Can communism/socialism work?

[Iosef Cross]

Except Eastern Germany and Western Germany were not economically identical even prior to the Nazi rise to power, they both suffered highly different exogenous (toward the issue of their fundamental economic systems) political outcomes after the war, and therefore one cannot make a fair comparison between economic systems, with even the most threadbare attempt at controlling for other variables. But of what use is the basics of the scientific method for a propagandist?

1- You are actually saying that empirical data is useless for comparing the performance of economic systems. Them let's talk theory instead. Also, to attempt to correct for other variables is to make theoretical judgments of these variables.


2- Propagandist? You are what? You doesn't have the competence to judge the merits of an argument on a political debate.

What of the fact that the Western republic was host to the patronage of a post-war imperial economic behemoth, with over 50% of global GDP in Jan 1946, while the USSR - already starting from way behind in 1917 - was ravaged by total war and genocidal war aims against Nazi Germany and thereby not only not as able to sponsor the reconstruction of its satellites as the U.S. could with its clients, but also was fairly entitled to great reparations from the war guilty than the U.S., but this resulted in more losses for Eastern Germany vs. the West.

The old "the US helped them" fallacy. I am tired of responding to this kind of bullshit.

Just the fact that the bulk of the Marshall plan went to Britain, while Italy and Germany, the two major European countries that grew the most between 1950 and 1975, received much less help proves that your argument is wrong. Also, the occupation of West Germany by the Allies slowed their recovery down, and the capital goods confiscated by the Allies between 1945 and 1948 were probably of greater value than the total aid of the Marshall plan.

Recipients of the Marshall plan:

Germany received only 1.4 billion dollars from the Marshall plan! That's a symbolic value.

[Illuminatus Primus]

1- You are actually saying that empirical data is useless for comparing the performance of economic systems. Them let's talk theory instead. Also, to attempt to correct for other variables is to make theoretical judgments of these variables.

Not a reply. If we are evaluating economic management and development strategies, should we not try to eliminate exogenous factors which are not a part of assessing those systems?

2- Propagandist? You are what? You doesn't have the competence to judge the merits of an argument on a political debate.

Big words, hot air.

The old "the US helped them" fallacy. I am tired of responding to this kind of bullshit.

Because its factually true or not? Oh, and a factual error is not a fallacy. A fallacy is a flaw in reasoning, dipshit. But by all means, show me the glories of your great economics education with more childish lapses.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Any complex economic system needs decentralized decision making, prices and money.

Which are not defining characteristics of capitalism, and the lack thereof are not defining characteristics of socialism. Again with the inability of the ideologue to think of anything without the lazy reliance upon the USSR as a whipping boy. Although I also think you're also wrong about the objective general superiority of "actually existing capitalism" over "actually existing socialism" (which I mean in the technical sense, meaning the USSR's centrally-planned economy), myself, Stas, and others have repeatedly shown to you this was not even a constant feature of the USSR itself, much less Leninist states in general (e.g., USSR under the NEP, Khrushchev's regional planning, late-era Gorbachevian reforms, Yugoslavia, etc., etc.), and arguably other proposed economic alternatives, such as syndicalism and participatory economics/planning (which of course avoids the central perfect planner and single-point of failure problem), and the revolutionary anarchist regions of Spain of course was not under a centrally planned economy.

[Iosef Cross]

Not a reply. If we are evaluating economic management and development strategies, should we not try to eliminate exogenous factors which are not a part of assessing those systems?

To try to control for exogenous factors you first need to have a theoretical conception of the impacts of these factors. In other words, you need to use the spectacles of theory to judge reality.

Everybody has some theoretical perceptions of these factors. The people that have very crude ones imagine that they can "control" these exogenous factors and obtain an bias free result. Like you.

The historical fact is that we do not have an ideal lab environment to test different social systems. But the East/West Germany historical case is the closest historical case of a lab environment comparing the Soviet system with the Western. It shows that West Germany performed much better than East.

2- Propagandist? You are what? You doesn't have the competence to judge the merits of an argument on a political debate.

Big words, hot air.

What are your academic qualifications?

From what you have posted, I expect that you don't know what an indifference curve is.

[Iosef Cross]

Any complex economic system needs decentralized decision making, prices and money.

