but it’s certainly not because the party was some sort of an oligarchy that you seem to be insinuating here.
What is an oligarchy? Sure, we all know the dictionary definition, but those aren’t very nuanced.
The “rule by the rich”. Even in places that are clearly oligarchies, occasionally one rich person loses it all, no longer rules, or another becomes rich and starts ruling. And “rich” is relative too, no one would claim that a millionaire can’t ever be an oligarch simply because elsewhere in the world there exist billionaires.
The Party was a group of oligarchs. They did not measure their wealth the way that wealth was measured in other countries, socially it was sort of taboo to even think in those terms. But they had more luxuries, nicer homes, more real estate than anyone else in the Soviet Union. To a level that, were they in any other countries, they would have been (single digit) millionaires.
And that’s without even considering the industries that they owned. Sure, they wouldn’t use that word, because again it was taboo. But “ownership” is something that can’t ever be collective. To own something isn’t to be able to use that word to refer to it, but to control it and to be able to decide who control passes to and in what circumstances. Are you claiming that Brezhnev had no power to go to some iron mill and say “you aren’t allowed to work here anymore” to some flunky he didn’t like? Just as a western capitalist could fire someone he didn’t like? That he couldn’t put someone else in charge of that factory? That he couldn’t decide to change the floorplan and expand it? Or shut it down?
Sure, he couldn’t do it by decree like some feudal king. But the western capitalist rarely does that either (and rarer still does it without it causing him headaches). He builds consensus, gets others on the board of directors on his side. Let’s the right managers know that good things will happen if they help, and bad things will happen if they don’t. Etc.
The only real substantive differences are that some words (ownership, rich) weren’t allowed to be used. But the same qualities and circumstances permeated that nation.
An oligarchy implies that there is an in-group of people who are separate from the rest of the society. This was demonstrably not the case in USSR. Anyone was free to join the party and move up through the ranks. Meanwhile, the luxuries you speak of were incredibly modest in practice. Inequality in USSR was as good as it’s ever been in a modern society.
It also makes no sense to say that party members owned industries since the productive output of these industries did not benefit them directly. All the industrial output was directed towards the needs of the population at large. And yes, obviously Brezhnev did not have any direct input in how some iron mill was operated.
Sure, he couldn’t do it by decree like some feudal king. But the western capitalist rarely does that either (and rarer still does it without it causing him headaches). He builds consensus, gets others on the board of directors on his side. Let’s the right managers know that good things will happen if they help, and bad things will happen if they don’t. Etc.
You mean the way things work in every human society? You build consensus and get people on board to do things. Wow that’s so very insightful.
The substantive difference is that the means of production in USSR were publicly owned and directed towards meeting the needs of majority. This allowed USSR to provide everyone with food, housing, healthcare, and education. Everyone had work guarantee with over 20 days vacation, and a retirement guarantee by 60. Nobody worried about losing their job and ending up on the street. This is something capitalist oligarchies are unable to accomplish.
This was demonstrably not the case in USSR. Anyone was free to join the party and move up through the ranks.
You’re free to do this in capitalism too. And you’ll do comparable amounts of backstabbing and conspiring and other shady shit to get to the top. The occasional relatively-uncorrupt person will luck their way to the top, and their personal biases will enable them to believe that it’s meritocratic too!
Sure, it’s not always been that way. We can go back to pre-1865 and say “but black people couldn’t do it!” but that’d be disingenuous.
It also makes no sense to say that party members owned industries since the productive output of these industries did not benefit them directly.
Bezos doesn’t benefit directly either. His salary is what, $80,000/year? The billions people like to talk about isn’t even real cash. He couldn’t use that to pay for anything. It’s equity. It’s illusory money. If he tried to sell the shares, the price would tank and they’d be worthless and not the billions claimed. Amazon’s revenues are not his revenues. He can’t spend that money directly.
His billions aren’t non-existent, but they aren’t money. They are power. The power to decide how Amazon acts as a business entity. He has alot of that.
Just like the communists did over their own industries. The “elite few” communists.
