>1. It is not "evil" or misleading to compare to 1913. This is the standard
>baseline comparison in most economic writing and was also the standard
>baseline
>used in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Well if you're comparing to prewar, yes 1913 makes sense, but in the context of talking about the Soviet experience, it's a bit odd, since it predates the Soviet era, and the revolution itself was partly the result of the dislocations of the war.
>2. Any country starting from a low level of industrialization will have
>a higher
>rate of growth than one starting form a high level of industrialization
>(assumign
>it's on any kind of growth track at all, which some countries, many in
>Africa, are
>not). High USSR rate seen in this light could be a reflection of just how
>backward things were under the czars. Does not mean USSR was "outperforming",
>say, Germany.
Like I said, why is Germany the relevant comparison? Why not Mexico or India? Pre-revolutionary Russia was peripheral, semicolonial, and underindustrialized.
>3. The technical problems involved in measuring output from the former
>command
>economies are substantial.
Yes they are, but Maddison is a standard source and his book was published by the OECD, which can hardly be accused of pro-Soviet sympathies.
>The summary resort to questionable historical data to
>make the leftie point that "Russia doesn't look so bad relative to other
>countries
>after all" is a very paradoxical twist given the history of these kinds of
>comparisons.
My point is that the achievements of Soviet industrialization were not insubstantial. We can argue about what numbers to put on this, but the central point is being forgotten. We can say that it happened at tremendous social cost, which it did, but so did British industrialization.
>4. Notwithstanding which eastern Europe and Russia did have significant
>economic
>growth and for a time seemed to be "barking at the heels" of the western
>countries. But were they really? E. Germany was the pride of the Eastern
>bloc
>and even an example to Russia. Its magnificent achievement was the
>Trabant, which
>was perhaps marginally more relliable than the Yugo, and is now universally
>derided. Productive infrastructure in E. Germany was found to be so primitive
>after reunification that most of it has been junked.
Primitive relative to one of the richest, most advanced countries in the world, yes. But compared to, say, Tanzania or Sri Lanka?
>6. Notwithstanding all of which the USSR social system probably worked better
>than now for the vast majority of people and the failure to have US
>over-consumerism is not necessarily such a failure after all. Arguably it may
>have been better to be dirt poor in the USSR in the 1970s than in the US
>in the
>1990s. Dunno. I just think we're getting a bit too overhyped on these here
>stats.
Why points 1-5 then?
Doug