Could the Soviet Union have survived?

People over-exaggerate the certainty that the USSR would have fallen.

If survive means that the same exact political structure must remain, it is of course inevitably doomed. However, if it means preserving the "ideals", the political structure can be reformed into some sort of quasi-technocratic communism-lite.

Soviet ideology amongst some of the political sphere, bureaucrats & scientists was something similar to technocratism. The entire space race debacle "inspired" a lot of thought so to say. You of course had the hard-line communists, the centrist communistic socialists, the centralizers, and other political factions, but only the first one would be entirely against any change. Them getting completely whipped during their coup attempt, against a very fragile system, showed their ineptitude toward the latter days of the USSR.
 
As long as the Soviet Union continued to attempt any sort of planned economy, it was doomed to fail. Planned economies can only work as intended with perfect information, which is not possible in the real world.

And free markets can only work in industries in which perfect competition or that which approaches exists.
 

b12ox

Banned
The USSR did survive. Don't believe me? Just look who's on the throne in Russia nowadays.
The USSR didn't survive, oligarchy did. It was there long before Lenin and Stalin and Tsars. It has alwayz been part of Russia. The commies searched to destroy it, instead they merely accomodated themselves within.
 

b12ox

Banned
People over-exaggerate the certainty that the USSR would have fallen.

If survive means that the same exact political structure must remain, it is of course inevitably doomed. However, if it means preserving the "ideals", the political structure can be reformed into some sort of quasi-technocratic communism-lite.

Soviet ideology amongst some of the political sphere, bureaucrats & scientists was something similar to technocratism. The entire space race debacle "inspired" a lot of thought so to say. You of course had the hard-line communists, the centrist communistic socialists, the centralizers, and other political factions, but only the first one would be entirely against any change. Them getting completely whipped during their coup attempt, against a very fragile system, showed their ineptitude toward the latter days of the USSR.
There were no ideals to soviet ideaology. It was nurtured on blood and came to save devided landmass of nations, deepened in wars. It had been bound by the tsars and was begining to collapse when the idea of monarchy and aristocratic rule was about to be smashed, not only in Russia but everywhere. It was much more practical than manifestos. The ideals of October Revolution were there to look pretty.
 
Let us not bring those attempts by some forms of the right to put all bad regimes and ideologies on the left. :mad:
I'm not right wing by any means; I'm just sayin'. I guess I should clarify that I meant more in terms of actual practice than in principle. Ideologically they're pretty distinct, but the tactics once a regime is in power are generally hard to distinguish -- harsh censorship, anti-intellectualism in most cases, suppression of labour unions, your occasional mass killing to keep the populace in line, etc.

Personally I think the entire concept of left/right being objectively quantifiable somehow is ridiculous.
 
There were no ideals to soviet ideaology. It was nurtured on blood and came to save devided landmass of nations, deepened in wars. It had been bound by the tsars and was begining to collapse when the idea of monarchy and aristocratic rule was about to be smashed, not only in Russia but everywhere. It was much more practical than manifestos. The ideals of October Revolution were there to look pretty.

I did put parenthesis marks around the term for a reason. Yet, do you think that every person in the USSR was some kind of automaton, with no ideals or political opinions?

It wasn't that dissimilar from the other side of the coin, if a bit more muted. We're talking about the 1970's to 1990's after all, not the 1930's.
 

b12ox

Banned
I did put parenthesis marks around the term for a reason. Yet, do you think that every person in the USSR was some kind of automaton, with no ideals or political opinions?

It wasn't that dissimilar from the other side of the coin, if a bit more muted. We're talking about the 1970's to 1990's after all, not the 1930's.

The things that happened in the 90s reflect what did not happen in the 10s. The Soviet Union was split. As for the ideology, it was accomodated autoritarian rule, something Russia have always had the problem to get rid of.
 
As long as the Soviet Union continued to attempt any sort of planned economy, it was doomed to fail. Planned economies can only work as intended with perfect information, which is not possible in the real world.

Actually if ASBs could bring modern computer technology to the USSR circa 1975 that might be close enough.
 
Actually if ASBs could bring modern computer technology to the USSR circa 1975 that might be close enough.

Debatably. Even with modern computer technology now, assessing demand is by no means easy. Doing it with planning is, without a crystal ball, still virtually impossible.
 
Debatably. Even with modern computer technology now, assessing demand is by no means easy. Doing it with planning is, without a crystal ball, still virtually impossible.

http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/publications/ccm.IJUC07.pdf

A paper that might help dispute that.

Really, it wasn't central planning that brought the Soviet Union down economically, but worker morale. Full employment wasn't actually just for propaganda reasons, but because they used an inefficient management model(taylor style), it caused them to need far too much labor, only exasperated by the inefficiencies present from outdated Soviet machinery.

Hence, the Soviet Union had the opposite problem from countries like the UK or the US. The latter have to constantly adjust economic policies to combat unemployment, while the Soviet Union had to constantly deal with over employment because they had no way of firing people. You can't fire someone when your manpower is already too limited as it is.

Planning we know can work, China and South Korea prove this, along with Japan at points actually. The question is whether planning needs to be mixed with markets to work, or whether it can actually work on its own. I'd argue the former actually, but that's a debate for another time.
 
Killer300;6179970 For those claiming planned economics is doomed... look at China. China is still planned said:
economic superpower[/B], and it's actually BECAUSE not despite the planned nature of it.

