While I agree with you in general, the USSR in Gorbachev's era certainly did not have high labor discipline!
--- On Sat, 4/4/09, Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Angela-a-Day
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, April 4, 2009, 1:31 PM
> The abolitionist stance towards
> prisons is just another of a long list of "transitional"
> demands that the left makes that somehow never seem to find
> application in really existing socialist states. Cuba has
> somewhere between 30,000 and 55,000 prisoners, for a
> population of about 11.5 million people - not a low rate of
> incarceration at all. The Soviet Union also had a high
> incarceration rate - even after Gorbachev's legal reforms,
> the U.S.S.R. had 353 prisoners per 100,000 people in 1989.
>
> Like the ecosocialist demand for a zero growth economy, the
> abolition of prisons is an extreme policy that no socialist
> state has ever exhibited serious interest in. Socialist
> countries are typically intent upon the exact opposite -
> high growth rates, rapid industrial development, high levels
> of labor discipline, and social order.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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