocracy is always a bad idea?

Yes. The examples are more numerous, occur over long periods of time, and involve countries at all levels of power, wealth, and stability.

[Ziggurat]

trudeau and castro were friends. i'm proud of them both. i admire both.

Because god knows that a man who makes it a crime to try to leave a country MUST be good-hearted. I mean, he's really just trying to protect those boat people from inadequate health care coverage, and if he has to throw them in prison to do it, then that's the sort of tough love a great man has to show.

[bikerdruid]

Because god knows that a man who makes it a crime to try to leave a country MUST be good-hearted. I mean, he's really just trying to protect those boat people from inadequate health care coverage, and if he has to throw them in prison to do it, then that's the sort of tough love a great man has to show.

wow...you can spew nonsense in two threads simultaneously....cool...

[PixyMisa]

wow...you can spew nonsense in two threads simultaneously....cool...
Would you care to address the point?

[PixyMisa]

Except for the small niggling detail that the above has nothing to do with what I was saying. NK's problem isn't the "OMG people not wanting to work" canard, and it's way above it being "a prison camp." We're not talking about their not being allowed to go abroad, we're talking about the Kims self-embargoing practically all exports and imports. _That_ was a far bigger factor in driving their economy into the freaking ground than people wanting or not wanting to work.
Every communist nation turns into a prison camp. North Korea is merely the worst surviving example.

Going closed economy just plain old doesn't work in this day and age. You could have the most enthusiastic people in the world about working, or you could make even the most draconic slave labour camp, and either still just won't work if you refuse to sell the products or buy resources you need.
So what you are saying is that capitalism works and communism doesn't. Yes, we know.

Feudal closed economies were crap even in the middle ages. Going closed economy in the 20'th century is just plain old nuts.
Closed economies are necessarily less efficient than open ones, just as command-driven economies are necessarily less efficient than market-driven ones. North Korea bought themselves the worst of all possible worlds.

[Ziggurat]

Would you care to address the point?

Probably not. I mean, how can you really justify fan-boy idolization of a dictator?

[chris epic]

Actually, it wasn't. By definition capitalism requires less government involvment in order to function, imo.

What's wrong about the last three years ? Up in Québec we barely noticed the recession, yet.
How can a definition include a personal opinion? ;)

[chris epic]

I recall numerous students in college that thought this.

As an ideal, I'm sure they would. In practice, they didn't learn much from their history class.

Would you agree that we can use history to note that a totalitarian theocracy is always a bad idea?we never use history to learn from our mistakes, unfortunately. Usually we only use it to either reflect on how amazingly faulty we are, or for pure entertainment.



However Cuba need not be a third world country at all.huh?

[Travis]

Yes. The examples are more numerous, occur over long periods of time, and involve countries at all levels of power, wealth, and stability.

So how long does Communism need to be tried and turn into a huge failure with millions of deaths before we can say that history shows it won't work?

As an ideal, I'm sure they would. In practice, they didn't learn much from their history class.

In my experience Communism supporters are as detached from reality as Libertarians.

huh?

Cuba did not need to turn to communism in order to improve itself. And it's entirely possible it would be a first world power had it not done so.

[Skeptic Ginger]

tourists can travel the island freely. i'm canadian...they like us.
no use discussing any further.
you believe what you read...i believe what i see.
think what you wish.
far be it for me to discourage your pre-conceived notions.And while I've not been to Cuba, I know one can fly there from Mexico or or other nearby countries and it is my understanding they are happy to not stamp US passports. So even US citizens can travel freely in Cuba.

It's so absurd what the armchair travelers believe about the rest of the world. I was there once, when I was about 22 years old. I took off traveling the world and one of the first things which really struck me was what a distorted view one has of the world from within the US.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Do you trust the CIA World book, BAC?

Cuba: lower infant death rate than in the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=181#cu)

Life expectancy, within a year of the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=53#cu)

99.8% of the population over age 15 is literate (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)

2nd in the world in % of GDP spent on education (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2206rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=2#cu)

Purchasing power parity is ranked 63rd in the world just under New Zealand at 61 (another island economy) (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=63#cu)

Unemployment is under 2%. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)


This is not the picture of the disaster you imagine Cuba to be. You need to broaden your sources of information, get out of the right wing blogosphere once in a while. There are hundreds of free capitalist countries where the inhabitants would come to the US in a heartbeat if they could immigrate. The fact some people would leave Cuba if they could is not as significant as you think.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Every communist nation turns into a prison camp. North Korea is merely the worst surviving example.


So what you are saying is that capitalism works and communism doesn't. Yes, we know.


Closed economies are necessarily less efficient than open ones, just as command-driven economies are necessarily less efficient than market-driven ones. North Korea bought themselves the worst of all possible worlds.
Migration from Cuba is a complicated issue, it isn't black and white like North Korea.
GAO - U.S. Response to the 1994 Cuban Migration Crisis (http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/ns95211.pdf)On September 9, 1994, the U.S. and Cuban governments agreed that the United States would allow at least 20,000 Cubans to enter annually in exchange for Cuba’s pledge to prevent further unlawful departures by rafters


And I don't think it is fair to call N Korea a communist country. That's like saying a schizophrenic who hears God talking is a Christian.

As for communist economies in general, the totalitarian aspect of communism makes it hard to compare the two economic systems. It comes down to one's measure of "success". If one has the values of a typical American, we value freedom and communism wouldn't be successful. But more than a few people in Russia lamented the loss of social security that they were afforded under communist rule when the USSR broke up.

And you can't say that capitalist countries are automatically free countries. Certain people within the countries are free, but poverty is not conducive to freedom and right wing dictatorships are not any better in most cases than totalitarian societies.


But I still think as far as economic success, regulated capitalism by far fits the human species better than other systems. The exception might be very small groups like small tribal societies. "The Gods Must Be Crazy" comes to mind.

[Ziggurat]

Do you trust the CIA World book, BAC?

Cuba: lower infant death rate than in the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=181#cu)

You think the CIA measures those statistics themselves? Of course they don't. Aside from the possible distortion of those statistics by the Cuban government, there IS no uniform definition for use in calculating infant death rates. Cases of a premature infant dying shortly after birth may be counted as an infant death in the US but a miscarriage elsewhere. Unless the statistics are obtained with the same methodology (and in almost all cases, they aren't), you cannot do a straight comparison.

99.8% of the population over age 15 is literate (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)

I doubt there's a uniform definition of literacy either.

In authoritarian countries, the government has an incentive to make such statistics appear as good as possible, because they have to inflate their success to justify their rule. In democracies, the incentive is often reversed: by showing how poorly we're doing, they can justify further inflation of the bureaucracy to address the problem. Are either country lying? Maybe not. But there's plenty one can do to affect the outcome (like changing the definition used or the way it's measured) without actually lying.

Purchasing power parity is ranked 63rd in the world just under New Zealand at 61 (another island economy) (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=63#cu)

Um... you do know that that isn't per capita, don't you? With about 2.7 times the population of New Zealand, they're not doing nearly as well on a per-capita basis (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=111#cu) (111th to New Zealand's 51st). Did you miss that little fact, or choose to ignore it?

Unemployment is under 2%. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)

Go figure: command economies with authoritarian governments can achieve whatever employment rate they want to. I'll still pass.

[Malerin]

Do you trust the CIA World book, BAC?

Cuba: lower infant death rate than in the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=181#cu)

Life expectancy, within a year of the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=53#cu)

99.8% of the population over age 15 is literate (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)

2nd in the world in % of GDP spent on education (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2206rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=2#cu)

Purchasing power parity is ranked 63rd in the world just under New Zealand at 61 (another island economy) (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=63#cu)

Unemployment is under 2%. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)


This is not the picture of the disaster you imagine Cuba to be. You need to broaden your sources of information, get out of the right wing blogosphere once in a while. There are hundreds of free capitalist countries where the inhabitants would come to the US in a heartbeat if they could immigrate. The fact some people would leave Cuba if they could is not as significant as you think.

Cuban purchasing power in action:

http://janstein.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/thumb2/Cuba_Vintage_Cars_001.jpg

[HansMustermann]

@BeAChooser:
Yes, if you pick 2004 as your "OMG cuba sucks" that was only $2800 per capita. It was still up from $1700 in 2001. I hate to break it to you, but it's a _much_ higher growth rate than the one you were praising in China and ascribing to capitalism being that great. So you were saying?