Which are not defining characteristics of capitalism, and the lack thereof are not defining characteristics of socialism. Again with the inability of the ideologue to think of anything without the lazy reliance upon the USSR as a whipping boy.´

Capitalism, defined as an market economy, is the only type of economic system compatible with an reasonably advanced civilization. Anything different is impossible to work under a sophisticated system of division of labor.

I think an educated American would understand that. But usually, the people that benefit the most from it are the ones that want to destroy it.

Although I also think you're also wrong about the objective general superiority of "actually existing capitalism" over "actually existing socialism" (which I mean in the technical sense, meaning the USSR's centrally-planned economy), myself, Stas, and others have repeatedly shown to you this was not even a constant feature of the USSR itself, much less Leninist states in general (e.g., USSR under the NEP, Khrushchev's regional planning, late-era Gorbachevian reforms, Yugoslavia, etc., etc.), and arguably other proposed economic alternatives, such as syndicalism and participatory economics/planning (which of course avoids the central perfect planner and single-point of failure problem), and the revolutionary anarchist regions of Spain of course was not under a centrally planned economy.

Of course, only ad hominen, opinions and bullshit. To understand and refute my argument, that's impossible for you and Stas to do. Your profile says that you are an "libertarian socialist", while Stas is a widow o the soviet regime. Moved only by pre conceived ideology and prejudices.

[Simon_Jester]

Although I also think you're also wrong about the objective general superiority of "actually existing capitalism" over "actually existing socialism" (which I mean in the technical sense, meaning the USSR's centrally-planned economy), myself, Stas, and others have repeatedly shown to you this was not even a constant feature of the USSR itself, much less Leninist states in general (e.g., USSR under the NEP, Khrushchev's regional planning, late-era Gorbachevian reforms, Yugoslavia, etc., etc.), and arguably other proposed economic alternatives, such as syndicalism and participatory economics/planning (which of course avoids the central perfect planner and single-point of failure problem), and the revolutionary anarchist regions of Spain of course was not under a centrally planned economy.

Of course, only ad hominen, opinions and bullshit. To understand and refute my argument, that's impossible for you and Stas to do. Your profile says that you are an "libertarian socialist", while Stas is a widow o the soviet regime. Moved only by pre conceived ideology and prejudices.

...How is what he said an ad hominem? How is what you said NOT an ad hominem?

I mean, here he's saying that you're wrong about matters of fact. You're saying he's "moved only by pre conceived [sic] ideology and prejudices." Which is the ad hominem?

But anyway, this does not answer his fundamental question; if your argument was so damn good, I'd think you would be able to do that. The real questions, to my mind, are:

-Assuming for the sake of argument that decentralized economies are better than centralized ones, is it true that socialist economies are consistently more centralized than capitalist ones?
-Should we assume that decentralization beats centralization? That cannot be an axiom; it has to be proven.
-How do we best control for external factors when comparing socialist and capitalist countries? For example, imagine that two countries start identical, but one pursues capitalist economics and one socialist economics. Oh, and the socialist country's capital city gets vaporized by a meteor five years into the experiment. Which country is likely to be better off ten years down the road... and how much does that tell us about the capitalism vs. communism debate?

[Illuminatus Primus]

Capitalism, defined as an market economy, is the only type of economic system compatible with an reasonably advanced civilization. Anything different is impossible to work under a sophisticated system of division of labor.

I think an educated American would understand that. But usually, the people that benefit the most from it are the ones that want to destroy it.

Being an asshole and declaring things on fiat does not qualify as substance. I'd love to hear you preach from a favela, asshole.

Although I also think you're also wrong about the objective general superiority of "actually existing capitalism" over "actually existing socialism" (which I mean in the technical sense, meaning the USSR's centrally-planned economy), myself, Stas, and others have repeatedly shown to you this was not even a constant feature of the USSR itself, much less Leninist states in general (e.g., USSR under the NEP, Khrushchev's regional planning, late-era Gorbachevian reforms, Yugoslavia, etc., etc.), and arguably other proposed economic alternatives, such as syndicalism and participatory economics/planning (which of course avoids the central perfect planner and single-point of failure problem), and the revolutionary anarchist regions of Spain of course was not under a centrally planned economy.

Of course, only ad hominen, opinions and bullshit. To understand and refute my argument, that's impossible for you and Stas to do. Your profile says that you are an "libertarian socialist", while Stas is a widow o the soviet regime. Moved only by pre conceived ideology and prejudices.

