The Official Youtubers Thread

[The Batlord]

Again, I'm not a tankie who supports the USSR or China and I think people who do might as well be fascists but you said

Pointing to a model that was even more efficient at brutalizing and oppressing their own population as a success story for central planning is once again dishonest if you don't acknowledge said brutality and if you do acknowledge it then it's just not a good argument. You're supposed to be proposing something better than capitalism and instead you're pointing to something that was just as if not more brutal and exploitative but they just did it quicker and with a higher death toll in a shorter amount of time.

And I'm saying that capitalism has in fact acted in similar ways with vastly high body counts and portraying capitalism as in fact being less of a killer is not correct and whether or not you intend to imply that it implies that one is preferable to the other whereas I would say that Soviet style socialism and capitalist imperialism both tend to murder lots of people. One just tends to commit mass murder within a country's borders and one tends to commit mass murder as an export.

[jwb]

Let's cut to the chase... Are you saying you think soviet 5 year plan style industrialization is either preferable to capitalism or at the very least not less preferable? Because if not you are wasting your time here.

I'm trying to avoid the genocide olympics style pissing contest but iirc the single largest famine in human history that killed the most people in the shortest period of time happened in China during the great leap forward.

But that's not even my point... My point isn't that they killed the most people, its that their economic alternative to capitalism merely relied on the already existing global capitalist markets to use exports that they robbed from their own population to raise money to buy industrial machinery that was also produced by capitalist countries!

So they actually didn't alleviate any of the abuses you're pointing to under capitalism. The imperialism and exploitation continued. The only thing they added to the mix was a new way to kill millions of people.

So yeah.... My point is and always has been that these policies are genocidal so pointing to them as a success story is implicitly endorsing genocide. Whether wolff claims to support the ussr or not. Like you, he says he doesn't. But then he says he isn't it impressive how fast they grew! That's the grift here and that's what I'm taking exception to.

I actually think it's more logical to be a tankie and just say the means justified the ends than it is to keep deflecting with "but capitalism..." There is actually a semi decent argument to be made that without the 5 year plan the soviets would've been completely strategically ****ed. But again that requires biting the bullet on the genocide.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

Let's cut to the chase... Are you saying you think soviet 5 year plan style industrialization is either preferable to capitalism or at the very least not less preferable? Because if not you are wasting your time here.

I'm trying to avoid the genocide olympics style pissing contest but iirc the single largest famine in human history that killed the most people in the shortest period of time happened in China during the great leap forward.

But that's not even my point... My point isn't that they killed the most people, its that their economic alternative to capitalism merely relied on the already existing global capitalist markets to use exports that they robbed from their own population to raise money to buy industrial machinery that was also produced by capitalist countries!

So they actually didn't alleviate any of the abuses you're pointing to under capitalism. The imperialism and exploitation continued. The only thing they added to the mix was a new way to kill millions of people.

So yeah.... My point is and always has been that these policies are genocidal so pointing to them as a success story is implicitly endorsing genocide. Whether wolff claims to support the ussr or not. Like you, he says he doesn't. But then he says he isn't it impressive how fast they grew! That's the grift here and that's what I'm taking exception to.

I actually think it's more logical to be a tankie and just say the means justified the ends than it is to keep deflecting with "but capitalism..." There is actually a semi decent argument to be made that without the 5 year plan the soviets would've been completely strategically ****ed. But again that requires biting the bullet on the genocide.

I'm saying exactly what I've said. Both economic systems have no scruples about murder. I really don't know why you're getting so bent out of shape.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

every nation has relied on "socialism" (a command economy) to get to the point where they can exploit other nations in what we call a "Free Market"

there isn't an element of the US economy that didn't use extraordinary protectionist measures and government initiative to thrive

it simply does not happen that "freedom" magically generates wealth...it's just a justification for inequality

You understand there's a massive difference between collectivized agriculture and protectionism? There are only a handful of communist countries that have actually resorted to collectivization to rapidly industrialize and those are the examples we're discussing. That didn't happen in the US or western europe and it hasn't happened in many of the developing countries around the world. In the major examples where it has happened under soviet style models of command economies, the death toll for these policies has been staggering.