I also notice the BS move of just moving the point you picked, to ignore that inconvenient $11,000 per capita in 2008 or even the end result of $8500 in 2009. What's the matter? Newer points don't exist if they don't make your canned propaganda points?

And here's the funny part: because it really says how bullcrap the usual "OMG, it's bad because they're poor" pretense, and pretending that the starting conditions and growth don't matter, only end result matters, is. That $8500 in 2009 is actually higher than China's $6700 in 2009. So can we conclude that Cuban communism works better than Chinese capitalism? Or than India's $3100 in 2009, Pakistan's $2800, etc.

So, yeah, I can see why you'd want to move to a year where they're neater sorted for bullcrap propaganda.

I also notice you're strangely quick to dismiss growth rates like 4.4% or even 10%. Let me remind you that since 1949, the USA has averaged 3.28% growth, with the top year being 1950 at 8.7%, but we're pretty much measuring spikes at that point. The highest average over a whole presidency was actually 1965-1968 at +5.05%, and it gets downhill from there.

You're really hardly in a position to criticize Cuba for only growing twice as fast as the USA at its best pre-'89 years, and only about on par with the USA at its worst pre-'89 years.

[TraneWreck]

So how long does Communism need to be tried and turn into a huge failure with millions of deaths before we can say that history shows it won't work?

Let's take America in 1850. We weren't a very stable nation, only a decade later we would be engaged in a brutal Civil War.

Not only were we running one of the most horrific institutions in human history, slavery, but we were busy committing atrocity after atrocity in our zeal to destroy the indigenous population.

We veiwed Native Americans and African slaves no differently than Mao and Stalin viewed the people they slaughtered.

A century later segregation was the law of the land, we were sterilizing full-blooded Native American women after birth, and prolonged terrorism was launched against the black population.

Fifty years after that, we still have some problems, but we're pretty well off. And we're the young capitalist nation.

Currently, the oldest communist nation is China, a mere 60 years old. Give them another century and let's see what their human rights and quality of life are like (that does not mean, by the way, that we turn a blind eye to their abuses--we keep using our leverage to make them improve, but realize that the arc of history is much grander than a few decades).

[Skeptic Ginger]

Cuban purchasing power in action:

http://janstein.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/thumb2/Cuba_Vintage_Cars_001.jpgAs if this wasn't the result of the US embargo. :rolleyes:

The fact these cars are running is a testament to the initiative of the Cuban people to prevail.

[Malerin]

As if this wasn't the result of the US embargo. :rolleyes:

The fact these cars are running is a testament to the initiative of the Cuban people to prevail.

Because America is the only country that makes cars, right? :rolleyes:

[HansMustermann]

I recall numerous students in college that thought this.

Yes, well, I recall numerous college students believed in quantum crystal chi woowoo or in UFOs or one believed that ghosts are trying to enter her nostrils. I never figured out why they don't also try to come in through the mouth or ears or whatever ;) Feel free to debate that with them, then.

Would you agree that we can use history to note that a totalitarian theocracy is always a bad idea?

I'd say we can learn that a totalitarian anything is a bad idea. Which is really all that can be said about the commies too.

However Cuba need not be a third world country at all.

Neither do capitalist China, India, Pakistan, and going all the way to Niger which has less than a twelfth of Cuba's PPP GDP per capita. Or Liberia which is at $300 per capita and an employment rate of under 15% (yes, that's EMPLOYMENT rate, not unemployment!) in spite of being the poster child for an USA fanboy and trying to model itself after the USA in every aspect. Or Uganda who still hasn't reached parity with the worst of Cuba's collapse after the USSR stopped trading with it.

And I'll also point out that while PPP GDP is a nice indicator, GINI is also useful to keep in mind. Just because a country is getting richer in theory, doesn't necessarily mean the poor are actually getting anything out of it. E.g., in Uganda during early 2000's, the poverty levels rose at about the same rate as the economy was growing. Or pretty much see half of Africa where in theory they're exporting oil and gold and diamonds, but in practice they only make a few corporate sociopaths richer while the people get at best bare subsistence wages.

So how long does Communism need to be tried and turn into a huge failure with millions of deaths before we can say that history shows it won't work?

TBH, I'd rather not give some crazy dictator another go. But concluding BS based on just wishful thinking and disinformation is still BS. That's what I'm getting allergic to. It's giving me a terrible rash, really ;)

I mean, really? How many people _were_ killed by the economic system that is communism?

And if you count the victims of some crazy dictator as victims of communism... should we also count the millions killed by right-wing dictators, or the about a million "communists" (read: ethnic chinese who had nothing to do with communism) purged in Indonesia alone with the US's approval, or the Buddhists hunted down by Diem in South Vietnam, etc, as victims of capitalism?

Cuba did not need to turn to communism in order to improve itself. And it's entirely possible it would be a first world power had it not done so.

Yes, well, it's also possible that Liberia would have turned into a first-world country, if the rich just stopped plundering it for a quick buck. And it would have been also possible that the Philippines would have turned into a first world power, what with being the USA's darling all along, but somehow it didn't happen. It would have also been possible that Namibia turns into a first-world country, what with being a capitalist democracy and all, but the funny thing is that not only it actually has less GDP per capita than Cuba atm, it also has the highest GINI index in the whole freaking world, at just above 70. Essentially there too the rich just plundered it all, and the poor just got poorer. Etc.

And in related news, it's also possible that three headed monkeys will fly out of my butt ;)

[bobc]

Capitalism is motivated by greed, or if you prefer a more neutral term "the desire to improve one's situation". As such, there is plenty of that about, and you can leave it to people and they will self-organize.

Communism, in a true form of social cooperation and equality, requires altruism and self-sacrifice. There is a lot less of that about, and most attempts to implement communist ideals are subverted by greed (see above).

[Gawdzilla]

WW2 is a interesting point of time to pick because it saw one of the biggest "redistribution of wealth" between countries we've probably ever had. I've read (so ready to be schooled about this!) that the UK already financially crippled by the costs of WWI had to bankrupt itself to pay for WWII, and a lot of that was transferred to the USA.

The US was an emerging industrial power well before WWI. Russia and the US were the two front-runners in that area and either could have been the "US" of the 20th Century. After 1917, however, the Russian chances began to spiral down the drain.

As for "transfered", I think it more of other countries stepped into the vacuum left by the Empire's demise.

[PixyMisa]

Migration from Cuba is a complicated issue, it isn't black and white like North Korea.
GAO - U.S. Response to the 1994 Cuban Migration Crisis (http://www.gao.gov/archive/1995/ns95211.pdf)

Can people leave freely? No, they can't.

And I don't think it is fair to call N Korea a communist country. That's like saying a schizophrenic who hears God talking is a Christian.
Except for the fact that it is a communist country.

As for communist economies in general, the totalitarian aspect of communism makes it hard to compare the two economic systems.
Since the totalitarian aspect is a result of the economic system, no, it's not.

It comes down to one's measure of "success". If one has the values of a typical American, we value freedom and communism wouldn't be successful. But more than a few people in Russia lamented the loss of social security that they were afforded under communist rule when the USSR broke up.
That security was an illusion; the country was collapsing. Which is probably why it collapsed.

And you can't say that capitalist countries are automatically free countries.
They are economically free. That's a necessary freedom, but certainly not the only one. China is now more capitalist than communist, but it it still a corrupt, oppressive totalitarian autocracy.

But I still think as far as economic success, regulated capitalism by far fits the human species better than other systems. The exception might be very small groups like small tribal societies. "The Gods Must Be Crazy" comes to mind.
Yes. Communism does work on the small scale. Families, tribal groups, kibbutzes, that sort of thing. It's when you try to scale it up that everything goes to pieces.

[PixyMisa]

Capitalism is motivated by greed, or if you prefer a more neutral term "the desire to improve one's situation". As such, there is plenty of that about, and you can leave it to people and they will self-organize.

Communism, in a true form of social cooperation and equality, requires altruism and self-sacrifice. There is a lot less of that about, and most attempts to implement communist ideals are subverted by greed (see above).
As I've noted several times, it's not as simple as that. Capitalism runs itself. It's self-correcting, though not necessarily self-regulating. People naturally seek local optima, and capitalism works.

