02-01-2003 06:17									#31
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Western insistence on freedom and capitalism HERE NOW did Russia in. They switched over to a market economy and democratic system so fast that the country had no time to adjust. Such a switch isn't even worth the effort - they would be doing a lot better now had they simply continued with the old system.

Socialism and autocracy are both riddled with flaws - but so are democracy and capitalism. Switching from one flawed system to another with no smooth transition whatsoever resulted in an imploded, fragmented, failed state.

Frankly, that's why I am extremely suspicious of many Western attempts at bringing "freedom" to other peoples. Past history has shown just what kind of naivete this is.

	02-01-2003 06:18									#32
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider That's a rather odd term to use, considering it is Stalinism that got them almost up to speed with the rest of Europe, even against great odds.

That's not quite true. The Soviet Union got up to levels of western European output, but with no hope of ever keeping pace with innovation/efficiency (the MiG bureau and a couple of others aside). One of the main reasons Russia is so screwed right now is that the vast majority of its industry is so hopelessly uncompetitive in a global market that its better to abandon it than to try to bring it up to speed.

Having said that, I agree that Russia will one day be a serious economic powerhouse. There's simply too many natural resources and well educated people to think that it will remain in the doldrums for a long period of time. Like so many other situations, what's needed more than anything else is a complete changing of the guard so that any feelings of the "good old days" under communism (read: dictatorship) are limited to those who have no chance to gain power.

	02-01-2003 06:21									#33
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I will agree somewhat with ranskaladan. I remember when the markets melted because there was alot of gauging going on. Then we have the mafia problem.

There are some very basic ideas about capitalism that we take for granted when we think about things that are completely foreign to the average Russian. (I speak from an outsider's perspective and secondhand analysis, though). These basic ideas are things they still have to learn.

Hopefully we can learn from the Russian experience and ease the transition for others. I think China is doing it right.

Putin seems to be doing an excellent job, however. Plus he is our friend so that's always good. Better than the Czar of Vodka, Yeltsin.

	02-01-2003 06:24									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Kontiki That's not quite true. The Soviet Union got up to levels of western European output, but with no hope of ever keeping pace with innovation/efficiency (the MiG bureau and a couple of others aside). One of the main reasons Russia is so screwed right now is that the vast majority of its industry is so hopelessly uncompetitive in a global market that its better to abandon it than to try to bring it up to speed.

That is the main problem with socialism. Innovation and efficiency are utterly killed. Perestroika was inevitable - it just needed to be done right, and Gorbachev didn't.

quote: Having said that, I agree that Russia will one day be a serious economic powerhouse. There's simply too many natural resources and well educated people to think that it will remain in the doldrums for a long period of time. Like so many other situations, what's needed more than anything else is a complete changing of the guard so that any feelings of the "good old days" under communism (read: dictatorship) are limited to those who have no chance to gain power.

But the old USSR was indeed the good old days for Russia - there is plenty to be learnt from those times. Mafiocracy in Russia today arose from Gorbachev's laisser-faire and Yeltsin's vodka-rule ( to TS), and the only way to suppress the mafiocracy is a Putinesque, Soviet-Lite system. Not the perfect solution, but Western insistence on "liberty" isn't helping the life of the average Russian.

	02-01-2003 06:32									#35
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara China's just using capitalism to build up. One they have the inudstry and technology, it's back to communism. You'll see.

i actually thought of that myself. a little "controlled jump start"

	02-01-2003 06:33									#36
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quote: Originally posted by UberKruX i actually thought of that myself. a little "controlled jump start"

Well, whatever the communist govt is planning, the newly-created Chinese middle class would be against any idea of a return to socialism. So...

	02-01-2003 07:13									#37
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OT @ ransk:

who is that quote from in your sig? mbelleroff?

	02-01-2003 09:33									#38
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quote: Originally posted by Kontiki That's not quite true. The Soviet Union got up to levels of western European output, but with no hope of ever keeping pace with innovation/efficiency (the MiG bureau and a couple of others aside).

How so? The USSR was the first to launch a sat and put a man into space. USA played catch-up.

quote: Originally posted by Kontiki One of the main reasons Russia is so screwed right now is that the vast majority of its industry is so hopelessly uncompetitive in a global market that its better to abandon it than to try to bring it up to speed.

That's a result of the Cold War, not a problem with socialism and/or communism. Russia's aerodynamics is at least a decade ahead of USA - check out the AA-11 Archer.

	02-01-2003 10:02									#39
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quote: Originally posted by UberKruX OT @ ransk: who is that quote from in your sig? mbelleroff?

Someone from a creation-evolution debate, a LONG time ago.

	02-01-2003 10:05									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger How so? The USSR was the first to launch a sat and put a man into space. USA played catch-up. That's a result of the Cold War, not a problem with socialism and/or communism. Russia's aerodynamics is at least a decade ahead of USA - check out the AA-11 Archer.

That's not the point. The USSR did dominate in many endeavours - but in the end, it proved a system that was, ON THE WHOLE, more inflexible and inefficient. After all, it is the USSR that collapsed, USA that survived, and China that's switching to a more capitalist system and booming as a result.

	02-01-2003 10:39									#41
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quote: Originally posted by ranskaldan That's not the point. The USSR did dominate in many endeavours - but in the end, it proved a system that was, ON THE WHOLE, more inflexible and inefficient. After all, it is the USSR that collapsed, USA that survived, and China that's switching to a more capitalist system and booming as a result.