You know, you shouldn't really use China as an example of "Economic Superpower". When you have 1/6 of humanity living in your country, it's a given that you'll have significant economic weight.

Now, let's see China, shall we?

Population living with less than $1: 13.1%, $2: 29.8% (Worse than Guatemala)
GNI per capita: $4270 (worse than Namibia)
Maximum Minimum Wage (it varies from region to region): $202/month (worse than Bolivia, and that's the best MW I could found)
Number of Billionaires: 115 ("People's" Republic)

Does that sound like a developed country to you? Does that sound like a story of economic success?
And in the process of becoming such an economic powerhouse, the Chinese have exhausted their natural resources, polluted their environment and poisoned their population, and has bent itself over for corporations that might leave as soon as that population demands better wages*.

So yeah, China's "Command Economy" has earned them some growth, for now. It hasn't done enough to raise the living standards of its people, and it's not sustainable in the long run. Are you sure you want to advertise China as an example of the success of Command Economies?

* Which reminds me of this quote: "There is no greater naivety than the belief in the patriotism of capital. A capitalist may be a patriot, capital is not."
 
http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/publications/ccm.IJUC07.pdf

A paper that might help dispute that.

Really, it wasn't central planning that brought the Soviet Union down economically, but worker morale. Full employment wasn't actually just for propaganda reasons, but because they used an inefficient management model(taylor style), it caused them to need far too much labor, only exasperated by the inefficiencies present from outdated Soviet machinery.

Hence, the Soviet Union had the opposite problem from countries like the UK or the US. The latter have to constantly adjust economic policies to combat unemployment, while the Soviet Union had to constantly deal with over employment because they had no way of firing people. You can't fire someone when your manpower is already too limited as it is.

Planning we know can work, China and South Korea prove this, along with Japan at points actually. The question is whether planning needs to be mixed with markets to work, or whether it can actually work on its own. I'd argue the former actually, but that's a debate for another time.

Can you sum up the paper in terms an average person can understand?
 
You know, you shouldn't really use China as an example of "Economic Superpower". When you have 1/6 of humanity living in your country, it's a given that you'll have significant economic weight.

Now, let's see China, shall we?

Population living with less than $1: 13.1%, $2: 29.8% (Worse than Guatemala)
GNI per capita: $4270 (worse than Namibia)
Maximum Minimum Wage (it varies from region to region): $202/month (worse than Bolivia, and that's the best MW I could found)
Number of Billionaires: 115 ("People's" Republic)

Does that sound like a developed country to you? Does that sound like a story of economic success?
And in the process of becoming such an economic powerhouse, the Chinese have exhausted their natural resources, polluted their environment and poisoned their population, and has bent itself over for corporations that might leave as soon as that population demands better wages*.

So yeah, China's "Command Economy" has earned them some growth, for now. It hasn't done enough to raise the living standards of its people, and it's not sustainable in the long run. Are you sure you want to advertise China as an example of the success of Command Economies?

* Which reminds me of this quote: "There is no greater naivety than the belief in the patriotism of capital. A capitalist may be a patriot, capital is not."

1. PLANNED, not Command economics. There's a difference, and you should know that.

2. If we're referring to the usual metric for measuring economic success, namely things like GDP growth, China wins.

3. The ecological damage is horrible, however they're at least trying to address it with massive investment into things like alternative energy.

With that in mind, yes China is horrible, however it did gain massive economic growth. By comparison, Neo-Liberalism just resulted in countries wrecked without economic growth.

Besides, that does nothing to disprove either Japan or South Korea, both of whom had to use massive amounts of planning themselves in order to get where they are today.
 
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Can you sum up the paper in terms an average person can understand?

Basically, two points.

1. Perfect prediction isn't necessary for command economics to work, because markets wouldn't work either if that were the case. Namely because markets have to do planning themselves, and while it's decentralized, it still has to be done in a manner that would make it impossible if the perfect prediction argument was true.

2. Computers would allow for better central planning because they can perform calculations humans are frankly incapable of, and can do so repeatedly with accuracy.
 
"Rise from your grave!":p

Sorry, but this thread is actually quite common, albeit in different forms.

Also though, for all of you thinking of liberalization, you need to get justifications to match issues addressed in this thread.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=243570

For those claiming planned economics is doomed... look at China. China is still planned, yet it has managed to be quite the economic superpower, and it's actually BECAUSE not despite the planned nature of it.

Now, is a Command Economy screwed? Yes, however that's a completely different can of worms. It would be like saying all types of capitalism are screwed based on shock economics in the 1990s.

Command Economy? China?

China is more of a semi-Command economy, at least for it being quite prominent there.

It is changing, with the PRC becoming increasing geared towards private capitalism.

Elements of state capitalism does not make a total command/planned economy. :p
 
Command Economy? China?

China is more of a semi-Command economy, at least for it being quite prominent there.

It is changing, with the PRC becoming increasing geared towards private capitalism.

Elements of state capitalism does not make a total command/planned economy. :p

I did say those claiming planned economies are doomed, and that's a very different from command.;)

Besides that, eh, China is always going to have elements of planned economics, especially because of how their economic program works right now.
 
Does anyone know anything in depth about Malenkov? I read somewhere he almos came out on top after Stalins death, how would that turnout?
 
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