[lbo-talk] RE: consumer goods

[Michael Dawson -PSU]

I've been to the Czech Republic myself.  The point isn't that things were
completely unliveable, but that the resources were wasted and the poeple's
wishes were ignored.  You yourself describe the tolerance for drunken
"consumer goods" workers.  If things were so great under Brezhnev, why do
the folks keep electing IMF allies?

Meanwhile, the entire problem was built into the Communist power structure.
As Gorbachev knew, the elites were so busy trying to justify themselves and
keep the military economy/Cold War game from imploding, they couldn't devote
proper attention to ordinary people's conditions.

I don't trash the idea of economic planning.  I trash the idea of
undemocratic economic planning.  Why make excuses for the USSR?  It was a
failure.