Communism requires management, and the management cost scales faster than the number of people in the system. That means that even if communism is more efficient, productive, and equitable than capitalism on a small scale, there will always be a larger scale at which it is less efficient, and the larger the system the worse it gets.

The scale, cost, and difficulty of that management process leads to increased probability of inequity, inneficiency, and error as the system scales - even if all the actors are virtuous, which is never the case. As we saw in the 20th century, large-scale implementations of communism in the real world invariably lead to disaster.

[bikerdruid]

Cuban purchasing power in action:

http://janstein.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/thumb2/Cuba_Vintage_Cars_001.jpg

what's wrong with being practical and fixing old cars?
it is not a consumerist society....good for them.
the lada signet in the front is quite new, btw.

[Malerin]

what's wrong with being practical and fixing old cars?it is not a consumerist society....good for them.
the lada signet in the front is quite new, btw.

50 year old cars are not practical, which is why they're regarded as curiosities when you see one on the road in a prosperous country.

[Rogue1stclass]

Cuban purchasing power in action:

http://janstein.org/cmsAdmin/uploads/thumb2/Cuba_Vintage_Cars_001.jpg

Holy crap, is that a Studebaker?

I know you meant it ironically, but most of those cars would actually be worth a lot of money on the US collector car market.

[Malerin]

Holy crap, is that a Studebaker?

I know you meant it ironically, but most of those cars would actually be worth a lot of money on the US collector car market.

Not really. A 1960 Studebaker in xlnt condition with low mileage (for a 50 year old car) sold for $12,000.
http://cars-on-line.com/48468.html

Car collectors prize condition, rarity, and original matching parts.

[theprestige]

So,the worst you can say about communism is that it failed to turn a war-torn former colony that was ravaged by Imperialists and Facists into a functioning nation.
If Communism can't offer people a path out of a mess like that, what is it good for?

And if it can offer people a path out of a mess like that, what's wrong with the Somalis?

[bikerdruid]

Not really. A 1960 Studebaker in xlnt condition with low mileage (for a 50 year old car) sold for $12,000.


which is about 10 times what it cost new.

[IchabodPlain]

@BeAChooser: Yes, if you pick 2004 as your "OMG cuba sucks" that was only $2800 per capita. It was still up from $1700 in 2001. I hate to break it to you, but it's a _much_ higher growth rate than the one you were praising in China and ascribing to capitalism being that great. So you were saying?

It's good that you've managed to cherry-pick GDP per capita, because otherwise (http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:CUB&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+growth+cuba#met=ny_gdp_mktp_kd_zg&idim=country:CUB:CHN), things wouldn't look so good.

I also notice the BS move of just moving the point you picked, to ignore that inconvenient $11,000 per capita in 2008 or even the end result of $8500 in 2009. What's the matter? Newer points don't exist if they don't make your canned propaganda points?

The bolded is wrong (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html).

And here's the funny part: because it really says how bullcrap the usual "OMG, it's bad because they're poor" pretense, and pretending that the starting conditions and growth don't matter, only end result matters, is. That $8500 in 2009 is actually higher than China's $6700 in 2009. So can we conclude that Cuban communism works better than Chinese capitalism? Or than India's $3100 in 2009, Pakistan's $2800, etc.

No, because China (and India) are developing economies with huge populations, so it's no surprise that per capita, their numbers are lower. However, if you were to compare Cuba to its Latin American peers, Cuba stops looking so hot. Their GDP per capita is lower than Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Uraguay, Venezuela, and Argentina.

I also notice you're strangely quick to dismiss growth rates like 4.4% or even 10%. Let me remind you that since 1949, the USA has averaged 3.28% growth, with the top year being 1950 at 8.7%, but we're pretty much measuring spikes at that point. The highest average over a whole presidency was actually 1965-1968 at +5.05%, and it gets downhill from there.

Which is unsurprising given that the US has been industrially developed for about a century - the more you grow, the harder it is to grow.

You're really hardly in a position to criticize Cuba for only growing twice as fast as the USA at its best pre-'89 years, and only about on par with the USA at its worst pre-'89 years.

Well heck then, neither is the whole of European Union, considering that they, like the US, have been developed for quite some time and therefore will not likely put up large growth numbers. They also aren't likely to put up big losses either.

[Oliver]

Why was capitalism more successful than communism?

Why is Chinas communism more successful than capitalism?

[Malerin]

which is about 10 times what it cost new.

Inflation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation)

[Rogue1stclass]

Not really. A 1960 Studebaker in xlnt condition with low mileage (for a 50 year old car) sold for $12,000.
http://cars-on-line.com/48468.html

Maybe not individually, but collectively, there is a fortune in classic cars there waiting to be mined.

Car collectors prize condition, rarity, and original matching parts.

These days, that's less true. A good restoration/modification of a classic car, that is, one that may not be all original, but has been restored to good condition and modified to incorporate modern conveniences, can go for as much if not more than a cherry museum piece. Most of the collector market these days wants to actually drive their cars and not have to worry about the depreciation wearing down the original tires will cause.

[TraneWreck]

If Communism can't offer people a path out of a mess like that, what is it good for?

And if it can offer people a path out of a mess like that, what's wrong with the Somalis?

So I'm guessing we can guage the success of capitalism based on how Afghanistan and Iraq perform over the next couple decades?

It should also be pointed out that things only became worse for Somalia after revolting against the brutal communist regime.

[Malerin]

Maybe not individually, but collectively, there is a fortune in classic cars there waiting to be mined.

Junkyards are full of classic cars.



These days, that's less true. A good restoration/modification of a classic car, that is, one that may not be all original, but has been restored to good condition and modified to incorporate modern conveniences, can go for as much if not more than a cherry museum piece. Most of the collector market these days wants to actually drive their cars and not have to worry about the depreciation wearing down the original tires will cause.

While customizing may be appealing to many, it severely damages the classic cars value. Remember to only use classic car parts OEM and new old stock parts. Keep your classic as close to the original factory condition as you can. Giving it some factory upgrades is okay, but just be careful!
http://hubpages.com/hub/Classic-Car-Parts-OEM



I drive quite a bit around L.A. I can't remember the last time I saw a cherry antique (45+ years) on the freeway. You see a few on the surface streets every now and then. Antiques in cuba, OTOH, are the norm (and I'm betting most are in fair or worse condition). The strangest thing I saw was a 2005 (I think) Rolls Royce parked next to my Altima in a public beach lot at Venice Beach. That was jaw dropping. I think I walked around it half a dozen times.

The whole point of this little siderail is that driving around in an antique car is not practical, which is why you almost never see it in affluent countries. The few collectors I know have a modern car they do most of their driving in. In other words, it's a hobby. People in countries with economic freedom have the purchasing power to buy new cars. People in countries like Cuba don't drive antiques as a hobby, but rather as a necessity.

[BeAChooser]

That would be because communism isn't "to blame" for Somalia's failure. After an extended battle against Imperialist forces that culminated in being bombed into oblivion by Britain in 1920, then the Italian facists poured in from Ethiopia two decades and later.

But perhaps communism is "to blame" for it's failure to recover even after decades and decades and decades? Afterall, Japan and West Germany were "bombed into oblivion" decades after Somalia and somehow managed to do quite well under capitalism. Whereas, East Germany and various other communist Warsaw Pack countries which were bombed into oblivion about the same time didn't do all that well in comparison to ... say ... West Germany and Japan. Gee ... I wonder what could have spelled the difference? ;)

[BeAChooser]

I was there once, when I was about 22 years old.

Which certainly explains a lot. :D

[TraneWreck]

But perhaps communism is "to blame" for it's failure to recover even after decades and decades and decades? Afterall, Japan and West Germany were "bombed into oblivion" decades after Somalia and somehow managed to do quite well under capitalism. Whereas, East Germany and various other communist Warsaw Pack countries which were bombed into oblivion about the same time didn't do all that well in comparison to ... say ... West Germany and Japan. Gee ... I wonder what could have spelled the difference? ;)

Somalia didn't recover before communism, recovered slightly during the first part of communism, and has suffered many times more after communism.

But again, we will judge capitalism by how Iraq "recovers" over the next few decades. If they can even manage to get their basic living standards up to the level Saddam had them in the 80's it will be a minor miracle.