Protectionism is not a command economy. Restrictions on markets is not a command economy. You're conflating terms here and also probably overstating the efficacy of things like protectionism. There are pros and cons to that kind of policy like anything else and too much protectionism can stifle economic growth the same way that unmitigated free trade can lead to things like outsourcing and other externalities.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I'm saying exactly what I've said. Both economic systems have no scruples about murder. I really don't know why you're getting so bent out of shape.

It's really not about giving capitalism some sort of moral high ground it's just a question of efficacy. Industrialization always has growing pains associated with it it's just the sort of rapid industrialization the soviets did has a direct cost associated in terms of human lives. So if you don't think that cost is worthwhile then it's not really a good example of how command economies can grow faster. They can grow faster by incurring a cost that many would say isn't worth the growth. So it's a non starter.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

It's really not about giving capitalism some sort of moral high ground it's just a question of efficacy. Industrialization always has growing pains associated with it it's just the sort of rapid industrialization the soviets did has a direct cost associated in terms of human lives. So if you don't think that cost is worthwhile then it's not really a good example of how command economies can grow faster. They can grow faster by incurring a cost that many would say isn't worth the growth. So it's a non starter.

Well not intrinsically. If you look at the actual history of all these famines they're more due to wild incompetence rather than knowingly paying some price. Go look up ideas both the Soviets and the Chinese had about planting seeds and it's just nonsense about how genetics is counterrevolutionary, seeds grow and develop characteristics through solidarity or some ****. Just a lot of hubris from megalomaniacs who aren't willing to admit they don't know what the **** they're doing while trying to reconstitute an entire country. Even the holodomor was made worse than Stalin even intended cause he was a dip****.

[jwb]

No doubt that part of it was incompetence as well as natural factors and negative impacts collectivization had on the incentive structure that farmers operated under... But also on top of that they just continued to export grain even after it was abundantly clear they would starve people by doing so because industrialization took priority over everything including feeding the peasants who grew the crops. I'd say that was a fairly straight forward intentional act on the bolsheviks part. But even if you wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt richard wolff has the benefit of hindsight so he knows exactly what the consequences were and he still tries to sell this model as something we could look to in order to gauge the supposed efficiency of command economies.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

No doubt that part of it was incompetence as well as natural factors and negative impacts collectivization had on the incentive structure that farmers operated under... But also on top of that they just continued to export grain even after it was abundantly clear they would starve people by doing so because industrialization took priority over everything including feeding the peasants who grew the crops. I'd say that was a fairly straight forward intentional act on the bolsheviks part. But even if you wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt richard wolff has the benefit of hindsight so he knows exactly what the consequences were and he still tries to sell this model as something we could look to in order to gauge the supposed efficiency of command economies.

Yeah I don't actually want to give them the benefit of the doubt but incompetence is just as important as disregard for human life. It's the story of Russia in general tbh. And I say that as a fan.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

again his only point is that if you look at economic growth it was a success

the least developed nations could suddenly compete with the most developed

I've already addressed this.

His point was that they grew fast. Specifically, his point was that they grew fast as a response to the charge that socialism hasn't worked when its been tried. In other words he's saying actually these planned economies did work well, based on said growth.

Now if you just take that statement on the surface, which you seem to do, it might sound like a good point. If you start to analyze the context and the history even the slightest amount it completely falls to shreds. He relies on the ignorance of his audience and opponent to make this point stand.

But if you analyze it in detail, you see clearly that the main innovation that sped up the growth was simply mass murder through stealing the crop yields. Yes you can argue this was the most efficient way to industrialize the ussr as rapidly as they did, and you can even argue that its what allowed them to build up their armaments in order to withstand WW2. But to make that argument to have to actually endorse the policy and the resulting genocide, which he and you are both unwilling to do so once again the rapid growth is a moot point.

The reason this frustrates me more than anything else is that if he just stuck to arguing for co ops I would more or less agree with me. When he talks about the tyranny of the workplace that resonates with me. When he starts using this soviet shell game to sell the idea that command economies have been a success story or added some sort of innovation we can learn from, he's selling snake oil. He needs to ditch that angle imo.

[jwb]

And once again I think it's actually more compelling to go full tankie and just say the ends justified the means. If you wanna go the route of portraying the soviets as a success that makes more sense to me.