Of course, one reason why there wasn't much on the shelves was it had been already stolen by other people closer to the source ...
(something of a generic problem of low trust societies, not specific to Communism. I think we sometimes don't appreciate how valuable a high trust society is to us in the West, which is why people trying to destroy it by looting from the top are particularly dangerous: the rot spreads from the top)
Way later even; It was Yeltsin who wandered (it was unplanned) into a grocery store in Texas [1].
[1] https://www.cato.org/blog/happy-yeltsin-supermarket-day-0
I guess communism was more efficient at doing it!
(bit tongue in cheek of course - I guess capitalism is better at pretending/leaving enough scraps for the masses so they don't notice as much)
capitalism can work with say 99% tax on estate on death. No trust funds. Tax on wealth above a certain point. Rule of law with sharp teeth. Proper investment in education. Proper anti monopoly so all large corporations gets broken up to avoid their power consolidation...
communism is dictatorship in disguise.
then you have old style feudalism with aristocracy.
anything else?
All capitalist.
Or are you merely arguing that it means that in practice?
I‘m sure if people want communism, they want the idealistic version.
now ask yourself, who are the true communists in the US?
That is what I mean. They don't want to live like the Soviets or Venezuelans or Cubans. They have a madeup idealistic version that is not real, never was and never will.
The best is when you guys say you want to be like Scandinavia. None of us are communist, we are a market economy like you.
There was no greater cause of human suffering in the 20th century than the worldwide attempts to build communist governments.
If we stopped trying to build capitalism for the same reasons we'd all still be serfs
The issue with communism is if it never happened for real you can imagine all sorts of good amazing things from it with 0 pushback. Look atleast at the states calming to be communist. Would you rather live in Soviet or Western Europe? Ask the balts and poles...
btw Sweden is not socialist
- western/nordic europe, japan, singapore, usa, canada
USSR had NEP for several years.
> and socialism
This is incorrect. USSR policy was to build socialism, and then, when it was declared to be successfully built, "developed socialism" in 1961.
> That's why china started working after Deng, the party realised that the productive elements of capitalism can be useful in building socialism
You mean they completely abandoned the whole idea? It it is 2026 and China still doesn't have some basic things like free healthcare or a state provided housing (things Soviet people enjoyed for most of USSR existence). In fact, looking at China objectively for a moment while ignoring how the ruling party calls itself it appears to me quite authoritarian capitalist state.
> wasn't the creation of excess by capitalism as assumed by marx
What? Owners of major enterprises in China enjoy exceptional luxury created as an "excess" from their businesses fueled by cheap 996 labor.
Overall, you might want to reconsider engaging in such discussion on this forum that is full of people born in actual Soviet Fucking Union.
they did, and it was good for them. Stalin ended up gutting it and it would end up shooting the country in the foot
>You mean they completely abandoned the whole idea? It it is 2026 and China still doesn't have some basic things like free healthcare or a state provided housing (things Soviet people enjoyed for most of USSR existence). In fact, looking at China objectively for a moment while ignoring how the ruling party calls itself it appears to me quite authoritarian capitalist state.
I won't deny that they are authoritarian, I disagree with them on a lot of things regarding how they handle political freedom. They don't have free housing or healthcare, but the average person is doing fine. The healthcare isn't expensive and people can afford to "own" (they don't own it in the capitalist sense but own it in the "it's mine, I can do what I want, and don't have to worry about rent" way).
> What? Owners of major enterprises in China enjoy exceptional luxury created as an "excess" from their businesses fueled by cheap 996 labor.
I also won't deny that. It is a problem that the chinese government is currently trying to deal with. Meanwhile, the production of the goods they got rich on has built up chinas economy and created industrial capability that wouldn't exist otherwise. It's kinda hard to redistribute wealth when there isn't any to redistribute, which is ultimately (when combined with other factors) why the USSR failed
>Overall, you might want to reconsider engaging in such discussion on this forum that is full of people born in actual Soviet Fucking Union. Although it is kinda entertaining reading champagne socialist opinions of western hipsters fancying themselves left-wing (because they read couple of pages of wikipedia and voted for Bernie, who upon returning from his getting-drunk-in-a-sauna-with-party-aparatchiks trip to Soviet Union in 88 was telling you how good of a country it was when Soviet Union was actually completely falling apart by then).
again, I'm not denying your gripes with the soviet union. It was objectively falling apart and was managed very poorly. I dislike your categorization of me as a "champagne socialist" who "voted for bernie and read wikipedia" as those are both objectively incorrect (aside from the wikipedia bit, as it is where I started unraveling my misconceptions about marx and socialism before moving on to actual theory). I didn't vote for bernie and while his reforms are undoubtedly good for the working class, it's putting a bandaid on the gaping gunshot wound that is capitalism. I'm also not a champagne socialist, I don't have a lot of money and don't really like champagne anyway
I think the context is important. These were people in poverty, in an extremely mismanaged society. You could get very little from actual shops. Most things would have to be bartered for. Stealing from the state accounted for a very important part of peoples' sustenance. My grandfather would try to explain it like this: even if you had money, there wasn't anything to buy. In that sense, even the factory managers were poor. Sarah C. M. Paine says that, in terms of buying power, the First Secretary of USSR's wife was poorer than an average American middle-class wife.