Hmm, what was the difference between Japan, W. Germany and East Germany?

I seem to remember the lone industrial nation that was spared the devestation of their manufacturing base expending a great deal of time and money rebuilding two of them.

The other one was sealed off from the world by a similarly devestated nation that gave the appearance of strength but was actually economically pitiful compared to its opponents.

Trying to isolate these complex issues down to a mere comparison between economic structures is a fool's errand. I'm not surprised you approach it with such zeal.

[BeAChooser]

Cuba: lower infant death rate than in the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=181#cu)


Is that a comparison of apples to apples? No …

http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/060924/2healy.htm


it's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity and size" whereas other countries report these as stillbirths. … snip ... And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country. Infant mortality in developed countries is not about healthy babies dying of treatable conditions as in the past. Most of the infants we lose today are born critically ill, and 40 percent die within the first day of life. The major causes are low birth weight and prematurity, and congenital malformations. As Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, points out, Norway, which has one of the lowest infant mortality rates, shows no better infant survival than the United States when you factor in weight at birth.



http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/cuba-vs-the-united-states-on-infant-mortality/


The primary reason Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the United States is that the United States is a world leader in an odd category — the percentage of infants who die on their birthday. In any given year in the United States anywhere from 30-40 percent of infants die before they are even a day old.

Why? Because the United States also easily has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality — the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.

… snip …

In many countries, however, (including many European countries) such severe medical intervention would not be attempted and, moreover, regardless of whether or not it was, this would be recorded as a fetal death rather than a live birth. That unfortunate infant would never show up in infant mortality statistics.

… snip …

This is clearly what is happening in Cuba. In the United States about 1.3 percent of all live births are very low birth weight — less than 1,500 grams. In Cuba, on the other hand, only about 0.4 percent of all births are less than 1,500 grams. This is despite the fact that the United States and Cuba have very similar low birth rates (births where the infant weighs less than 2500g). The United States actually has a much better low birth rate than Cuba if you control for multiple births — i.e. the growing number of multiple births in the United States due to technological interventions has resulted in a marked increase in the number of births under 2,500 g.


:D


Life expectancy, within a year of the US (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=53#cu)

Again, you are comparing apples to oranges. As already pointed out, we too could have Cuba's life expectancy ... if we starved our population (cut their calorie input in half by removing most food from store shelves and rationing the rest) and forced them to walk or bicycle everywhere.

In fact,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090319224823.htm


ScienceDaily (Mar. 20, 2009) — A new analysis of almost one million people from around the world has shown that obesity can trim years off life expectancy.

The Oxford University research found that moderate obesity, which is now common, reduces life expectancy by about 3 years, and that severe obesity, which is still uncommon, can shorten a person’s life by 10 years.

So is that what you recommend? That we emply draconian measures to cut calories and increase exercise? Maybe Obama can do it by Executive Order? :D


99.8% of the population over age 15 is literate (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)


But again, what good is literacy if the state controls what you read?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship


Cuba has the lowest ratio of computers per inhabitant in Latin America, and the lowest internet access ratio of all the Western hemisphere. Citizens have to use government controlled "access points", where their activity is monitored through IP blocking, keyword filtering and browsing history checking. The government cites its citizens' access to internet services are limited due to high costs and the American embargo, but there are reports concerning the will of the government to control access to uncensored information both from and to the outer world. The Cuban government continues to imprison independent journalists for contributing reports through the Internet to web sites outside of Cuba. … snip … The Committee to Protect Journalists has pointed Cuba as one of the ten most censored countries around the world.


:D


2nd in the world in % of GDP spent on education (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2206rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=2#cu)


First, 100% of nothing is still nothing. (Now I know it's not 100% or nothing but you understand what I mean, don't you?)

Or perhaps that's merely an indictment of the waste in our education spending (thanks to democrats, I might add).

And is Cuba's really the type of *education* you recommend? To be indoctrinated politically? Because that is what happens in Cuba.

Finally, do you really want to do the same thing here in the US that Cuba did to achieve that statistic? They *recruited* (gee, I wonder what that really means) more than a hundred thousand *volunteer* (you will volunteer) *teachers* (mostly kids fresh out of high school) and sent them out to teach the rest of the people to read. Because THAT is how Cuba's literacy rate rose from 60-70% to 97% (almost overnight). Not as a result on any formal education program like you'd encounter here in the US or any other western nation. But heck, maybe this really is what we should do here in the US with regards to all those illegals who can't speak or read or write English … if for no other reason than to break the hold that teachers unions have on our education system. ;)


Purchasing power parity is ranked 63rd in the world just under New Zealand at 61 (another island economy) (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html?countryName=Cuba&countryCode=cu&regionCode=ca&rank=63#cu)

LOL! So you want to compare New Zealand to Cuba? Sure ...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/new-zealand/news/article.cfm?l_id=71&objectid=10695163


This is one of the diplomatic cables about New Zealand held by Wikileaks.

June 1, 2005
SUBJECT: NEW ZEALAND POLICIES AND ACTIONS TAKEN WITH REGARD TO CUBA

… snip …

2. (C) Shaw said that the GoNZ uses meetings with Cuban officials to "express its concern over the human rights situation in Cuba, and encourage moves towards democratization and the promotion of human rights. These include the proper treatment of those who hold political views in opposition to the Cuban government." This is consistent with the GoNZ's policy of engagement with states that have poor human rights records, he added.


And what does purchasing power parity mean in a country where the choice of stores and what you can buy is extremely limited anyway?

Also, are you sure your numbers are up to date? Yours are from 2001. This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita ) lists Cuba's per capita GDP PPP, according to the CIA World Factbook for 2009, as putting it in 86th place. With New Zealand in 38th place. Looks like Cuba has slipped a lot in just 8 years.

And besides, the issue is what Cuba's economy would be like now had it not gone the communist route? Why not compare it to the Bahamas or Trinidad, also island nations but in the Caribbean? The above source shows Trinidad's per capita GDP PPP is in 42nd spot. The Bahamas' is in 33rd place. :D

Unemployment is under 2%. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html)

This statistic is a joke.

Seriously, what does a job mean if you make $20 a week?

Also …

http://cubantriangle.blogspot.com/2007/11/unemployment-problem.html


NOVEMBER 26, 2007

The unemployment problem


Cuba’s Juventud Rebelde seems to be setting out to prove that just because a newspaper is state-controlled, it doesn’t have to be predictable or dull.

… snip …

It also contained a long article on Cuba’s unemployment figures that showed what a stroll through just about any Cuban neighborhood reveals: that many more youths are unemployed than official figures admit, or as the article put it, “the figures are never a reflection of reality.” The article (in English, here) explained how undercounting occurs; it revealed that in the province of Granma, social workers counted about 18 times more unemployed than official figures show; and it pointed out that programs to bring youths and others into the workforce are not always successful because in many cases the economy is not generating enough new jobs, or the right kind of jobs, to give opportunities to graduates.


http://internalreform.blogspot.com/2007/12/official-unemployment-statistics.html


Cuban newspaper challenges government employment claim

November 26, 2007

… snip ...

Among numerous examples provided by the two-page article was a report that around 16,000 youth in eastern Santiago were unemployed in 2006, when a survey by social workers put the figure at 29,000.

Eastern Granma province claimed only 2 percent of its population as unemployed in 2006, or around 2,000 people, while another social worker survey found the number of unemployed under 45 was 37,000, the newspaper said, including housewives and 13,000 men.


And by the way, didn't the Cuban government just announce that 1 in 5 worker will be laid off? Yes indeed…

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/13/world/main6862281.shtml


Sept. 13, 2010

… snip …

Cuba announced Monday it will cast off at least half a million state employees by mid-2011 and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs - the most dramatic step yet in President Raul Castro's push to radically remake employment on the communist-run island.

Castro suggested during a nationally televised address on Easter Sunday that as many 1 million Cuban workers - about one in five - may be redundant. But the government had not previously laid out specific plans to reduce the work force.

The layoffs will start immediately and continue through the first half of next year, according to the nearly 3 million-strong Cuban Workers Confederation - the only labor union allowed by the government.

… snip …

"Our state cannot and should not continue supporting businesses, production entities and services with inflated payrolls," the union said, "and losses that hurt our economy are ultimately counterproductive, creating bad habits and distorting worker conduct."

