a brief flame...

[Charles Brown]

Of course, capitalism was still much stronger
 materially than socialism in socialism's first 
historical period. The differences Brad 
mentions are explanable in terms of the competition 
between the two systems and the capitalist system's 
economic blockade and constant war on
(which was not reciprocated)
the socialist system after 
socialism started from a much smaller material 
base than the existent capitalism. In other words, 
it is well known that Russia was a materially 
backward country relative to the biggest 
capitalist countries. I believe it was about 
1/13th size of the U.S. in 1917, and the U.S
 was not the biggest country in the capitalist gang. 
The greater economic development of the capitalist 
countries than their "paired" countries in Brad's list 
follows from the huge discrepancy between the 
two systems at the beginning of the competition 
between them. It is important to compare the 
overall international systems, not just the individual 
countries, because the bourgeoisie bolstered the 
countries in the list exactly for the type of propaganda
 comparisons they were making analogous to the 
current comparison. 

The significant thing is that under permanent 
capitalist economc blockade and horrendous 
miltary assault, the socialist system grew at a faster 
rate than the capitalist system had in its formative 
period; and the socialist countries were not 
growing  based on imperialist exploitation; and 
the socialist system held the capitalist system to 
a material standoff for so long. And there was no
where near equivalence between the military 
assault on socialism by capitalism, and any
vice versa. This onesided military 
destruction distorts 
the comparison of economic achievements and
production.

Also, if you add up the total poverty within 
the whole capitalist system (which includes 
all of the poorer capitalist countries and all 
of the extremely poor colonies and neo-colonies) 
capitalism was probably worse off materially.
 In other words, all of Africa , most of Latin America 
and Asia go in the capitalist-imperialist side 
of the calculation. You can't just pick South
Korea and leave out Brazil  or The Congo.Without colonies, 
imperialist countries would not be rich. Colonies are
integral and inherent to capitalism.
 This brings the average 
per capita income of capitalism way down. Bourgeois
propaganda likes to pretend that the "third" world
is not part of the "first". 


Also, compare one country with itself for a more
controlled test.  Russia has
been going down materially since it got capitalism back. 
It shot up in world record speed when it went from
capitalism to socialism.

And of course, the competition is not over for ever, but in an ebb.
The Evil Empire has struck back, but there will be a
return of the Jheddi.

Charles Brown


>>> Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> 07/07 10:14 AM >>>
Re:

>>
>>And general secretaries are the salt of the earth? :-)
>
>The answer to this is 'yes of course!'.  Compared to life under the feudal
>filth, humanity made progress under the general secretaries.

It is surely the case that under the General Secretaries life expectancy
and material standards of living *were* higher than under pre-industrial
despots, enlightened or otherwise (save for "extraordinary" periods like
Cambodia 1975-1977, China 1958-1960, Ukraine and Russia 1931-1934). But
what has always impressed me most is the enormous gap that opened up
between the levels of material prosperity and the space for political
thought in countries that were and were not ruled by General Secretaries...

By and large the regions were General Secretaries ruled were determined by
where the armies stopped. There were places (South Korea, Thailand, Greece,
West Germany, Finland) that looked, as far as social structure and
industrial development at the start of this century are concerned, very
much like their counterparts just within the lands of the General
Secretaries (North Korea, Cambodia, Bulgaria, East Germany, Leningrad). Yet
no matter which set of social indicators we look at, the lands of the
General Secretaries appear to come off badly in terms of material
prosperity (perhaps a quarter or an eighth as productive as their
beyond-the-iron-curtain neighbors?) and space for political discussion...


Brad De Long