DBWI: What if the United States had survived into the 21st Century?
OOC: Vietnam probably was even worse for the Americans. Korea ended with a total communist victory, but then Kim-Il-Sung gets ousted, as already established by several posts. Italy is a member of the EF. Idon't think we've talked about Scandinavia yet, but I guess that Sweden, Denmark possibly even Norway would be members of the EF while Finland would remain under Soviet influence.
No, I meant what wars would the Soviets experience that resemble Vietnam and Korea.
So, why do you think did Japan and Europe reform themselves while the US collapsed?
Honestly? I think it's because Japan and Europe didn't have pressure put on them the way that America did during the Cold War. They were defended first by America, and then by the USSR, which led to them developing social democracies (well, brain-damaged half-formed social democracies with repression, but still), and not needing to focus much on things like military spending. They didn't have presences around the world to keep up, anyway, nor did they have entanglement in a long-running propaganda contest.
Please, don't just pointlessly bumb threads. Such behave not watch with very good eye altough it not be so bad thing as necroing dead threads. People will post if them have something saying.
It still seems to be kinda strange that such a brutalist and undemocratic government as pre-fall USA was able to invite and exploit the economic minds of von Mises and Hayek. Which, possibly, was their undoing due to v.M.&H. neglect and resistance to the ideas of planned economics and their unbelief in public goods and welfare at all.
Still strange that Hayek with his 'Road to serfdom' written as early as 1940s was unable or unwilling to see that his employers are degrading to the authoritarian state much quickly.
Still strange that Hayek with his 'Road to serfdom' written as early as 1940s was unable or unwilling to see that his employers are degrading to the authoritarian state much quickly.
However it was also genius tactical move for soviet government in the 90s to invite them for ideological debates on the Soviet Satellite TV System. It was glorious, truly it was. Two and half an hours weekly of utter libertarianism speeches followed by round tables and soviet economic news! No other way could discredit latest 'libertarian' economics faster than these discussions translated all over the world (I wonder if it was legal to listen them in the USA though).
Two hours of discussing why 'the impossible rusty oppressive ineffective soviet planned system' should fail miserably. In the 1993 A.D.! Common folk was laughing like mad, thanks to the basic principles of socialist economics included even in the school course.
In some weird parallel universe these people could still be on top and distribute strategies and advices to various governments, heh.
Two hours of discussing why 'the impossible rusty oppressive ineffective soviet planned system' should fail miserably. In the 1993 A.D.! Common folk was laughing like mad, thanks to the basic principles of socialist economics included even in the school course.
In some weird parallel universe these people could still be on top and distribute strategies and advices to various governments, heh.
Glad to hear this. From the modern day I still cannot comprehend the logic of political circles of USA in 1992 and why they allowed their economic ideologists to participate in US-Soviet open debates if cracking down the internal racial and ideological discussion inside the United Stated stopped only two years later after this.
I'm eager to hope that even if far-right USA survived or somehow transformed itself into the XXI century, this tradition of East-West open debates still could find the place in the alternative history. It was bright and hilarious event.
To be honest, while we all strongly disagree with Mises and Hayek, and can agree that Mises was a lunatic, Hayek was actually not that bad for a bourgeois economist and was quite intelligent.
Even Mises had a decent grasp of capital, he just didn't get the important parts.
I'd say that they knew Marx better than some 'leftists' in this thread, honestly.
Even Mises had a decent grasp of capital, he just didn't get the important parts.
I'd say that they knew Marx better than some 'leftists' in this thread, honestly.
After furious examination of Hayek writings I must pityingly admit that he completely neglected the possibility of 'workers control', 'labour inspections' and other possibilities of 'state built from the bottom, not from the ruling heights'. Marx was right when he spoke about state as 'a committee for managing the common affairs of the ruling class', but it was told about the XIX century bourgeois state as a creature of the bourgeois economic interest.
Hayek was afraid of 'socialist oppressors' continuing to exist as ruling class switched side with former bourgeois masters, but it was his inevitable fault because he could not imagine life when alienation of labor would be actually defeated. He was aware of possible statistical manipulation which would render economic planning useless but he refused to believe that people liberated from top-down command chain would find little use in fabricating the statistics.
Hayek and Mises were looking good in the first half of XX century when existing socialist states were battling for survival and had no time for actual building of socialism and deconstructing the state for noble cause of liberating the minds and incentives. I know you are rather sceptical about actual deconstruction of state in so-called socialist bloc, but you must admit that defeating the alienation of labor was possible because of people masses were able to cherry-pick or recall their labour bosses and council representatives freely and without any flinching.
Current Zhirinovsky phenomenon is understandable if you remember that low-tier people soviets can recall him any moment they wish.
Khruschev de-stalinization speech and post-Khruschev leadership changes were essential, they actually worked like catalyst element which accelerated shifting of the power to the people and low-tier councils and local soviets. Elites were put in remembrance that while trying to defend socialism they actually placed it on hold -- so after nuclear deterrence was in action, Soviets were once again able to begin state deconstruction (still unfinished, though) and promote people's control over the government.
You have no need to falsify your allegiance to cause or to play games of smoke and mirrors with your statistics if you're able to discharge your ruling elites at will. Cybersin plus people's control was the factor Hayek could not predict when he made his prophecies about 'clerk in planning bureau more powerful and more oppressive than capitalist billionaire'.
Oh my God, I can't believe you're going on and on and on about this utopian bullshit. A 'state built from the bottom, not from the ruling heights'? That's meaningless, feel-good rhetoric, suitable only for anarchists. It comes off like the ridiculous libertarian-authoritarian divide that so many leftists seem obsessed with these days. Also, no, and this is as a Left Communist who's rereading some Bordiga at the moment...don't be a dick to Hayek, okay? He wasn't stunned by the reality of socialism (or, whatever shitty variant of fake socialism you probably subscribe to.)
He came to his own conclusions and did a lot for bourgeois economics. This of course meant his work was sharply limited, and, as even you seem to recognize, unrelated to the idea of a post-capitalist society, but he wasn't really focusing on that or caring about it. Also, 'socialist oppressors' in the sense he was talking about them are still a serious thing to worry about, or did the Cultural Revolution and Gulags just slip your memory?
Next, you don't build socialism. It's like a house. Socialism is nothing less than the immediate abolishment of the value form by the working class as supported by a powerful class party, the beating heart of the proletariat. Also, that's not how alienation works, you dumb fuck. Alienation comes from labor specialization and surplus value being stolen, and as I've covered earlier in this very thread, both of those things exist in the USSR, dipshit.
You can't fix that by just giving workers a few bourgeois privileges.
Next, I think you're full of shit. Even if we buy that somehow, giving the proles the ability to choose their bourgeois leader (as if that wasn't a claim of the old USA) nullifies bad leadership in these clearly bourgeois states...if the 'low-level soviets' could take away Zhirinovsky, they would have done it by now. It's rhetoric. Lies. Pravda, as we say in California.
Hayek knew more about capitalism and communism than you, you stupid fucking ass. Start reading Marx or shut up.
Are we clear?
Jog my memory, what was it that caused all those presidents to succeed each other?