Soviet-style Breadlines come to America.

[Broomstick]

Some of this strikes me as the worst sort of nit-picking - I'm just waiting for some asstard to mention that it's not just bread that gets doled out to the poor. Nevermind that "bread" is at times synonymous with "food" in the English language (and others, I presume).

[Broomstick]

So "Soviet-style bread line" means "America is becoming the Soviet Union?" I better throw away that Russian-style hat that I have; I might become Russian!

Think of my plight, Mike - half my family is actually of Russian descent.. Oh HORRORS! I'm already half Russian!

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's your politics and views on government and economy I disagree with, and that's nothing new.

Why, if I may? This isn't 2003; I've learned enough to thoroughly disabuse myself of the notion of the morality of capitalism, and I thought that was clearly related in these threads. I am of course in favour of dirigisme, autogestion, co-operative farming and distributivism within a nonetheless still basically trade-based framework. As for my politics, well, if you want a democracy, you shall certainly get the government that the majority of people deserve--a thought which should terrify any rational person.

It's possible to read to much into my political statements these days because I happen to believe that though it would have been ideal if the American and French revolutions had never happened, that they also can't be undone, either. You can't recreate tradition--that's simply absurd. Therefore, we must deal maturely with what exists today, and attempt to mitigate the excesses of it, because we cannot recreate the past, and those who attempt to do so are lunatics. His Highness Otto von Habsburg, Archduke of Austria, had some comments precisely on those lines--the Balkans would have been better off if the Dual Monarchy had survived, unquestionably, but it would be absurd to recreate it today. The same holds true about the system of trade guilds and co-operative farms of the medieval era that the capitalists of the enlightenment swept aside in general.

We cannot recreate them precisely, in other words, but we can learn lessons from their success in providing for people and apply those to the present, which is the basic aim of distributivist economics. This sentiment was precisely what I wished to convey with my wry "but I have no column of loyalist troops at my back." -- the past IS dead, and thinking it was in some respects organized better than the present does not imply that we should try to imitate it in the present. The conditions have changed, the legacies are dead. What will come in the future shall be entirely new, but perhaps we should not, in its creation, carelessly ignore the lessons of the past, and be so quick to accept the propaganda of the philosophes as an accurate picture of life in the premodern world.

[K. A. Pital]

Seriously, Marina, if you want an explanation about what differs the Soviet bread lines from the United States situation...

In the USSR, prices for items were fixed at such levels that were deemed accessible to the populace by the planners. Prices did not adjust to demand, meaning low prices would be maintained at higher buying capacity...

Meaning cheap bread, milk, meat etc. was accessible to all, and it created the deficit.

In the US, only a re-distributive system (like a food bank) can experience a shortage due to massively high availability of food even to a poor person.

In the market, the price 'adjusts' itself in such a way that no shortages occur (and that means the poorer quintilles have a hard time buying the food, since the volume of people is optimized, just as the aggregate demand is optimized).

So the US will not face shortages, or bread lines in supermarkets - only in food banks. Due to it's capitalistic system, the US will simply have the food priced out of the people's reach, which would lead to their malnourishment, and, in the most severe case (which I feel will not happen until the rest of the world is shambles) - starvation.

The capitalistic system is immune to "deficit" in the long term; it can only experience short-term deficits until the price adjusts itself, making the good simply unavailabel to the majority of buyers who are creating the deficit in the first place.

So ques at food banks do follow the general pattern of re-distributive shortage; but this will not spread in the US even if half the nation starves.

[Broomstick]

It's your politics and views on government and economy I disagree with, and that's nothing new.

Why, if I may? This isn't 2003

Why not? And the year has little or nothing to do with it.

I agree that we need to avoid the mistakes of the past, on that we are agreed.

