>OK, you and Charles can cozy up with stories about how good it was
>in the good old days. I actually know, or knew, a lot about the
>Soviet economy, and in my judgment the picture in the Thurning Point
>was fair, sober, reasonable, and realistic. It is not the case, as
>your analogy suggests, that the Soviet economy basically healthy
>with some glitches.
Oh come on. Charles & I are miles apart. I don't think of the USSR as a utopia. But what imaginary alternative Russian economy are you comparing the planning years to? According to Maddison's stats, the Soviet era was the only period in which Russia & EE narrowed the income gap with the west. More recent stats from the World Bank suggest the gap is back to 1913 levels.
Russia, GDP per capita, % of US
Maddison -------- 1820 58% 1870 42% 1913 28% 1929 20% 1950 30% 1973 36% 1992/4 21% 1995 17%
World Bank ---------- 1989 45% 1990 43% 1991 41% 1992 36% 1993 32% 1994 27% 1995 26% 1996 24% 1997 24% 1998 23% 1999 24% 2000 25%
It was fucked up for sure, but it's very difficult to keep up with First World standards. Planning had its moment. Would capitalism have industrialized and urbanized Russia? It's like you want to learn nothing from the experience except that planning is doomed, because Hayek sayeth so. Different institutional structures with better computers could be a very different story.
> One thing that is reasonably certain is that in 1979-85, the Soviet
>economy went into deep crisis, and this was geberally recognized.
>That's why the appointed Gorby to be the GS and let him essentially
>dismantle the economy and their old structures of power.
Who's "the[y]"? The CP elite? Yes, it was the elite's attempt to solidify its position as a ruling class through the appropriation of property, and to live on a standard with western elites. That's not the way most people who lived through the dismantling of the USSR think of it.
Yeah of course the USSR needed radical reform. It was stodgy and repressive and produced shitty consumer products. But it would have been much better to work with what they had than to junk it for a mad leap into capitalism.
Doug