"Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Science, Science and Marxism
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>CB: My thought would be that Soviet consumer goods were more "adequate"
>than those of just about every country in the world except the U.S. ,
>Britain, France ( somewhat), and a couple others. My thought would be that Soviet consumer goods were more "adequate" than those of just about every country in the world except the U.S. , Britain, France ( somewhat), and a couple others. The Soviet consumer goods were more "adequate" than those of all the other societies in history and most of the countries of the world during its existence.
Also, you can't eat machine tools, but it should be noted that the Soviet system definitely provided adequate food for its whole population. So, the problem was not that the system produced things that couldn't be eaten. They did not lack food consumption goods.
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Ah, Charles, that's touching confidence. But the world market disagrees.
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CB: The world market is not quite a good judge of "adequate" consumer goods. I'm thinking anthropological and historical and UN type standards must be brought to bear , from the standpoint of the best interest of the human race. Also, not only did 20th Century world market include many explicitly anti-communist blockades and slanderous campaigns, but most of the world's countries and certainly most of histories peoples did not have "world market 20th Century" most favored goods. So, my statement is substantially accurate. Even by not producing goods that the world market endorsed, the Soviet Union produced an godzilla sized basket of "adequate" goods.
Justin: There was noa rae outside weapond, some machine tools, and some speciality items (some oil drilling equipment) where Soviet products could even be sold except to a captive audience like the Comecon. Even in the USSR and the Comecon, if people could get western goods, and afford them, they would.
>The Soviet consumer goods were more "adequate" than those of all the other
>societies in history
Justin:Not the releavant comparison. The USSR was not competing with ancient Sumeria.
CB: Relevant for what ? You said they didn't produce adequate consumer goods. Adequate for what ? If with all that was put on the Soviets after being an extremely backward economic country before the revolution, the system produces goods better than all countries but the most advanced capitalist countries, better than or as good as all the minor capitalist countries, that's the relevant comparison for the real.
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>and most of the countries of the world during its existence.
Justin: But not withits chosen competitor, the advanced capitalist west,
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CB: It is not accurate to portray them as chosen competitors. The Soviets' preference was for revolutions in the capitalist countries, not competition with them. Also, the "competition" you keep referring to , is not the main test of whether a planned system can produce adequate consumer goods.
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Justin:
which, additionally, exported its techniques to the third world and taught Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, China, etc. to make stuff that will sell on the world market. (At terrible cost, it goes without saying.)
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CB: I do not at all think that the world market of the 20/21st Century is an all around optimum measure of the goods that are best produced for the human race. Some of it is good. A lot of it is horrible. So. in that regard using the record in the world market for goods is just not a good instrument for deciding what is not only adequate but actually good, in both senses. And no I don't think the market reflects the good judgment or free judgment of the great mass of consumers just because they buy "all" the stuff. Advertising , keeping up with the Jones, bourgeois ideology, et al. contaminate the thinking of the actually existing mass of consumers. In other words, there's a lot of disinformation in the price system.
I think if we were to have a world revolution today, within a very few years many of the "goods" that had been judged good by the capitalist word market would be discarded, not just because of some technological supercession, but because the want structure of bourgeois society is too phat. We can be readily happy with a lot less stuff.
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>Also, you can't eat machine tools, but it should be noted that the Soviet
>system definitely provided adequate food for its whole population. So, the
>problem was not that the system produced things that couldn't be eaten.
>They did not lack food consumption goods.
Apart from the collectivization famine and after the civil war, this is correct. I shouldn't have used taht expression.
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CB: They didn't lack food due centralized/holistic planning, except in the sense that the bourgeoisie were willing to put them under war and threat of war because they had instituted centralized planning, and under that gun the disagreements within the SU over how to best prepare for the next war that they accurately predicted the capitalist "competitors" would visit on them resulted in civil war ,which resulted in some lack of food. Capitalist war not holistic planning caused the lack of food when it occurred.
This by the way, was the form of competition by the capitalists , world historically big war and threat of war, that prevented a real test of holistic/centralized planning. Socialism must have peace more than capitalism must have peace. This is an advantage that capitalism has over socialism in their direct competition, but it is an advantage that socialism has for humanity over capitalism .
A main lesson from the first era of socialism and a main obstacle that the next era of socialism must overcome is this advantage that capitalism's savage viabilty and preference for war gives capitalism over socialism
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>Without being subject to the biggest war and threat of war of all times
>from the imperialist capitalist countries, it is not clear that the Soviet
>production could have rivalled capitalist consumer good production.
>Capitalism was able to prevent a true test of the ability of the Soviet
>socialist and planned system to produce consumer goods, by forcing the
>Soviet Union to be on a war prepartion and war footing for its entire
>existence.
Bo dount capitalist troublemaking posed a serious problem. But there wereintrindsic problems that were universally acknowledged by every Soviet planner and industrialist and that could not be blamed on the west, the CIA, the US, NATO, the fascists, Trotskyist spies and saboteurs, etc.
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CB: Even Soviet planners and industrialist may not understand as clearly as we can now , standing back and looking at it, that the "intrinsic" problems were very much connected to the "extrinsic" capitalist troublemaking. I disagree with those Soviet planners who don't think that the overall war and threat of war, not just the things you list, although the fascists Nazis were an enormous hit, prevented a true test of holistic planning. The evidence is overwhelming. I have the stats on the economic impact of the Nazi invasion. As a juror I would conclude that those alone were a but for cause of the economic failure even 45 years later. They had to basically almost go back to 1919 after (not to mention they were knocked back by that first civil war and imperialist invasion too). The wars "but for" causes of a large proportion of the economic problems throughout the 75 years. They were also "but for" causes of the level of command style in the planning. They had to be on a!
war footing for the first 40 years ! That had to be reflected in the economic planning structure. So, to the extent that over command style in planning caused the ultimate failure, the ultimate failure was significantly caused by the imperialist wars and threats of war, including NUCLEAR war.
The peaceful competition between different social systems never happened in the history of the Soviet Union, Lenin's policy of peaceful co-existence between different social systems was thwarted by the capitalists, so the claim of the ability of the planned/holistic economic approach to producing adequate consumer goods has not been "falsified" by Soviet history. The Marxist claim is based on production in a peaceful world. As I say, humanity's best interest demands that test, not the one that the capitalists forced on the Soviet Union.
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The history of the Soviet economy does not prove the unplannable thesis of
Hayek for that reason.
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It does not prove the thesis, but it supports the thesis. It is evidence for it.
jks
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CB: I have produced evidence which supports a different thesis as the explanation for the comparative quality and quantity of Soviet consumer goods.
Perhaps there is some underdetermination of theory here :>)