However - and I am speaking in very general terms here - your views strike me as being both absolutist and dictatorial. Absolutist, in that your proposed worlds and solutions brook no dissent and I believe that stifling of dissent leads to stagnation. Dictatorial, in that you have decided how YOU want to live and wish to impose that on everyone else. What you decide to do is reasonable - what others decide is selfish, foolish, unreasonable, impractical, etc. I get the feeling that your ideal government would be run by a benevolent dictator, a Good Father, if you will. A king, for lack of a better word. I think that is has seldom been the case that kings are benevolent. You seem to crave an extreme level of order, which may be related to some of the chaos in your past, but I think such strict order is no more suited to humanity than the sort of anarchy proposed by extreme libertarians.

Which is not to say that I don't enjoy discussing our very different viewpoints. I do. I also expect that your views will continue to mellow for the next 5-10 years. I think you will also become more self-critical of your conclusions, revisiting your assumptions and deductions on a regular basis for conformation with reality.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Seriously, Marina, if you want an explanation about what differs the Soviet bread lines from the United States situation...

In the USSR, prices for items were fixed at such levels that were deemed accessible to the populace by the planners. Prices did not adjust to demand, meaning low prices would be maintained at higher buying capacity...

Meaning cheap bread, milk, meat etc. was accessible to all, and it created the deficit.

In the US, only a re-distributive system (like a food bank) can experience a shortage due to massively high availability of food even to a poor person.

In the market, the price 'adjusts' itself in such a way that no shortages occur (and that means the poorer quintilles have a hard time buying the food, since the volume of people is optimized, just as the aggregate demand is optimized).

So the US will not face shortages, or bread lines in supermarkets - only in food banks. Due to it's capitalistic system, the US will simply have the food priced out of the people's reach, which would lead to their malnourishment, and, in the most severe case (which I feel will not happen until the rest of the world is shambles) - starvation.

The capitalistic system is immune to "deficit" in the long term; it can only experience short-term deficits until the price adjusts itself, making the good simply unavailabel to the majority of buyers who are creating the deficit in the first place.

So ques at food banks do follow the general pattern of re-distributive shortage; but this will not spread in the US even if half the nation starves.

*sighs* No, Stas, I didn't want an explanation. Please read what Mike said--he seems to be the only bloody person in this thread who understands the meaning of what I originally said.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh. Sorry for getting into this thread then.

*crawls back into his commieland*

[thejester]

Probably because the Great Depression occurred decades before any of us were born, while Soviet breadlines were a widely printed image during our lifetimes.

Also because Marina probably figured no one would be such a fucking jackass that he would read all kinds of totally unnecessary meaning into "Soviet style", as if the word "style" actually means "indicator that all underlying socio-economic principles and conditions are identical".

I wasn't alive to see Soviet breadlines and I learned about the Great Depression when I was 10....even then, I'm clearly hardly alone in thinking that attaching 'Soviet-style' didn't mean something. Soviet-style - as opposed to what? American-style breadlines? The prefix immediately conjures an image not just of lines - which, y'know, breadlines does fine by itself - but of actual food shortages. Which, lo and behold, is what Marina clearly meant in the original argument which Ossus sigged.

As she herself said later in the thread, the whole point of this was to stick to Ossus - despite that whole argument being about the US running out of food altogether, not poor people getting shafted.

The fact is that I've seen this kind of behaviour before; she said something that triggered your automatic "defend America" reflex, which is why everyone leapt up to say "NEIN! NOT HERE!" when she said it. It's not that difficult to trigger the "defend America" reflex, and when it happens, the same standards which apply to other debates suddenly do not apply any more. It's totally OK to read completely unnecessary meaning into anything someone says, or to dismiss any and all comparisons with whatever excuse comes to mind.

*snort* That paragraph says fuckloads more about you than me. I like it how you criticise me for reading into things unnecessarily whilst simultaneously assuming that I'm an American with some kind of blinding emotional investment in US prosperity. Sadly for your psychological bullshit I'm not American and I'm not horrified by the thought of it. My whole original response was to show that yes, my instant reaction did read into it - and given that Marina specifically posted it to somehow prove Ossus wrong I think I was more than justified.

