this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2021
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Last I checked all the people in the party came from the regular population. Let's just take a look at where all the leaders of USSR came from. Khrushchev grew up in a village, Brezhnev came from a metalworker family in a small town in Ukraine, Gorbachev came from a village as well.
Sure, party made some poor decisions, but it's certainly not because the party was some sort of an oligarchy that you seem to be insinuating here. And there's absolutely no reason to think that some sort of an anarchist style federalism would've made better decisions. The fact that anarchists haven't even managed to create a society of any meaningful scale really speaks for itself here.
What is an oligarchy? Sure, we all know the dictionary definition, but those aren't very nuanced.
The "rule by the rich". Even in places that are clearly oligarchies, occasionally one rich person loses it all, no longer rules, or another becomes rich and starts ruling. And "rich" is relative too, no one would claim that a millionaire can't ever be an oligarch simply because elsewhere in the world there exist billionaires.
The Party was a group of oligarchs. They did not measure their wealth the way that wealth was measured in other countries, socially it was sort of taboo to even think in those terms. But they had more luxuries, nicer homes, more real estate than anyone else in the Soviet Union. To a level that, were they in any other countries, they would have been (single digit) millionaires.
And that's without even considering the industries that they owned. Sure, they wouldn't use that word, because again it was taboo. But "ownership" is something that can't ever be collective. To own something isn't to be able to use that word to refer to it, but to control it and to be able to decide who control passes to and in what circumstances. Are you claiming that Brezhnev had no power to go to some iron mill and say "you aren't allowed to work here anymore" to some flunky he didn't like? Just as a western capitalist could fire someone he didn't like? That he couldn't put someone else in charge of that factory? That he couldn't decide to change the floorplan and expand it? Or shut it down?
Sure, he couldn't do it by decree like some feudal king. But the western capitalist rarely does that either (and rarer still does it without it causing him headaches). He builds consensus, gets others on the board of directors on his side. Let's the right managers know that good things will happen if they help, and bad things will happen if they don't. Etc.
The only real substantive differences are that some words (ownership, rich) weren't allowed to be used. But the same qualities and circumstances permeated that nation.
An oligarchy implies that there is an in-group of people who are separate from the rest of the society. This was demonstrably not the case in USSR. Anyone was free to join the party and move up through the ranks. Meanwhile, the luxuries you speak of were incredibly modest in practice. Inequality in USSR was as good as it's ever been in a modern society.
It also makes no sense to say that party members owned industries since the productive output of these industries did not benefit them directly. All the industrial output was directed towards the needs of the population at large. And yes, obviously Brezhnev did not have any direct input in how some iron mill was operated.
You mean the way things work in every human society? You build consensus and get people on board to do things. Wow that's so very insightful.
The substantive difference is that the means of production in USSR were publicly owned and directed towards meeting the needs of majority. This allowed USSR to provide everyone with food, housing, healthcare, and education. Everyone had work guarantee with over 20 days vacation, and a retirement guarantee by 60. Nobody worried about losing their job and ending up on the street. This is something capitalist oligarchies are unable to accomplish.
You're free to do this in capitalism too. And you'll do comparable amounts of backstabbing and conspiring and other shady shit to get to the top. The occasional relatively-uncorrupt person will luck their way to the top, and their personal biases will enable them to believe that it's meritocratic too!
Sure, it's not always been that way. We can go back to pre-1865 and say "but black people couldn't do it!" but that'd be disingenuous.
Bezos doesn't benefit directly either. His salary is what, $80,000/year? The billions people like to talk about isn't even real cash. He couldn't use that to pay for anything. It's equity. It's illusory money. If he tried to sell the shares, the price would tank and they'd be worthless and not the billions claimed. Amazon's revenues are not his revenues. He can't spend that money directly.
His billions aren't non-existent, but they aren't money. They are power. The power to decide how Amazon acts as a business entity. He has alot of that.
Just like the communists did over their own industries. The "elite few" communists.
The only difference is that we can quantify Bezos' wealth, where as the numbers were hidden for the elite Soviet leaders and party members.
"Public ownership" is a nonsense phrase. When I own a thing, it is mine. I can decide that no one can possess it, or that one person or another can possess it temporarily. I can give it as a gift permanently. I can charge money for it, or not. I can charge for it on a recurring basis, or not.
That's what ownership is. But there is no ghostly "public" which has a gigantic 100ft tall translucent human face that owns something with "public ownership". Instead, someone almost certainly not me ends up owning it, even if he or she can't use the word "own" without getting into trouble. That man or women gets to decide who possesses it temporarily or on what basis. They get to decide to dispatch it to another man or woman, who then owns it (but can't use the word "own). I can't even sell my supposed "share" in this, and be excluded from the public ownership of the thing (for indeed, who would want to buy it when they have their own public share of it, and having two shares gets them no more consideration?).
This man may have made promises that I can use it or can't on some schedule. But they can rescind those promises. In all cases, if they renege on the promises, they incur no significant penalty.
This "public ownership" seems to me to be nearly identical to "some other person not me owns it, and fuck me".
Tell that to the people excluded from the universities with coffin problems. Or the five families hot-bunking in shitty brutalist apartment buildings how they were lucky to have housing.
Lots of things allow all different sorts of non-communist systems to provide everyone with food. It's not that impressive in the 21st century to say "but they fed everyone".
