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400275 No.400275[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Economists of /biz/, If socialist economics is so inefficient and wasteful as many say it is, how then did the USSR become the second largest industrial power in the world by using it?

>> No.400279

>>400275
This is really a question for /pol/.

Shot answer: Gulags

Long answer: Through the systematic oppression of dissidents and minorities, and at the expense of lives to meet quotas.

Stalin's "grain" quota was one major reason for the holodmor in Ukraine.

And the his "Steel" quota was never really met in reality, only on paper.

>> No.400281

>>400275
400279 is right, this is more for /pol/.

But also: if socialist economics are so efficient, why did communist China effectively migrate to capitalism in the Deng Xiaoping era, ushering in decades of rapid growth?

>> No.400282

>>400279
>>400281

>This is really a question for /pol/.

The problem being that the moment you mention the USSR on /pol/ the thread will immediately devolve into a copy-pasta storm about Jewish bolshevism and zionist reptilian conspiracies.

>> No.400283

>>400275
Oil wealth, nuclear power, smart scientists, and the second most powerful military.

The problem is that socialism doesn't have a good feedback cycle, thus the 500,000 left shoes. Its not that some socialism is bad. Its that pure socialism is just as terrible as pure capitalism.

Basic income.

>> No.400291

>>400275

It is wasteful an inefficient compared to a capitalist or mixed market/state capitalism system. It's still leagues better than a mercantilist or feudal system, though. The CIA has estimated the growth rate of the USSR post-WWII to have been at around 2% in real terms, as opposed to the US's 4%+. It was pretty easy for the US to just play the waiting game with those numbers, but keep in mind the world grow rate from 10,000BC until around 1850 was 0.1%, tops (most of which went straight back to supporting a larger population)- the USSR would have BTFO everyone if it was founded a hundred years earlier with that kind of growth.

>> No.400293

>>400291
>the USSR would have BTFO everyone if it was founded a hundred years earlier with that kind of growth

interesting theory but would it really have, without the competition for superpower status? how much of the growth rate was because of military expenditures

>> No.400295

>>400291

>It is wasteful an inefficient compared to a capitalist or mixed market/state capitalism system.

I thought socialist command economies WERE state capitalism?

>> No.400298

>>400295

No, a state capitalist economy would be something like China today- primarily capitalist with the state setting broad goals and designing policy to encourage industry to accomplish them.

>> No.400300

>>400295
Not really, the modern chinese system (state capitalism) wasn't really what the Soviets used, if they had used it they would probably not have crumbled.

>> No.400313

>>400298
>>400300

I see.

Beyond that, here's something I've always meant to ask you lot at, but I think I shouldn't start a whole new thread over it.
What would be the drawbacks to having an economy that's a hybrid between a free market and command?
I figure it would would work like so:
The state and public sector takes care of heavy duty stuff like steel mills, cement factories and strip mines, while more specialized and consumer-oriented things like electronics, R&D, luxury goods and so forth are left for the private sector to handle

Would that not be the best of both worlds? The private sector would provide adequate luxuries and consumer goods, while the state-controlled heavy industry would take care of unemployment, provide cheap as dirt building materials for economic growth, and rock-solid job security

>> No.400317

>>400275
Focused production, at first forced by the civil/ww2/ wars. As long as the people at the top focused on the right things, it went okay. Eventually they were making too many tanks for their own good, and neglected other areas too poorly. USSR was actually a pretty good, stable economic system - no boom and bust cycles, people constantly losing jobs, having to retrain, if was the ideal environment for a lifetime worker types.

>> No.400784

Bump for interest in

>>400313

>> No.401481

The real reason is because they suppressed the production and consumption of consumer goods.

Consumers had little to no luxuries. Instead, investment was dumped into industrial/military development.

Basically, people starved and wore shit clothes and ate wallpaper etc. But the money saved was invested into development/infrastructure.

>> No.402119

>>400313
So 1950's-1980's Britain? If I remember right it ended in worker strikes.

>> No.402124

>>400313

Market forces are better at ensuring an efficient allocation of resources. The state would have to be very precise in predicting the demand for raw materials, if they overshot there might be a surplus of steel, meaning the workers that created the extra steel could have been better utilized in another sector. If the government underestimated the amount of steel that would be required, then the firms that used steel to create their products wouldn't have enough raw materials to create the amount of goods they would have if the raw materials were provided by a market economy.

State sponsored projects should be focused towards creating infrastructure and other public goods which will improve the productivity of all firms within the country, not just the firms that use raw material X.

>> No.402157

>>400313

Prices convey information. If the price of something rises, it is a signal to the market that it is in demand and more should be produced. Communist economies have no prices and so it becomes impossible to determine how much of something should be produced. That leads to shortages in one sector and surpluses in another. It's not that communist countries can't produce a lot of stuff, it's that they can't produce the stuff in the right amounts. And that leads to inefficiency.

That being said, the US is a hybrid between free market and command, just not along the lines you have drawn. The US government is basically in charge of controlling the money supply and interest rates. Money is one half of every exchange. The government also provides guaranteed loans to everyone from students up to mega corporations. And we've seen what happens when the banks get in trouble - the government bails them out. Same with other favored corporations, like GM or the airlines, or favored interest groups like unions. Local governments also artificially restrict the free market to throttle supply. For example, by issuing only a limited number of medallions for taxis or by forcing health care providers to obtain a certificate of need from the government before expanding. That kind of thing artificially drives up the price for health care and taxi service. It's not free market capitalism.