[Broomstick]

Oh. Sorry for getting into this thread then.

*crawls back into his commieland*

Well, even if Marina didn't ask for it, I found it interesting.

Although shortages CAN occur in the US, but it has to do with an actual lack of something (think crop failure, or disruption in transportation systems preventing good from traveling) rather than as an affect of artificially static pricing. Short term shortages, rather than chronic and long-term (unless the source of something disappears entirely).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I wasn't alive to see Soviet breadlines and I learned about the Great Depression when I was 10....even then, I'm clearly hardly alone in thinking that attaching 'Soviet-style' didn't mean something. Soviet-style - as opposed to what? American-style breadlines? The prefix immediately conjures an image not just of lines - which, y'know, breadlines does fine by itself - but of actual food shortages. Which, lo and behold, is what Marina clearly meant in the original argument which Ossus sigged.

As she herself said later in the thread, the whole point of this was to stick to Ossus - despite that whole argument being about the US running out of food altogether, not poor people getting shafted.

No, that was not the whole point of that argument. Nowhere did I say that people in America would starving within the year (it's possible many decades in the future), and if I did, I will immediately retract and apologize what must have been a heated comment I wasn't thinking about from some months, as I don't remember anything of the sort and certainly don't believe that.

Now, as for the present issue, no, I was just trying to be evocative--anyway, it's obvious that poor people will be hit FIRST in any kind of economic crisis, so I'm not sure why this being limited to poor people right now means anything. I certainly never gave any qualifications either way in the first place BECAUSE I WAS THINKING OF A PICTURE, NOT A SYSTEMATIC SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Oh. Sorry for getting into this thread then. :oops:

*crawls back into his commieland*

It's okay, Stas. I really appreciate what you have to say. God knows I do get melodramatic sometimes, but this thread is also a good illustration of reflexive blind love for American capitalism.

[Adrian Laguna]

It's your politics and views on government and economy I disagree with, and that's nothing new.

Why, if I may? This isn't 2003

Why not? And the year has little or nothing to do with it.

Oh it has a lot to do with it, this is 2003 Marina. Her views there stood diametrically opposed to her views now. Such radical change is not uncommon, it often happens when people become disillusioned with a political system. In this case I'd call it a good thing, I don't like libertarianism any more than she does.

I think with this post I can now call myself an archivist

[Darth Wong]

The fact is that I've seen this kind of behaviour before; she said something that triggered your automatic "defend America" reflex, which is why everyone leapt up to say "NEIN! NOT HERE!" when she said it. It's not that difficult to trigger the "defend America" reflex, and when it happens, the same standards which apply to other debates suddenly do not apply any more. It's totally OK to read completely unnecessary meaning into anything someone says, or to dismiss any and all comparisons with whatever excuse comes to mind.

*snort* That paragraph says fuckloads more about you than me. I like it how you criticise me for reading into things unnecessarily whilst simultaneously assuming that I'm an American with some kind of blinding emotional investment in US prosperity. Sadly for your psychological bullshit I'm not American and I'm not horrified by the thought of it. My whole original response was to show that yes, my instant reaction did read into it - and given that Marina specifically posted it to somehow prove Ossus wrong I think I was more than justified.

Since I've known many Canadians and UKers who do exactly the same thing because they view America as the leading light of capitalism, I guess I'll just take your "I'M NOT AMERICAN SO YOU LOSE" retort as the idiocy that it is. It's not just America in particular that's under fire from Marina; it's the capitalist economic system. Anyone who's followed her posts for any length of time knows that. So when people use America as a symbol for capitalism (which it has appointed itself to be), I suppose "defend America" and "defend capitalism" end up being the same thing.

The fact is that there is no LOGICAL DEDUCTION from that statement to the interpretation you drew, so if it wasn't some kind of defensiveness, why the deduction? Stupidity? That's why you're appealing to motive to justify yourself (as if Marina's motives in creating this thread help you interpret the original post she made a while ago in another thread).