… snip …

Currently, the state employs 95 percent of the official work force. Unemployment last year was 1.7 percent and hasn't risen above 3 percent in eight years - but that ignores thousands of Cubans who aren't looking for jobs that pay monthly salaries worth only $20 a month on average.


Now tell us, what will the unemployment rate be when 1/5 of the work force is simply laid off to fend for themselves in an economy with very little private enterprise? Let's see … 20%? :D

You need to broaden your sources of information

LOL! As my post proves, that definitely applies to you. :D

The fact some people would leave Cuba if they could is not as significant as you think.

:rolleyes:

[BeAChooser]

And I don't think it is fair to call N Korea a communist country.

LOL!

As for communist economies in general, the totalitarian aspect of communism makes it hard to compare the two economic systems.

But the totalitarian aspect is an integral part of the economic system.

But more than a few people in Russia lamented the loss of social security that they were afforded under communist rule when the USSR broke up.

Does that in any way change the reality that the Soviet Union was broke and could not have afforded to keep giving those people their "social security" ... because communism does not work?

And you can't say that capitalist countries are automatically free countries.

Can you give us an example of one that isn't?

[BeAChooser]

Quote:
Purchasing power parity is ranked 63rd in the world just under New Zealand at 61 (another island economy)

Um... you do know that that isn't per capita, don't you? With about 2.7 times the population of New Zealand, they're not doing nearly as well on a per-capita basis (111th to New Zealand's 51st). Did you miss that little fact, or choose to ignore it?

Ah, I missed that detail. Thanks.

[Virus]

Communism is also a pathological mass movement based on a so-called "scientific" model of history and human progress. Although secular, they were as fanatical as any cult or theocracy. They thought capitalism was on its last legs, and like Fascism, which they are merely the opposite side of the coin, they believed "impure" elements of society had to be eradicated before the inevitable utopia would come about. Once the killing started, they couldn't stop, and the all darkest impulses of humanity were unleashed in an orgy of sadism, violence and atrocity. Eventually they were killing just for the sake of it.

Pretty hard to run a successful economy amongst that, especially when their economic model sucked anyway.

[CDFingers]

Tero wrote:

>Capitalism needs a growing market.

This is true: capitalism moves via expansion. Therein lies a problem for the planet: we've expanded all around the globe now. We have nearly reached the carrying capacity of the planet (or we have, and I'm ignorant of it).

We face a choice among several: reduce population, either voluntarily or by some less attractive means; engage in sustainable development such that capitalism no longer requires continuous expansion; leave the planet; select global cooperation over capitalism.

Which do I think most likely? Leave the planet.

Result? The rich survive. The rest of us live in Soylent Green New York, planet wide.

CDFingers

[BeAChooser]

Yes, if you pick 2004 as your "OMG cuba sucks" that was only $2800 per capita. It was still up from $1700 in 2001. I hate to break it to you, but it's a _much_ higher growth rate than the one you were praising in China and ascribing to capitalism being that great. So you were saying?

Did you overlook the reason it's been suddenly climbing? Cuba is starting to encourage free market approaches. Just like China did. In fact, Castro has now openly stated that the Cuban model didn't work. "So you were saying?"

I also notice the BS move of just moving the point you picked, to ignore that inconvenient $11,000 per capita in 2008 or even the end result of $8500 in 2009.

Hmmmmm. This (http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/gdp_per_capita_2008_0.html ) shows Cuba's per capita GDP as being $4500 in 2008. And that's the same source that listed it's per capita GDP as $2800 in 2004. But even if it's around $10,000 now. So what? It's not socialism or capitalism that is resulting in that sudden increase. It's the adoption of specific capitalist free market approaches, like I've noted in several posts in this thread. Posts that you doubtless will just ignore. :D

You're really hardly in a position to criticize Cuba for only growing twice as fast as the USA at its best pre-'89 years, and only about on par with the USA at its worst pre-'89 years.

LOL! Undeveloped countries almost ALWAYS grow much faster than developed ones. Didn't your economics teacher ever explain that fact to you? :p

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by Travis
So how long does Communism need to be tried and turn into a huge failure with millions of deaths before we can say that history shows it won't work?

… snip … I mean, really? How many people _were_ killed by the economic system that is communism?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism


The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a book which describes a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and artificial famines. … snip … In the introduction, editor Stéphane Courtois states that "...Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". He cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the "excess deaths" (decrease of the population due to lower than-expected birth rates).

[BeAChooser]

Capitalism runs itself. It's self-correcting, though not necessarily self-regulating. People naturally seek local optima, and capitalism works.

Communism requires management, and the management cost scales faster than the number of people in the system. That means that even if communism is more efficient, productive, and equitable than capitalism on a small scale, there will always be a larger scale at which it is less efficient, and the larger the system the worse it gets.

The scale, cost, and difficulty of that management process leads to increased probability of inequity, inneficiency, and error as the system scales - even if all the actors are virtuous, which is never the case. As we saw in the 20th century, large-scale implementations of communism in the real world invariably lead to disaster.

Excellent post. And I'd say that socialist states end up doing the same, but just take a little longer perhaps to get there.

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by Malerin
Not really. A 1960 Studebaker in xlnt condition with low mileage (for a 50 year old car) sold for $12,000.

which is about 10 times what it cost new.

Actually, no. It cost about $2600 in 1960 dollars. Accounting for inflation, that $2600 would be over $18000 today.

[BeAChooser]

So I'm guessing we can guage the success of capitalism based on how Afghanistan and Iraq perform over the next couple decades?

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/afghanistan/gdp-per-capita-at-current-prices-imf-data.html


The GDP per Capita at current prices in Afghanistan was reported at 24752.78 National currency in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2015, Afghanistan's GDP per Capita at current prices is expected to be 36793.50 National currency. GDP is expressed in current national currency per person. Data are derived by dividing current price GDP by total population. In 2009, Afghanistan's economy share of world total GDP, adjusted by Purchasing Power Parity, was 0.04 percent. In 2015, Afghanistan's share of world total GDP is forecasted to be 0.05 percent.

That doesn't look so bad.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iraq/gdp-per-capita-at-current-prices-imf-data.html


The GDP per Capita at current prices in Iraq was reported at 2466255.09 National currency in 2009, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2015, Iraq's GDP per Capita at current prices is expected to be 4665514.33 National currency. GDP is expressed in current national currency per person. Data are derived by dividing current price GDP by total population. In 2009, Iraq's economy share of world total GDP, adjusted by Purchasing Power Parity, was 0.16 percent. In 2015, Iraq's share of world total GDP is forecasted to be 0.19 percent. This page includes a chart, historical data and forecast for Iraq's GDP per Capita at current prices.


That looks pretty good too.

[BeAChooser]

Somalia didn't recover before communism

Did it have a 1960s, western style, market oriented, capitalist economy before communism? No? Then maybe you can't say what effect that would have had on Somalia instead of communism.

But again, we will judge capitalism by how Iraq "recovers" over the next few decades. If they can even manage to get their basic living standards up to the level Saddam had them in the 80's it will be a minor miracle.

http://www.zimbio.com/Global+Property+News/articles/OKNQ6Jp6pWT/Iraq+Ranked+Towards+Bottom+Per+Capita+Income


Iraq’s Per Capita GDP
1980 $3,812
1994 $180
2002 $770
2008 approx. $3,100


Looks like Iraq's almost there already, so I'd predict that in a couple decades it will far exceed what it was in 1980. Afterall, GDP has been growing it 5-8% a year in recent years, far outpacing population growth. And with all that oil … especially if it isn't being used to fund Saddam's aggression …


I seem to remember the lone industrial nation that was spared the devestation of their manufacturing base expending a great deal of time and money rebuilding two of them.

All told, the US gave about $25 billion (both in terms of aid before the Marshall plan began and in the Marshall plan itself) to help European countries … not just West Germany … recover. West Germany got less than 1/8 of that total … so about $3 billion dollars over all. Now you think the USSR expended no resources to rebuild East Germany? Initially, it's true that the USSR refused to give East Germany aid. But eventually the USSR relented and provided East Germany aid.