I wouldn't say it is more inefficient. Consider WWII, the USSR was able to increase output dispite the poundings of Nazi Germany.

As for the Cold War, the USA started out a whole lot bigger than the USSR did, it was surprising that it lasted that long. So instead of a mark of failure, the Cold War actually showed commnism/socialism could be very strong.

	02-01-2003 10:51									#42
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It is more inefficient, if we compare socialism and capitalism as a whole across history. Capitalism propelled nation after nation to wealth; socialism propelled a few for a short time and sent the rest into abysses of various depths. The USSR at its height was pretty impressive. But capitalism sent the United States, Western Europe, Japan, S. Korea, the Pacific Rim, and now China to their heights.

Ultimately, socialism depends on honour as an incentive, while capitalism depends on greed. Honour is far more preferable and more effective when present. Greed, however, is always present, and hence is a better motivator.

	02-01-2003 12:25									#43
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I just guess I agree to disagee. If wealth is what you want, sure, capitalism is your thing, since it is best at accumulating wealth. But it is not more efficient than socialism - rampant overproduction for starters, which is near epidemic proportions for Chinese home appliances companies.

	02-01-2003 12:40									#44
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider That's a rather odd term to use, considering it is Stalinism that got them almost up to speed with the rest of Europe, even against great odds.

What got them almost up to speed with the rest of Europe industrially was a combination of Stalin's will and power, and a sh!tload of Western technical expertise and capital. Without those it would have been a very long climb to industrialization, especially as many of the (relatively few) skilled industrial types at the time of the revolution were killed or fled.

	02-01-2003 12:47									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger I wouldn't say it is more inefficient. Consider WWII, the USSR was able to increase output dispite the poundings of Nazi Germany. As for the Cold War, the USA started out a whole lot bigger than the USSR did, it was surprising that it lasted that long. So instead of a mark of failure, the Cold War actually showed commnism/socialism could be very strong.

Germany managed to increase its output impressively even with a pretty considerable pounding itself, and an economic system that was Byzantine. I wouldn't be all that proud of how the Commies fared in comparison.

As for the Cold War, it shows the power of nuclear weapons at least as much as the power of any ideology.

	02-01-2003 12:54									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger I just guess I agree to disagee. If wealth is what you want, sure, capitalism is your thing, since it is best at accumulating wealth. But it is not more efficient than socialism - rampant overproduction for starters, which is near epidemic proportions for Chinese home appliances companies.

Please notice that all of thos appliance companies are fulfilling a market demand. For an example of senseless over production just look at the Soviet investment into heavy industry. Sure the Soviets were the worlds biggest producers of steal for several decades but most of it was never used and sat rusting in some storage yard.

The Supreme Soviet demanded factories produce X amount of steel and the fact that the economy only needed x-y amount of steel was entirely lost to them. This is a text book example of inefficent allocation of resources. In a capitalist system such inefficiency would have been weeded out by inefficient producers going bankrupt but in the communist system it kept on occuring until the whole state went bankrupt.

	02-01-2003 12:59									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger I just guess I agree to disagee. If wealth is what you want, sure, capitalism is your thing, since it is best at accumulating wealth. But it is not more efficient than socialism - rampant overproduction for starters, which is near epidemic proportions for Chinese home appliances companies.

Of course wealth is important. No use having a "glorious" motherland if the people are starving.

As for capitalism -- it's not perfect, and is definitely not as efficient as socialism working at optimum. But socialism rarely works at optimum, since it's fundamentally vulnerable to imploding, standing still, reversing, corrupting, overproducing, underproducing, and other such unpleasantness. Capitalism does those too, but since capitalism depends on the greed of the populace to run (a guaranteed phenomenon) rather than the incorruptibility of the rulers (which is, frankly, very rare), its collapse is much less likely.

Also, I agree with Sikander on the last point: there's a reason why India was unable to overrun Pakistan in 2002.

	02-01-2003 20:37									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp Substitute "China" with "America", and take a look at your post again.

too late

	02-01-2003 20:40									#49
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good thing about china is they don't interfer too much in other countries affairs (except taiwan of course).

	02-01-2003 21:04									#50
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The Chinese eat babies!

S'truth!

	02-01-2003 22:07									#51
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Someone once told me that earth should be destroyed before it becomes a galactic superpower and a threat to the milkyway. Can you imagine that if everyone on earth drove fossil burning cars how much pollution there would be? I think for the sake of the Alpha Centaurians we should destroy this planet. Then maybe it won't be such a big polluter.

	02-01-2003 22:09									#52
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quote: But it is not more efficient than socialism - rampant overproduction for starters, which is near epidemic proportions for Chinese home appliances companies.

Hey, you can't pin that on capitalism! That's just plain bad management.

Increasing production does not guarantee increase in market share. This was a case of people with little knowledge of basic management principles making marketing decisions for huge coporations . You can't blame a society that's so new at it, not to mention learning so quickly, but it can be exasperating at times.

	02-01-2003 22:13									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp Substitute "China" with "America", and take a look at your post again.

Lazarus I'm not clear here. When you say America do you mean the continent of South America? Or is it North America. There are a lot of countries in those continents and I'm not sure what you meant by substituting "America" for "China". Anyway, as Panag would say,

.............have a nice day....................

	02-01-2003 22:53									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Gangerolf good thing about china is they don't interfer too much in other countries affairs (except taiwan of course).

China has a history of walling itself in and pretending that the outside world doesn't exist. But that doesn't guarantee that we won't do anything in the future

As for Taiwan, I prediction reunification by referendum in two decades.