[thejester]

Since I've known many Canadians and UKers who do exactly the same thing because they view America as the leading light of capitalism, I guess I'll just take your "I'M NOT AMERICAN SO YOU LOSE" retort as the idiocy that it is. It's not just America in particular that's under fire from Marina; it's the capitalist economic system. Anyone who's followed her posts for any length of time knows that. So when people use America as a symbol for capitalism (which it has appointed itself to be), I suppose "defend America" and "defend capitalism" end up being the same thing.

Oh horseshit. I'm not American so now it's actually my kneejerk reaction to capitalism being attacked? Here's an idea: my initial reaction was based not on some axe I wanted grind with Marina or because deep down I'm in love with the free market, but because by adding 'Soviet-style' she created a commentary on a word that was indeed linked to socio-economics.

The fact is that there is no LOGICAL DEDUCTION from that statement to the interpretation you drew, so if it wasn't some kind of defensiveness, why the deduction? Stupidity? That's why you're appealing to motive to justify yourself (as if Marina's motives in creating this thread help you interpret the original post she made a while ago in another thread).

Bullshit there isn't. 'Breadlines' is all you need to conjure images of fucking breadlines. 'Soviet-style' immediately adds a commentary o this image; that they are related to Soviet breadlines as opposed to 'normal' breadlines or 'American' breadlines or whatever. Given that one of the images often invoked to show the failure of the Soviet command economy is people having to wait in line for basic foodstuffs because there was none to be had, I don't think it was such a fucking big leap.

But hey, my reaction MUST be due to the fact I'm in love with America, or capitalism, or hate Marina (and if she says she meant nothing by it, I'll take her at her word). It couldn't possibly be that I was telling the truth when I said that using 'Soviet-style' when it was otherwise redundant immediately suggested a socio-economic commentary.

[Big Phil]

Snip

Here's the American (mine at least) perception of the difference between Soviet-style breadlines and what we've seen in this country. Whether it's accurate or not, it does speak to how I think most people are reacting to Duchess.

Soviet-Style Breadlines - caused by demand not being met by supply, due to price controls, inefficiencies, and piss-poor planning. There would be a run on bread and other foods (and clothing, for that matter) because it was only available at certain times. If you didn't get in line when it was available, you had to wait weeks (or months) until the next time it was available.

American Food Bank Breadlines - caused by increasing demand for foodstuffs among the poor, who are unable to purchase bread on their own and are instead relying on free handouts from food banks. The food banks are able to meet the increasing demand; according to the article, they're not saying they're in danger of running out of food. There are no breadlines and no danger of running out of bread (or other foods) in supermarkets, where the majority of Americans shop.

[Darth Wong]

Oh horseshit. I'm not American so now it's actually my kneejerk reaction to capitalism being attacked?

yes it is. That's why everyone hastens to point out that the underlying ECONOMIC conditions are not the same, even though those conditions are irrelevant to the question of whether it'sa Soviet-style breadline. You CHOSE to add a discussion of economics to it, felt it was necessarily implied by the word "style" (even though it's not), and now you're pretending that there was no economic defensiveness about that at all. And your only excuse for doing this is that you felt it was implied by the word "style", which is pure bullshit, and the fact that I cannot objectively PROVE this even though there's no other tangible reason for introducing a discussion of underlying economics into this. But of course, how silly of me to think that your desire to rush into a defense of the economic situation could have anything to do with capitalism.

[Big Phil]

Oh horseshit. I'm not American so now it's actually my kneejerk reaction to capitalism being attacked?

yes it is. That's why everyone hastens to point out that the underlying ECONOMIC conditions are not the same, even though those conditions are irrelevant to the question of whether it'sa Soviet-style breadline. You CHOSE to add a discussion of economics to it, felt it was necessarily implied by the word "style" (even though it's not), and now you're pretending that there was no economic defensiveness about that at all. And your only excuse for doing this is that you felt it was implied by the word "style", which is pure bullshit, and the fact that I cannot objectively PROVE this even though there's no other tangible reason for introducing a discussion of underlying economics into this. But of course, how silly of me to think that your desire to rush into a defense of the economic situation could have anything to do with capitalism.