The only difference is that we can quantify Bezos’ wealth, where as the numbers were hidden for the elite Soviet leaders and party members.
The substantive difference is that the means of production in USSR were publicly owned
“Public ownership” is a nonsense phrase. When I own a thing, it is mine. I can decide that no one can possess it, or that one person or another can possess it temporarily. I can give it as a gift permanently. I can charge money for it, or not. I can charge for it on a recurring basis, or not.
That’s what ownership is. But there is no ghostly “public” which has a gigantic 100ft tall translucent human face that owns something with “public ownership”. Instead, someone almost certainly not me ends up owning it, even if he or she can’t use the word “own” without getting into trouble. That man or women gets to decide who possesses it temporarily or on what basis. They get to decide to dispatch it to another man or woman, who then owns it (but can’t use the word "own). I can’t even sell my supposed “share” in this, and be excluded from the public ownership of the thing (for indeed, who would want to buy it when they have their own public share of it, and having two shares gets them no more consideration?).
This man may have made promises that I can use it or can’t on some schedule. But they can rescind those promises. In all cases, if they renege on the promises, they incur no significant penalty.
This “public ownership” seems to me to be nearly identical to “some other person not me owns it, and fuck me”.
This allowed USSR to provide everyone with food, housing, healthcare, and education.
Tell that to the people excluded from the universities with coffin problems. Or the five families hot-bunking in shitty brutalist apartment buildings how they were lucky to have housing.
Lots of things allow all different sorts of non-communist systems to provide everyone with food. It’s not that impressive in the 21st century to say “but they fed everyone”.
and a retirement guarantee by 60.
With enough vodka rations to make sure only 1 in 50 collected on it.
You’re free to do this in capitalism too. And you’ll do comparable amounts of backstabbing and conspiring and other shady shit to get to the top. The occasional relatively-uncorrupt person will luck their way to the top, and their personal biases will enable them to believe that it’s meritocratic too!
No, you’re not free to do this under capitalism unless you happen to be born into at least some moderate wealth. If you’re born poor then you’re free to slave away at a minimum wage job or starve on the street. Social mobility in capitalist regimes is incredibly low.
Bezos doesn’t benefit directly either.
That’s such a nonsensical argument that it doesn’t even warrant addressing. Bezos literally launched himself into space through brutal exploitation of his workers.
“Public ownership” is a nonsense phrase.
It’s not, and you really need to educate yourself on the subject you’re attempting to debate if you think that.
Public ownership means that productive means of the country are directed towards common benefit. There’s nothing ghostly about this. Work in USSR was done in order to build roads, housing, hospitals, schools, and so on. And as a direct result of that people of USSR had their needs met, which is not the case when means of production are privately owned.
Tell that to the people excluded from the universities with coffin problems. Or the five families hot-bunking in shitty brutalist apartment buildings how they were lucky to have housing.
I can only assume that you’re not aware of the second world war that devastated USSR. After the war, people did have to live in communal housing because our cities were leveled. Once new housing was built everyone had their own housing. That’s public ownership of the means of production in action for you.
Lots of things allow all different sorts of non-communist systems to provide everyone with food. It’s not that impressive in the 21st century to say “but they fed everyone”.
That’s pretty big news to me given that homelessness is rampant in capitalist states. Even the richest country in the world can’t seem to provide everyone with food and housing.
With enough vodka rations to make sure only 1 in 50 collected on it.
Just thinking about what kind of human garbage one has to be to write that sentence.
No, you’re not free to do this under capitalism unless you happen to be born into at least some moderate wealth.
Define moderate wealth in a way that excludes a significant portion of the population. There are counter-examples all the way down.
I can only assume that you’re not aware of the second world war that devastated USSR.
Devastated all of Europe, or so I’m told. And yet things weren’t even a tenth as bad elsewhere. And that only obviates the housing issue… the coffin problems issue was completely about keeping some out of universities where they simply were not welcome. Education for some, factory work for others… like everywhere else. (Hell, even in the US you wouldn’t be kept out of university if simply by being jewish alone, the way that it was in the Soviet Union).