In fact, Table 5 of this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=PhTlQCycKJwC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=soviet+aid+to+east+germany&source=bl&ots=Hm7gmSnYEZ&sig=8JryWbyL8EHpWBuKYPuwnHfHbKM&hl=en&ei=71QNTaLXG4_EsAPSmMTFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBwQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=soviet%20aid%20to%20east%20germany&f=false , shows Soviet economic aid to various communist countries in millions of US dollars between 1945 and 1966. It states that East Germany received almost $1.4 billion in economic aid during that time frame, a not insignificant sum.

[BeAChooser]

Result? The rich survive. The rest of us live in Soylent Green New York, planet wide.

:rolleyes:

[bobc]

As I've noted several times, it's not as simple as that. Capitalism runs itself. It's self-correcting, though not necessarily self-regulating. People naturally seek local optima, and capitalism works.

Communism requires management, and the management cost scales faster than the number of people in the system. That means that even if communism is more efficient, productive, and equitable than capitalism on a small scale, there will always be a larger scale at which it is less efficient, and the larger the system the worse it gets.

The scale, cost, and difficulty of that management process leads to increased probability of inequity, inneficiency, and error as the system scales - even if all the actors are virtuous, which is never the case. As we saw in the 20th century, large-scale implementations of communism in the real world invariably lead to disaster.

Yes, I think that is pretty accurate. Communism works in small communities like kibbutzim, I suspect that Dunbar's number comes into play.

Capitalism allows me to interact with large numbers of people in distant place, e.g. China, who I have no personal knowledge of. I am not obliged to worry about whether the workers there are fairly treated or not, I just have to agree to pay whatever price is set for the goods.

Given that we were evolved to live in small communities, capitalism is a cultural adaptation to deal with the fact we now effectively live in one huge colony, and removes the need for me to keep track of fairness or equality of billions of people. Whether that is a good thing or not is a matter of opinion. Capitalism might be a bad system, but it appears to be the most effective way to exploit resources.

It remains to be seen of course, if an intensely capitalist system of social organisation is sustainable in the long term, and not only not work but destroy ecosystems we rely on. Future historians may conclude that capitalism is a disaster precisely because it is so effective at exploiting resources. A highly inefficient method of exploiting resources may actually be more sustainable.

[TraneWreck]

Did it have a 1960s, western style, market oriented, capitalist economy before communism? No? Then maybe you can't say what effect that would have had on Somalia instead of communism.

http://www.zimbio.com/Global+Property+News/articles/OKNQ6Jp6pWT/Iraq+Ranked+Towards+Bottom+Per+Capita+Income

So? You claimed communism was responsible. At worst it was one of many, many factors.

You're ideological zeal leads to sloppiness and wishful thinking.



Looks like Iraq's almost there already, so I'd predict that in a couple decades it will far exceed what it was in 1980. Afterall, GDP has been growing it 5-8% a year in recent years, far outpacing population growth. And with all that oil … especially if it isn't being used to fund Saddam's aggression …

Hmm, why, oh why, would GDP be terrible statistic for evaluating quality of life in Iraq, specifically? What is the largest contributor to Iraqi GDP?

In terms of nutrition, access to clean water, access to medicine, access to safe shelter...etc., Iraq has yet to attain the standard of living it maintained under a brutal dictator.

And are you using numbers adjusted for inflation?

ETA: Jesus, do you even read the links you provide? From YOUR link:

In the 1970s Iraq had a rising standard of living due to the increase in oil prices following the OPEC boycott and generous social spending by the government. Saddam’s decision to go to war with Iran, followed by the invasion of Kuwait, and international sanctions destroyed most of those achievements. A U.N. study found that living standards dropped 66% from 1988 to 1995 as a result. The economic conditions in Iraq were only made worse by the U.S. invasion. Its only been very recently that parts of Iraq’s economy and services have begun to recover. That’s been seen in a growth of per capita GDP to levels close to those in the 1980s. Compared to its neighbors however, Iraq’s GDP, GDP per capita, purchasing power, and as the Arab League report points out, per capita income, are still some of the lowest in the region. These numbers can also be misleading for oil dependent countries such as Iraq and others in the Gulf because a nation can be bringing in billions from petroleum, but that doesn’t mean that it is trickling down to the population.

Yes, let's see how capitalism does for standard of living in Iraq.



All told, the US gave about $25 billion (both in terms of aid before the Marshall plan began and in the Marshall plan itself) to help European countries … not just West Germany … recover. West Germany got less than 1/8 of that total … so about $3 billion dollars over all. Now you think the USSR expended no resources to rebuild East Germany? Initially, it's true that the USSR refused to give East Germany aid. But eventually the USSR relented and provided East Germany aid.

In fact, Table 5 of this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=PhTlQCycKJwC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=soviet+aid+to+east+germany&source=bl&ots=Hm7gmSnYEZ&sig=8JryWbyL8EHpWBuKYPuwnHfHbKM&hl=en&ei=71QNTaLXG4_EsAPSmMTFAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBwQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=soviet%20aid%20to%20east%20germany&f=false , shows Soviet economic aid to various communist countries in millions of US dollars between 1945 and 1966. It states that East Germany received almost $1.4 billion in economic aid during that time frame, a not insignificant sum.

First of all, much of that aid was military, and that wasn't really for the benefit of the countries, more to build up an army in case NATO advanced, or whatever paranoid nonsense those countries believed. This was one of the main problems with the Soviet Union: so much of their industrial base was dedicated to machines of war that they produced very little in terms of useful and necessary items for the population.

This is not an inevitable feature of communism, as Vietnam and China show today.

As for the West, it's not just the direct aid, it's also the trading. The Allied/NATO economies were massive in comparison to the Warsaw countries. The United States was producing goods at such an astonishing rate, having been spared any damage to its industrial base, that we were able to export massive amounts of goods to our allies. This wasn't true of the Soviets. The disparity between the countries after WWII was astonishing.

We also provided a great deal of military assurance to those nations allowing them to slash their military expenditures. They were able to allocate funds to other parts of the economy because we kept troops in Germany, piled up a gigantic military arsenal, and signed treaties that assured them we would immediately fight back any Soviet aggression. The Soviets sent military aid to countries that then also built up their military (often to support their autocratic regimes---that is the best argument against communism, it seems inseparable from autocracy, but again, communism is young, let's see how China and Vietnam end up). With Japan, we made it illegal for them to build an army, providing the service for a half century. This greatly contributed to their recovery but isn't counted as "aid."

Once Western Europe and Japan rebuilt themselves, they contributed wealth to the trade.

Now, it's obvious you're arguing that this happened because one group was capitalistic and the other communist, but if you just evaluate the state of those countries after WWII, the power differential was so vast that economic structure cannot be isolated. It's just a bad comparison.

[Trakar]

Still waiting for anyone to point out capitalist nations and communist nations so that we can address the OP. I, personally know of no purely capitalistic nations nor purely communist nations now, or in the history of humanity, that we might take for such a comparison.

[BeAChooser]

Hmm, why, oh why, would GDP be terrible statistic for evaluating quality of life in Iraq, specifically?

But won't you admit there is a correlation between per capita GDP and average "quality of life"? If the real per capita GDP in Iraq a few decades from now is much larger than it was even in 1980 (when it peaked in Iraq), isn't it likely that the quality of life will be much better too? In that case, why would you claim it would take a miracle?

In terms of nutrition, access to clean water, access to medicine, access to safe shelter...etc., Iraq has yet to attain the standard of living it maintained under a brutal dictator.

And why would you want to ignore what Saddam did to the quality of life between 1980 and the start of the 1991 war? That was long before the US did anything to hurt Iraq's quality of life. Iraq's per capita GDP collapsed after 1980: http://www.nps.edu/Academics/centers/ccc/publications/OnlineJournal/2007/Dec/gunterNov07_clip_image002.gif . By 1990 it's per capita GDP was about 1/3 to 1/2 what it was in 1980 (depending on which source you accept). And a million Iraqis or more had already died thanks to the conflicts that Saddam had provoked. So maybe life wasn't all that wonderful under Saddam's rule after all.

You need compare Iraq now to what it was in 1990 (after Saddam destroyed it but before the first Gulf War) or even better 2003 (before we invaded) for a fair comparison. Not to some mythical utopia that existed in Iraq in 1980.

For example, according to this recent report by the UN:

http://business.un.org/en/assets/d5798605-056e-4a28-a625-fb6ec089d887.pdf


Some 15% of households are not connected to a public water network, a further 37% suffer water shortages as a result of poor network quality, and 16% of households are not using an improved sanitation facility.