How does the word "Soviet" even apply here? Even the food banks aren't running out of food. There is simply an increase in demand, and because there are a more people now, they're having to line up.

[Darth Wong]

How does the word "Soviet" even apply here?

Because it's an iconic visual image. Duh. Sort of like the Tiananmen Square tank man is an iconic visual image, and if that happened again anywhere in the world, we would make the connection, regardless of whether the surrounding circumstances are identical.

Seriously, how many contortions of the English language do we need to put up with in this thread? I've been informed that the word "style" means "caused by the same underlying factors" many many times, even though that it doesn't, and no matter how many times this is pointed out, people keep repeating that it does.

[Big Phil]

How does the word "Soviet" even apply here?

Because it's an iconic visual image. Duh. Sort of like the Tiananmen Square tank man is an iconic visual image, and if that happened again anywhere in the world, we would make the connection, regardless of whether the surrounding circumstances are identical.

Seriously, how many contortions of the English language do we need to put up with in this thread? I've been informed that the word "style" means "caused by the same underlying factors" many many times, even though that it doesn't, and no matter how many times this is pointed out, people keep repeating that it does.

So we should be interpreting her comment of "Soviet-style breadlines" as simply "breadlines?"

[Darth Wong]

How does the word "Soviet" even apply here?

Because it's an iconic visual image. Duh. Sort of like the Tiananmen Square tank man is an iconic visual image, and if that happened again anywhere in the world, we would make the connection, regardless of whether the surrounding circumstances are identical.

Seriously, how many contortions of the English language do we need to put up with in this thread? I've been informed that the word "style" means "caused by the same underlying factors" many many times, even though that it doesn't, and no matter how many times this is pointed out, people keep repeating that it does.

So we should be interpreting her comment of "Soviet-style breadlines" as simply "breadlines?"

Are you deliberately trying to be stupid? It obviously means "breadlines which look like the classic image of a Soviet breadline". Why the fuck would it necessarily mean "breadlines which are caused by the same underlying socio-economic conditions as Soviet breadlines?"

[Big Phil]

Because it's an iconic visual image. Duh. Sort of like the Tiananmen Square tank man is an iconic visual image, and if that happened again anywhere in the world, we would make the connection, regardless of whether the surrounding circumstances are identical.

Seriously, how many contortions of the English language do we need to put up with in this thread? I've been informed that the word "style" means "caused by the same underlying factors" many many times, even though that it doesn't, and no matter how many times this is pointed out, people keep repeating that it does.

So we should be interpreting her comment of "Soviet-style breadlines" as simply "breadlines?"

Are you deliberately trying to be stupid? It obviously means "breadlines which look like the classic image of a Soviet breadline". Why the fuck would it necessarily mean "breadlines which are caused by the same underlying socio-economic conditions as Soviet breadlines?"

If all we're talking about is "breadlines which look like the classic image of a Soviet breadline," this entire thread is meaningless. There have been breadlines "which look like the classic image of a Soviet breadline" since (at least) the Great Depression, and they get shorter or longer depending on economic conditions.

The statement only has value if the descriptor "Soviet-style" means something more than "hey, it looks like a line of people waiting for food!" People at the lower end of the economic food chain having to wait in lines for free food is hardly something new.

[Darth Wong]

If all we're talking about is "breadlines which look like the classic image of a Soviet breadline," this entire thread is meaningless. There have been breadlines "which look like the classic image of a Soviet breadline" since (at least) the Great Depression, and they get shorter or longer depending on economic conditions.

And the economic conditions are getting bad, so they're getting longer, which is why they now look like Soviet breadlines. Duh.