That’s pretty big news to me given that homelessness is rampant in capitalist states.
It’s pretty big news to you that the homeless aren’t starving? Or do you often run around confusing food with housing?
Just thinking about what kind of human garbage one has to be to write that sentence.
Compared to the sort of human garbage that implemented it as policy for decades? Or do you mean that I’m politically inconvenient because I recognize it as such?
US invested billions into rebuilding Europe while dragging USSR into Cold War. You’re showing amazing amounts of historical illiteracy here.
It’s pretty big news to you that the homeless aren’t starving? Or do you often run around confusing food with housing?
Literally linked you an article showing that 30 million people in US are food insecure.
Compared to the sort of human garbage that implemented it as policy for decades? Or do you mean that I’m politically inconvenient because I recognize it as such?
You certainly do strike me as precisely the kind of person who would interpret it as such.
What is an oligarchy? Sure, we all know the dictionary definition, but those aren’t very nuanced.
The “rule by the rich”. Even in places that are clearly oligarchies, occasionally one rich person loses it all, no longer rules, or another becomes rich and starts ruling. And “rich” is relative too, no one would claim that a millionaire can’t ever be an oligarch simply because elsewhere in the world there exist billionaires.
The Party was a group of oligarchs. They did not measure their wealth the way that wealth was measured in other countries, socially it was sort of taboo to even think in those terms. But they had more luxuries, nicer homes, more real estate than anyone else in the Soviet Union. To a level that, were they in any other countries, they would have been (single digit) millionaires.
And that’s without even considering the industries that they owned. Sure, they wouldn’t use that word, because again it was taboo. But “ownership” is something that can’t ever be collective. To own something isn’t to be able to use that word to refer to it, but to control it and to be able to decide who control passes to and in what circumstances. Are you claiming that Brezhnev had no power to go to some iron mill and say “you aren’t allowed to work here anymore” to some flunky he didn’t like? Just as a western capitalist could fire someone he didn’t like? That he couldn’t put someone else in charge of that factory? That he couldn’t decide to change the floorplan and expand it? Or shut it down?
Sure, he couldn’t do it by decree like some feudal king. But the western capitalist rarely does that either (and rarer still does it without it causing him headaches). He builds consensus, gets others on the board of directors on his side. Let’s the right managers know that good things will happen if they help, and bad things will happen if they don’t. Etc.
The only real substantive differences are that some words (ownership, rich) weren’t allowed to be used. But the same qualities and circumstances permeated that nation.
An oligarchy implies that there is an in-group of people who are separate from the rest of the society. This was demonstrably not the case in USSR. Anyone was free to join the party and move up through the ranks. Meanwhile, the luxuries you speak of were incredibly modest in practice. Inequality in USSR was as good as it’s ever been in a modern society.
It also makes no sense to say that party members owned industries since the productive output of these industries did not benefit them directly. All the industrial output was directed towards the needs of the population at large. And yes, obviously Brezhnev did not have any direct input in how some iron mill was operated.
You mean the way things work in every human society? You build consensus and get people on board to do things. Wow that’s so very insightful.
The substantive difference is that the means of production in USSR were publicly owned and directed towards meeting the needs of majority. This allowed USSR to provide everyone with food, housing, healthcare, and education. Everyone had work guarantee with over 20 days vacation, and a retirement guarantee by 60. Nobody worried about losing their job and ending up on the street. This is something capitalist oligarchies are unable to accomplish.
You’re free to do this in capitalism too. And you’ll do comparable amounts of backstabbing and conspiring and other shady shit to get to the top. The occasional relatively-uncorrupt person will luck their way to the top, and their personal biases will enable them to believe that it’s meritocratic too!
Sure, it’s not always been that way. We can go back to pre-1865 and say “but black people couldn’t do it!” but that’d be disingenuous.