Are you fucking stupid? In order to prove the whole point of this thread--that socialism is fundamentally unworkable, you cannot just attack the central planning regime of most of the USSR's history, because no one in your position ever disputes that the USSR was always socialist, and therefore, periods when it operated under different economic systems are also socialist, and must be refuted as well, in order to sustain your argument. Furthermore, the ad hominem is a logical fallacy where you dismiss the argument of your opponent by attacking his character; where the fuck did I attack any argument using your character, imbecile? Do you have any idea what these words even mean?

Was the USSR under NEP socialist? Was Yugoslavia under Tito socialist? Even if you are right about the USSR's central planning, state ownership socialism, that does not comprehensively address whether socialism is possible because the predominant USSR system is only a subset of historical, much less proposed or theorized socialist economic systems.

To try to control for exogenous factors you first need to have a theoretical conception of the impacts of these factors. In other words, you need to use the spectacles of theory to judge reality.

Everybody has some theoretical perceptions of these factors. The people that have very crude ones imagine that they can "control" these exogenous factors and obtain an bias free result. Like you.

The historical fact is that we do not have an ideal lab environment to test different social systems. But the East/West Germany historical case is the closest historical case of a lab environment comparing the Soviet system with the Western.

Germany received only 1.4 billion dollars from the Marshall plan! That's a symbolic value.

Again, it appears that the modern economics education contains no facets of the scientific method, since you are incapable of understanding isolating the "system performance" variable would mean having to equal out the relative aid to each German state, not the Federal Republic in particular, imbecile.

What are your academic qualifications?

From what you have posted, I expect that you don't know what an indifference curve is.

You're way out of your league if you think you can try and browbeat people with the bachelor or less that you have, on this forum. One does not need an economics degree to demonstrate that quoting the performance of and aid to the FRG alone somehow controls for the relative aid/reparations starting point from which one can isolate a simple variable in a qualitative discussion of FRG v. GDR economic systems. This is Google/Wiki level basics of the scientific method and empirical analysis of data, apparently basics they do not teach you.

EDIT:

Since you threw down the gauntlet on economic academic authority, you had better post proof of an accredited academic degree that could be third-party verified before you keep shooting your mouth off, asshole. This forum has a VERY poor opinion of Internet Experts pretending to be shit that they are not.

[Samuel]

Capitalism, defined as an market economy, is the only type of economic system compatible with an reasonably advanced civilization. Anything different is impossible to work under a sophisticated system of division of labor.

Market economy and capitalism are two different things.

Again, it appears that the modern economics education contains no facets of the scientific method, since you are incapable of understanding isolating the "system performance" variable would mean having to equal out the relative aid to each German state, not the Federal Republic in particular, imbecile.

It was about 2% of the nations GDP for European states that recived aid. I'll try to see if I can get the exact value- my computer melted down and the college has a bunch that can't read PDFs or powerpoint.

[K. A. Pital]

In a market economy millions of individual decision makers make their action plans (choices) based on their private information. These action plans are coordinated by the price system. Even the largest companies base their decision on market prices for their inputs and outputs. Hence, the market economy is based on the information existing on the minds of millions of individual decision makers and every individual utilizes the knowledge of millions transmitted to him thought prices.

So how does this refute the trend for vertical integration? You lied through your teeth by claiming there is a de-concentration, when in fact there is a massive concentration of capital ongoing in many sectors, including key sectors of the most advanced national economies and the world economy in general. Go on, prove what you said. You made a new point - a point that is more valid than your prior one, instead of defending it.

But I can illustrate your errors with a single graph

Which errors? Why Brazil has malnourished children? Strangely enough, your graph shows Brazil's life expectancy being below Soviet, only topped during the still-ongoing Russian crisis. I'm not sure what you were trying to say again - I've given a complex comparison with several dozen quality of life indicators; you decided to say it's all wrong.

Your call - from now on, I'll continue to remind you of your intellectual failure until you actually get mature enough to answer the points.

Anything different is impossible to work under a sophisticated system of division of labor.

The USSR had a sophisticated division of labour - was it capitalist? You're making yourself a laughing stock, Iosef. Seriously. You're ignoring the points, resorting to ad hominems...

Get a grip