The High Price Of Commie "Utopia"
Konstantin Kisin writes at Quillette of "growing up in the progressive utopia that was the Soviet Union," as Quillette editor Claire Lehmann put it in a tweet:
I grew up in one of the most progressive societies in the history of humanity. The gap between the rich and poor was tiny compared to the current gulf between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' we find across much of the West. Access to education was universal and students were paid to study and offered free accommodation. Healthcare was available to all and free at the point of use. Racial tensions were non-existent, with hundreds of different ethnic groups living side by side in harmony under the mantra of 'Friendship of the Peoples.' Women's equality was at the very heart of Government policy. According to the prevailing ideology "all forms of inequality were to be erased through the abolition of class structures and the shaping of an egalitarian society based on the fair distribution of resources among the people."...The temporary lull in ethnic and religious strife was achieved through systematic murder, forced starvation, mass deportation, imprisonment, and ruthless ethnic cleansing by an oppressive police state to keep everyone in check. At least 50 million people were killed or sent to concentration camps to create this 'peaceful' society, to say nothing of millions who had their property seized 'for the benefit of society.' These enemies of the state included my great-grandparents who met in a Soviet concentration camp for political prisoners. Every morning at their camp, three people would be picked out at random from the general population of the camp and thrown into the icy waters of the lake to freeze and drown in full view of the other prisoners to 'keep things under control.' And the moment the regime was no longer able to keep a lid on this volatile melting pot, it exploded into horrific ethnic conflicts, which erupted all over the former Soviet empire and resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
In an environment like this, there's still inequality -- you simply cannot stamp it out. However, the privileged were the bureaucrats -- those keeping the rest of the population "equally" hungry, cold, and in danger of having something horrible happen to them.
Even now, the legacy of bureaucracy as a form of religion continues. This isn't to say bureaucracy is a solution for anything. For example, Miriam Elder writes at The Guardian:
Last week, the university let it be known that any student fees paid through MI-Bank were lost, as the bank had filed for bankruptcy. One can imagine the endless paperwork (and stamp stamping!) required to make such payments. But all trace of the payments has been lost. The school's solution? The students must pay again.This is what has turned many people in Moscow against Putin. It's not just him, but the system - one that began corroding in Soviet times, before a flicker of hope emerged with the fall of the Soviet Union, only to settle back into a non-functioning corrupt bureaucratic nightmare that now has the added bonus of wheedling itself into the private sector. So much has changed - and so much has not.
Pretty much all of the Russians I've met love and support Putin. Of course those are the Russians living in America who only have the concept of Putin and don't have to live with the reality.
Ben at May 19, 2018 5:11 AM
So, the poor also had dachas on the Black Sea and Mercedes limousines to drive them around Moscow, just like those government and Party officials who were conveniently ignored in the rich-poor gap metric?
I'm guessing those suffering from the systematic murder, ethnic cleansing, and mass starvation were not counted in that "tiny gap" metric. 'cause I'd say the gap between being systematically murdered and not murdered is pretty wide.
I love the way people advocating "socialist paradises" delude themselves as to the truth about their preferred system. "We were systematically murdering and starving people in a police state, but the gap between the rich and the poor was tiny."
Socialist societies do not keep the gap between factory machinists and doctors "tiny" by raising the wages of the machinists, but by suppressing the wages of doctors. With no chance to get rich and years of training required, why become a doctor in such a society?
Conan the Grammarian at May 19, 2018 5:57 AM
About the "tiny gap":
Wealth envy is a rich vein to mine, because everyone imagines themselves to be poor through no fault of their own... If only that damned minimum wage was bigger!
Radwaste at May 19, 2018 7:37 AM
The Gini coefficient which is used to measure income inequality is quite funny. As Conan mentions you can remove just a few people in a nation where just a few people own everything and suddenly you go from one of the most unequal to one of the most equal. There are quite a few other situations where this type of measurement breaks down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
There is a map of different national coefficients on the wiki page. Russia and the US appear to be the same. While Egypt and India are far more equal than the US. Anyone who has actually been to any of those nations know this is complete junk. But of course nations that score well like the scoring system.
Ben at May 19, 2018 9:03 AM
When income of the rich was based on owning vast holdings and exploiting peasants who could not leave the land (ie serfs), income inequality meant something. But today, except for dictators like Maduro who steal the tax $, the rich get rich by providing something people want--that is they get rich by providing jobs and some product or service that makes lives better. Amazon and Apple and Ford all provide something people want and need. People line up and throw money at any apple product. Are they being forced to do this? The fact that there are really really rich people out there should not bother you at all. Someone calculated that if you took all the income of the CEOs of the top companies and gave that money to their employees, each employee would get an extra $50 per year (or something similar).
cc at May 19, 2018 1:09 PM
"With no chance to get rich and years of training required, why become a doctor in such a society?"
Well Cuba does offer a reason, you might get to leave, for a while (5-10 yrs). Sure your family is kept hostage so your paychecks get sent back and you actually return when your tour is up. But a few years of 'freedom' is enough to have a high % of Cubans going into the medical profession.
Joe J at May 19, 2018 3:34 PM
The only rich people who bother me are the ones that have gotten there exclsively through pay for play with other people’s money, which includes almost all Democratic politicians and most of the GOPe.
Putin and tbe Clintons have a great deal in common.
Isab at May 19, 2018 4:42 PM
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