Bezos doesn’t benefit directly either. His salary is what, $80,000/year? The billions people like to talk about isn’t even real cash. He couldn’t use that to pay for anything. It’s equity. It’s illusory money. If he tried to sell the shares, the price would tank and they’d be worthless and not the billions claimed. Amazon’s revenues are not his revenues. He can’t spend that money directly.
His billions aren’t non-existent, but they aren’t money. They are power. The power to decide how Amazon acts as a business entity. He has alot of that.
Just like the communists did over their own industries. The “elite few” communists.
The only difference is that we can quantify Bezos’ wealth, where as the numbers were hidden for the elite Soviet leaders and party members.
“Public ownership” is a nonsense phrase. When I own a thing, it is mine. I can decide that no one can possess it, or that one person or another can possess it temporarily. I can give it as a gift permanently. I can charge money for it, or not. I can charge for it on a recurring basis, or not.
That’s what ownership is. But there is no ghostly “public” which has a gigantic 100ft tall translucent human face that owns something with “public ownership”. Instead, someone almost certainly not me ends up owning it, even if he or she can’t use the word “own” without getting into trouble. That man or women gets to decide who possesses it temporarily or on what basis. They get to decide to dispatch it to another man or woman, who then owns it (but can’t use the word "own). I can’t even sell my supposed “share” in this, and be excluded from the public ownership of the thing (for indeed, who would want to buy it when they have their own public share of it, and having two shares gets them no more consideration?).
This man may have made promises that I can use it or can’t on some schedule. But they can rescind those promises. In all cases, if they renege on the promises, they incur no significant penalty.
This “public ownership” seems to me to be nearly identical to “some other person not me owns it, and fuck me”.
Tell that to the people excluded from the universities with coffin problems. Or the five families hot-bunking in shitty brutalist apartment buildings how they were lucky to have housing.
Lots of things allow all different sorts of non-communist systems to provide everyone with food. It’s not that impressive in the 21st century to say “but they fed everyone”.
With enough vodka rations to make sure only 1 in 50 collected on it.
No, you’re not free to do this under capitalism unless you happen to be born into at least some moderate wealth. If you’re born poor then you’re free to slave away at a minimum wage job or starve on the street. Social mobility in capitalist regimes is incredibly low.
That’s such a nonsensical argument that it doesn’t even warrant addressing. Bezos literally launched himself into space through brutal exploitation of his workers.
It’s not, and you really need to educate yourself on the subject you’re attempting to debate if you think that.
Public ownership means that productive means of the country are directed towards common benefit. There’s nothing ghostly about this. Work in USSR was done in order to build roads, housing, hospitals, schools, and so on. And as a direct result of that people of USSR had their needs met, which is not the case when means of production are privately owned.
I can only assume that you’re not aware of the second world war that devastated USSR. After the war, people did have to live in communal housing because our cities were leveled. Once new housing was built everyone had their own housing. That’s public ownership of the means of production in action for you.
That’s pretty big news to me given that homelessness is rampant in capitalist states. Even the richest country in the world can’t seem to provide everyone with food and housing.
Just thinking about what kind of human garbage one has to be to write that sentence.
Define moderate wealth in a way that excludes a significant portion of the population. There are counter-examples all the way down.
Devastated all of Europe, or so I’m told. And yet things weren’t even a tenth as bad elsewhere. And that only obviates the housing issue… the coffin problems issue was completely about keeping some out of universities where they simply were not welcome. Education for some, factory work for others… like everywhere else. (Hell, even in the US you wouldn’t be kept out of university if simply by being jewish alone, the way that it was in the Soviet Union).
It’s pretty big news to you that the homeless aren’t starving? Or do you often run around confusing food with housing?
Compared to the sort of human garbage that implemented it as policy for decades? Or do you mean that I’m politically inconvenient because I recognize it as such?
Here’s an actual study for you with some numbers https://www.huffpost.com/entry/too-often-student-success_b_10132886
US invested billions into rebuilding Europe while dragging USSR into Cold War. You’re showing amazing amounts of historical illiteracy here.
Literally linked you an article showing that 30 million people in US are food insecure.
You certainly do strike me as precisely the kind of person who would interpret it as such.