Now what were those percentages just before the Second Gulf war? I bet they were just as high. What were they in 1990? Can you say?

The US Department of State now estimates that over 21 million Iraqis have access to potable water, which is 5 million more than was estimated in 2003. That's pretty spectacular progress. And they are still building infrastructure … something Saddam wasn't doing back in 2003 with all that oil money he got. So I predict it won't be long before almost all Iraqis have access to clean water. Things are not as dire as you claim.

Maybe just a change in weather would help. The average rainfall over the past 10 years in Iraq has been far lower than in previous decades. In the north, water supply systems fed by springs and shallows aquifers have been depleted and often have less water available to meet demand. Maybe Saddam during his *golden years* just had the advantage of good weather?

And what about electrical power? According to http://thegroundtruth.blogspot.com/2009/07/problems-with-iraqs-electricity-network.html … Iraq's public power system is currently producing about 6000 megawatts of electricity a day. It's believed another 2000-3000 megawatts per day is generated by private generators. In 1990 peak load was about 5000 megawatts a day. And Saddam was only supplying about 4000 megawatts a day before the 2003 invasion. So things have improved in terms of energy supplies.

But demand has substantially increased as Iraqis rushed to purchase TV's, other electronics, and other modern conveniences like air conditioners and refrigerators. Is that our fault? It's noted in that source that one reason that the public supply is inadequate is that Iraq’s power plants are operating at less than half of their feasible capacity because Iraqis aren't use to operating, maintaining, and sustaining such plants. Is that our fault? It's noted that before the invasion, "Iraq relied largely upon foreigners to operate their electrical system." Now they have to stand on their own. They will learn eventually (probably in not too many years) and then there won't be a power shortage. And that will in turn go a long way to helping improve water supplies, sanitation and even nutrition. Which is why it's now the #1 infrastructure priority. The situation is not as dire as you paint, Tranewreck. In fact, the government has set a target of expanding electricity generating capacity to 27,000MW by 2013. If they do that, my prediction is that the quality of life is going to rise dramatically. So don't be so pessimistic, Mr Gloomy. :D

And are you using numbers adjusted for inflation?

I think so.


Originally Posted by BeAChooser
In fact, Table 5 of this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=PhT...ermany&f=false , shows Soviet economic aid to various communist countries in millions of US dollars between 1945 and 1966. It states that East Germany received almost $1.4 billion in economic aid during that time frame, a not insignificant sum.

First of all, much of that aid was military

No, that was just the economic aid … as the source pointed out.

This is not an inevitable feature of communism, as Vietnam and China show today.

Can China really be called communist today given how it's going about becoming wealthy? Hmmmmmm?

[PixyMisa]

China is quite blatantly not communist, and hasn't been for some time. Vietnam is likewise shifting towards a market economy. TraneWreck is just chery-picking and equivocating in an attempt to avoid the obvious: Communism does not work on the scale of modern nations.

[UWdude]

Imperialism wins because it uses its power to dominate, exploit, enslave and extract from teh poor and non-voters (peoples of other nations)

Communism oppresses internally, capitalism oppresses externally.

[TraneWreck]

China is quite blatantly not communist, and hasn't been for some time. Vietnam is likewise shifting towards a market economy. TraneWreck is just chery-picking and equivocating in an attempt to avoid the obvious: Communism does not work on the scale of modern nations.

If the opening of communist nations proves communism's failure, why do all of the regulations put in place after the Depression, when our nation almost collapsed without a war or any serious agression, not mean that capitalism is a failure?

There are no true communist nations, there are no true capitalist nations. Unfettered markets are as destructive and unsustainable as fully controlled state business.

[UWdude]

China is quite blatantly not communist, and hasn't been for some time. Vietnam is likewise shifting towards a market economy. TraneWreck is just chery-picking and equivocating in an attempt to avoid the obvious: Communism does not work on the scale of modern nations.

once an economy is successful, it is considered capitalist.

And history always sounds good, just and right for continued imperialist domination.

But when something goes wrong, like the chemical spill in Hungary?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=11852812
Communism Left Toxic Legacy in Eastern Europe

Never mind that Hungary hasn't been communist for 20 years. :rolleyes:

When an economy starts to sputter... oh, its all those socialist policies. Never mind that we had massive socialist policies in the 40's and 60's under FDR and LBJ... and the economy grew greatly. But now, in europe and America, all the debt is socialism's fault.

Never mind the imperialist wars, profiteering, and off shoring of money to avoid taxes as causes for debt. Never mind multi-national corporate hogs deciding they can use slave wage workers in Bangladesh to make their crap as cause for a bad economy. Nope, its the pinko's fault.

[USEagle13]

then why is China, which is now pretty much an authoritarian capitalist state, doing soo much better than it was 40 years ago?

*points at Wal-mart*

Dude they have almost everything there! One stop shopping for sure!

[USEagle13]

Because there's simply too much information in an economy for command economies to process effectively. Free markets distribute the decision-making to people who have the necessary localized information, and use price to effectively spread global information throughout the system.

There's a story about how a Soviet diplomat was shocked to find out that nobody was in charge of making sure London got enough bread each day.

Hit the nail on the head brother....

[minus]

Let me just throw this out here at the end of a long thread that I won't pretend to have completely read. But I have read enough to think that two obvious facts have never been discussed. First, communism is an economic system, one that has never existed. Communism cannot exist in one country only, it is a world-wide system. There have been countries with communist leaders which have been referred to by others as communist; however, no country's has ever self-identified itself as a communist country.

Second point, Capitalism can hardly be called succssful. It doesn't work anymore, it is a moribund dying system that can no longer keep up its end of the bargain with the workers- you work and I'll pay you a (barely) living wage. Automation and the information revolution have made the production of commodities possible without human labor. But capitalism is based on the circulation of capital through the sale of commodities; if there is no one working to make the commodities, there is no one to buy the commodities. This is exactly the situation we find the world in today. The economy is grinding to a halt worldwide. Hilarity ensues.

[Trakar]

Let me just throw this out here at the end of a long thread that I won't pretend to have completely read. But I have read enough to think that two obvious facts have never been discussed. First, communism is an economic system, one that has never existed. Communism cannot exist in one country only, it is a world-wide system. There have been countries with communist leaders which have been referred to by others as communist; however, no country's has ever self-identified itself as a communist country.

Second point, Capitalism can hardly be called succssful. It doesn't work anymore, it is a moribund dying system that can no longer keep up its end of the bargain with the workers- you work and I'll pay you a (barely) living wage. Automation and the information revolution have made the production of commodities possible without human labor. But capitalism is based on the circulation of capital through the sale of commodities; if there is no one working to make the commodities, there is no one to buy the commodities. This is exactly the situation we find the world in today. The economy is grinding to a halt worldwide. Hilarity ensues.

I have repeatedly asked for examples of these seemingly mythological examples of true/pure capitalism and communism that proof the thread title, throughout the thread, without a significant response yet,...but it is nice to see that there are others that see beyond the straw others are rending or stuffing back to recognize the faux man from which the straw originated.

[bikerdruid]

Let me just throw this out here at the end of a long thread that I won't pretend to have completely read. But I have read enough to think that two obvious facts have never been discussed. First, communism is an economic system, one that has never existed. Communism cannot exist in one country only, it is a world-wide system. There have been countries with communist leaders which have been referred to by others as communist; however, no country's has ever self-identified itself as a communist country.

Second point, Capitalism can hardly be called succssful. It doesn't work anymore, it is a moribund dying system that can no longer keep up its end of the bargain with the workers- you work and I'll pay you a (barely) living wage. Automation and the information revolution have made the production of commodities possible without human labor. But capitalism is based on the circulation of capital through the sale of commodities; if there is no one working to make the commodities, there is no one to buy the commodities. This is exactly the situation we find the world in today. The economy is grinding to a halt worldwide. Hilarity ensues.

excellent post.
welcome, newbie!

[balrog666]

Let me just throw this out here at the end of a long thread that I won't pretend to have completely read. But I have read enough to think that two obvious facts have never been discussed. First, communism is an economic system, one that has never existed. Communism cannot exist in one country only, it is a world-wide system. There have been countries with communist leaders which have been referred to by others as communist; however, no country's has ever self-identified itself as a communist country.