The statement only has value if the descriptor "Soviet-style" means something more than "hey, it looks like a line of people waiting for food!" People at the lower end of the economic food chain having to wait in lines for free food is hardly something new.

So your idea of "meaningless" is "anything which is not happening for the very first time in all of history?" Is it meaningless every time someone says that it looks like we're heading into a serious economic depression, just because the country has had depressions before?

As I said, people keep throwing up more and more objections which have nothing to do with the statements under discussion. If it's not about knee-jerk defense of capitalism, then why are people doing this?

[Illuminatus Primus]

How does the word "Soviet" even apply here?

Because it's an iconic visual image. Duh. Sort of like the Tiananmen Square tank man is an iconic visual image, and if that happened again anywhere in the world, we would make the connection, regardless of whether the surrounding circumstances are identical.

Seriously, how many contortions of the English language do we need to put up with in this thread? I've been informed that the word "style" means "caused by the same underlying factors" many many times, even though that it doesn't, and no matter how many times this is pointed out, people keep repeating that it does.

Because its inappropriate and stupid. Everyone knows Marina is a shill for ridiculous unqualified melodrama in fields outside her expertise, whatever that is (I've never seen her state or post her qualifications, just "I'd like to be a nuke eng"). The rest of us don't go off in diatribes sprinkled with Napoleonic era romantic allusions, and expect it to be a forceful argument. The fact of this thread is that she started it because of her little pissy vendetta with Ossus for making her look stupid in the rice price thread. Petty bullshit. Now tied with her usual MO and the fact that the she has repeatedly suggested the U.S. is headed for communist reaction and even wrote a goddamn story on that basic premise, that her analogy of "Soviet-style breadlines" goes more than skin-deep is hardly an unfair assertion. Yes, are they evocative in imagery of the Soviet Union's infamous breadlines? Sure. But in the context was it appears, it is nothing new, it is not indicative of a thorough collapse of the system and endemic staple shortages across the population. Breadlines in the 1980s Soviet Union were endemic phenomena that the common gainfully employed citizen with technical degrees would probably still endure. This is a single example of a phenomena which has occurred before in the U.S. and I'd be amazed if poor house food drives in Canada and elsewhere had had bouts of increased demand and occasional lines as well. Is it fair to say this is about a logical dispute? Probably not, there's no deductive line of reasoning. I think a lot of posters are probably exasperated by Marina's shameless opportunism and piss-contest with Ossus - the sole purpose of this thread, and was so desperate for petty points she scrounged for a single example of a poor food bank having a line. Which of course, is totally different from her original context of "Soviet-style breadlines" (namely, that common consumers would suffer them regularly for rice in CostCo).

[Darth Wong]

Because its inappropriate and stupid. Everyone knows Marina is a shill for ridiculous unqualified melodrama in fields outside her expertise, whatever that is (I've never seen her state or post her qualifications, just "I'd like to be a nuke eng").

So? How does that make it any more or less accurate to distort the meaning of the word "style"? This whole shitfit is nothing more than an increasingly blatant violation of the no-vendetta rule.

Which of course, is totally different from her original context of "Soviet-style breadlines" (namely, that common consumers would suffer them regularly for rice in CostCo).

Her penchant for dramatic exaggeration was probably best exemplified in a statement she once made about how highway overpasses would be deserted in 20 years, not this. This was a one-liner, and people are jumping on her for it because they dislike the other things she's said; your own post makes this all too clear.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You asked for an explanation, I never said you'd like it. Anyway, I'd say Marina is the one who started it deliberately to continue a pissing contest, given it was a direct reply to Ossus' signature (the two of them are actually in a tandem pissing contest with their signatures, but I digress). Still, Ossus is an economist or works in the field, he cited his sources last time, and I find it irritating when Marina goes on these bombastic speeches about the history of thought. She is not a renown scholar or university professor. And in this particular case, her opponents have generally had better expertise in the on-again, off-again argument and cited their sources better.