With enough vodka rations to make sure only 1 in 50 collected on it.
No, you're not free to do this under capitalism unless you happen to be born into at least some moderate wealth. If you're born poor then you're free to slave away at a minimum wage job or starve on the street. Social mobility in capitalist regimes is incredibly low.
That's such a nonsensical argument that it doesn't even warrant addressing. Bezos literally launched himself into space through brutal exploitation of his workers.
It's not, and you really need to educate yourself on the subject you're attempting to debate if you think that.
Public ownership means that productive means of the country are directed towards common benefit. There's nothing ghostly about this. Work in USSR was done in order to build roads, housing, hospitals, schools, and so on. And as a direct result of that people of USSR had their needs met, which is not the case when means of production are privately owned.
I can only assume that you're not aware of the second world war that devastated USSR. After the war, people did have to live in communal housing because our cities were leveled. Once new housing was built everyone had their own housing. That's public ownership of the means of production in action for you.
That's pretty big news to me given that homelessness is rampant in capitalist states. Even the richest country in the world can't seem to provide everyone with food and housing.
Just thinking about what kind of human garbage one has to be to write that sentence.
Define moderate wealth in a way that excludes a significant portion of the population. There are counter-examples all the way down.
Devastated all of Europe, or so I'm told. And yet things weren't even a tenth as bad elsewhere. And that only obviates the housing issue... the coffin problems issue was completely about keeping some out of universities where they simply were not welcome. Education for some, factory work for others... like everywhere else. (Hell, even in the US you wouldn't be kept out of university if simply by being jewish alone, the way that it was in the Soviet Union).
It's pretty big news to you that the homeless aren't starving? Or do you often run around confusing food with housing?
Compared to the sort of human garbage that implemented it as policy for decades? Or do you mean that I'm politically inconvenient because I recognize it as such?
Here's an actual study for you with some numbers https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-often-student-success_b_10132886
US invested billions into rebuilding Europe while dragging USSR into Cold War. You're showing amazing amounts of historical illiteracy here.
Literally linked you an article showing that 30 million people in US are food insecure.
You certainly do strike me as precisely the kind of person who would interpret it as such.
Being a elite does not mean you come from some sort of aristocracy.
They made this mistake because it (the petro-money) allowed them to comfortably stay in power and pay off all their crownies.
You have yet to explain what made these people elite. They rose to their positions through their work. Meanwhile, USSR didn't allow generational wealth, and max pay was capped at 9x lowest pay. Politicians weren't even the highest paid bracket. There wasn't even much you could do with any wealth in USSR if you somehow could accumulate it. You have this nonsensical view of the country because you're thinking of it as if it was a capitalist state which is the only lived experience you have.
Even in the US, there are limits on the difference in monetary compensation. Because of that, for the most prestigious/lucrative positions, non-monetary compensation is offered. At the lowest rungs, it was health insurance. When you start talking higher, then there are company cars and so forth. And for CEOs, you get equity in the form of stock options, personal assistants, etc.
The Soviets had all of these for the highest positions, just like everywhere else. The only thing different is that they made the pay difference limitation explicit and lower.
No. I think higher in the thread you mentioned how Brezhnev came from a family of metalworkers. When he became General Secretary, it wasn't because he was the best metalworker at the foundry. It wasn't because he was the best manager of metalworkers at the foundry. That wasn't how anyone rose to high positions in the Soviet Union.
Like elsewhere, there is a social game. And people who play it well rise high, those who play it perfectly rise higher still. Those who can't or won't play it, those who are bad at it, or who are visibly bitter about it, don't rise at all.
None of it has to do with anything resembling actual work.
It's completely absurd to argue that inequality in USSR was in any way comparable to that in US. People like Musk or Bezos simply didn't exist.
That's a nonsensical argument. USSR wasn't some guild based society where children simply learned the craft of their parents. Everyone had access to the same kind of education and same opportunity. A son of a metalworker would have roughly the same opportunity as the son of the chairman of the Politburo. That's what allowed people born in far flung regions of USSR to rise to positions of power.
That's a factually incorrect statement. Success in US can literally be determined by your zip code. Those born rich have far more opportunity available to them, and thus are far more likely to rise to positions of power.
They rose though the ranks of the party to reach the elite top and (by then) had very comfortable lives compared to the average citizen of the USSR.
You still haven't explained what entailed in being "elite" in USSR. Tell me, in what ways were their lives significantly more comfortable than those of the average citizen. My family was pretty average, we had our own apartment and a dacha. We had access to all the same services like healthcare, transit, and education. What did these elites have that we didn't have?
Nice that your family was part of the urban crownies of the vanguard party. Ask some people in Siberia about their cushy apartment and nice dacha...
What was it that you said about majority of people living in urban centers, I love how flexible your logic is to fit your argument. Vast majority of people had access to these things, dacha coops were pretty common. You know absolutely nothing about my country, but feel qualified to debate it regardless being the clown that you are.
Don't mix up what I said about the USSR Vs. what I said about China. Those two are not comparable at all.
Thing can in fact be comparable while also being different. However, it's important to highlight that you countered your own argument in the other thread. This just comes back to you lacking any intellectual integrity. You don't have a consistent position, you just argue to be right.
I am starting to think you don't even understand my argument. Ideologically blind-sighted it seems.
You don't actually have any coherent argument and we both know it. When you get called out on your bullshit you just slink away.