Second point, Capitalism can hardly be called succssful. It doesn't work anymore, it is a moribund dying system that can no longer keep up its end of the bargain with the workers- you work and I'll pay you a (barely) living wage. Automation and the information revolution have made the production of commodities possible without human labor. But capitalism is based on the circulation of capital through the sale of commodities; if there is no one working to make the commodities, there is no one to buy the commodities. This is exactly the situation we find the world in today. The economy is grinding to a halt worldwide. Hilarity ensues.


Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!!

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why was capitalism more successful than communism?

Why is Chinas communism more successful than capitalism?

I confess I haven't read the thread, but I was thinking along the same lines. (Cuba has better healthcare outcomes than my state, for another example.)

If the question is, "Why did the U.S. win the Cold War against the Soviet Union?", I think the answer is mostly geography. Both nations were spending huge chunks of their GDP on military, and we managed to bust them before they busted us economically. To at least some extent, it's because the arms race took place "over there". While the USSR had a massive arms build up on its border with China and in eastern Europe, the U.S. really didn't have that problem.

The closest we came was the Cuban missile crisis, and apparently we were ready to follow through with MAD before tolerating nukes near our borders.

[Ziggurat]

If the question is, "Why did the U.S. win the Cold War against the Soviet Union?", I think the answer is mostly geography. Both nations were spending huge chunks of their GDP on military, and we managed to bust them before they busted us economically.

Sorry, but geography doesn't account for that. While both nations might have spent "huge chunks of their GDP on military", the actual percentages were quite different.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mo-budget.htm
"By the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union devoted between 15 and 17 percent of its annual gross national product to military spending, according to United States government sources."
We never spent near that much percentage-wise. But we still outspent them, because our economy was so much better.

To at least some extent, it's because the arms race took place "over there". While the USSR had a massive arms build up on its border with China and in eastern Europe, the U.S. really didn't have that problem.

I don't think this analysis is correct. In fact, the problem of projecting force made it more expensive for us than it was for the USSR. Even western Europe didn't spend near as much on force projection capabilities as we did (a capability gap that persists today).

[HansMustermann]

that is the best argument against communism, it seems inseparable from autocracy, but again, communism is young, let's see how China and Vietnam end up).

But in the end that still just says that any system brought by a revolution installing its leaders as a totalitarian clique is bad. When you have some guys who got there by being willing to kill those who think otherwise and force whatever change they think is right -- which is inherent in having a civil war to change the system -- is it much of a surprise that afterwards they keep being willing to kill those who have other world views, and don't start asking the people what they want? And is it that surprising that those of it who were in it for the power, then start being brutal in defense of that power?

It doesn't even have to be communist to be bad.

Italy's Mussolini marched on Rome on a very much right-wing platform (though, ironically not so long ago he had been a rabid socialist)... and just wasn't a fun guy to be under anyway. Though he's probably milder than some other examples, in that his first warning to dissidents was basically making them toast with castor oil and see if they can get home before crapping their pants.

Papa Doc Duvalier came to power basically more on stealing the elections than anything else, but even his propaganda promises were just nationalist and racist populism, rather than any socialist promise. And in fact was such an anti-communist (he even called communism an infection) that even the USA grudgingly gave him a nod for that. Yet he created a more repressive state than anyone else in the 20'th century. You know it's bad when there isn't even some centralized Gestapo or NKVD kind of repression, but a private army of "bogeymen" (no, really, that's what the Tonton Macoute meant) with free hand to kill whoever they like; oh, and also they have no salary, and _must_ make a living by robbing and killing people.

Idi Amin came to power as a reaction _against_ Obote and his "Move To The Left", and actually stopped the planned nationalization and left most of the industry private. (Though internationally he did align with the USSR and Saudi Arabia because the West wasn't selling him weapons.) It created a reign of terror anyway.

Diem in South Vietnam was actually set by the USA _against_ communism and hailed as the "leader of the free world" by the USA for his anti-communism. Too bad that in the name of hunting communists, he actually tortured and killed any political dissidents and buddhist monks. (He tried to make the country Catholic at gun point, pretty much.) Oh, he also was a great fan of Adolf Hitler and modelled his secret police and torture methods after the Gestapo.

Syngman Rhee in South Korea, again, was the USA's darling against communism. Too bad he too actually used anti-communism as a pretext to eliminate anyone who disagreed with him. He also did some massacres like, say the one on the Jeju island, where 30,000 people were killed. That is, just in that one massacre, not total.

Etc.

In the end, totalitarianism is bad. Communism, capitalist, whatever. It's not particularly tied to one particular system.

[Pythonic]

Where didn't libertarian notions fail?

The moment anyone adopted such naive notions in a thinly veiled attempt to rationalize their most childish instincts.

[Ziggurat]

In the end, totalitarianism is bad. Communism, capitalist, whatever. It's not particularly tied to one particular system.

You're absolutely right that totalitarianism isn't tied to communism. But communism is tied to totalitarianism. There may be varying degrees of badness, but there is no benign version.

[oggiesnr]

Why is capitalism more successful? Inertia and laziness.

Steve

[bikerdruid]

You're absolutely right that totalitarianism isn't tied to communism. But communism is tied to totalitarianism. .

you do understand, i hope, that that makes no sense whatsoever....

[Ziggurat]

you do understand, i hope, that that makes no sense whatsoever....

It's no different than saying rectangles are not squares, but squares are rectangles. It makes perfect sense.

But let's try a different phrasing anyways: communism is a subset of totalitarianism.

[bikerdruid]

It's no different than saying rectangles are not squares, but squares are rectangles. It makes perfect sense.

But let's try a different phrasing anyways: communism is a subset of totalitarianism.

wrong...when one thing is tied to another, they are tied together.
it has noting to do with subsets.

[Ziggurat]

wrong...when one thing is tied to another, they are tied together.
it has noting to do with subsets.

Pedantic semantics. I think my meaning is sufficiently clear, and you haven't actually challenged what I meant, only my word choice.

[Beerina]

Why was capitalism more successful than communism?

Why is Chinas communism more successful than capitalism?


Please point to studies showing their lifespans, quality of life, number of Nerf footballs, or anything else exceeds the capitalist West.

Insofar as they are expressing economic freedom, they are growing rapidly. Economic freedom isn't the only freedom. Of course, freedom of speech isn't the only freedom, either. Certain areas of the West are learning the hard way that "freedom of speech", all the while while regulating the holy hell out of actual activity (thus voiding much of the freedom as in freedom-from-government) isn't some great panacea of advancing technology, either.

[mike3]

Because communism as per the original theories doesn't work. Deep down people do not care about wether other people live in poverty, as long as they are getting what they want. Communism assumed we all want everyone to be equally rich and would work to make that happen.
None of the nations mentioned were ever truly communist, but rather state or person driven dictatorships where enormous social experiments were forced on people rather than driven by the people living there.
E.germany was a russian buffer state whose primary function was to serve the soviet union regardless of what happened to the nation itself.
The same for most of the rest of eastern europe.
The soviet union under stalin was a single man dictatorship, later turned into a small group dictatorship.
China went from personal dicatorship back to its old imperial burocracy (without an emperor). North korea is basically a theocracy built around a divine leader and his son and heir.
Cuba is a dictatorship (though how much of that is DUE to american policy is very debatable). Vietnam is run pretty much the same as any other reasonably successful SE asian country (ie lipservice to democracy/communism to keep an autocracy in power).

So in my opinion saying communism has failed is as wrong as saying pure captalism has won. There is no purely capitalistic nation in the world. If governments did not to some extent force companies to compete with each other price fixing and gouging would be far worse than it is today.

So would I be right in saying that the best system would be some kind of middle between the two, and that a pure system of one or the other would be untenable?

[Ziggurat]

So would I be right in saying that the best system would be some kind of middle between the two, and that a pure system of one or the other would be untenable?

Unregulated capitalism is untennable because people don't want it so democracies never end up allowing it, and dictatorships cannot tolerate it because it would threaten their existence. Communism, on the other hand, is a barbaric hell.

The exact "best" system depends on what you value, and that's not universally shared. But it's clear that mostly-free-market economies produce far more wealth than planned economies, both in terms of total wealth and the typical wealth of individuals.