▲ | Thorrez 2 days ago | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Most communist countries haven't been such a utopia as you describe. >He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution." https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | shafyy 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I am not talking about communism. Nobody on today's political left spectrum of is seriously talking about communism. This is about socialism, or social capitalism. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | okasaki 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cool story from an alcoholic traitor > On 2 January 1992, Yeltsin, acting as his own prime minister, began a major economic and administrative reform ordered the liberalization of foreign trade, prices, and currency. At the same time, Yeltsin followed a policy of "macroeconomic stabilization", a harsh austerity regime designed to control inflation. Under Yeltsin's stabilization programme, interest rates were raised to extremely high levels to tighten money and restrict credit. To bring state spending and revenues into balance, Yeltsin raised new taxes heavily, cut back sharply on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made steep cuts to state welfare spending. > In early 1992, prices skyrocketed throughout Russia, and a deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression. The reforms devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare programs.[108] Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50%, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, whilst incomes fell. Hyperinflation, caused by the Central Bank of Russia's loose monetary policy, wiped out many people's personal savings, and tens of millions of Russians were plunged into poverty.[109][110] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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▲ | potato3732842 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You know, for all their ills at least the historical communists meant well. Sure, some of them were pretty f-ing brutal but at least they tried to make their societies better, tried to make their countrymen richer and more prosperous. The comparable people today telling us we have have to live under constant surveillance and be subjugated by all powerful governments and government intertwined institutions and organizations or otherwise losing all our rights and practical autonomy to various collective interests don't even do us the courtesy of pretending that the goal is to everything better and nicer. They just tell us that we'll all gaslight ourselves into liking the bugs or whatever and that despite everything being worse it's somehow better because stonks up and microplastics down, or whatever other metrics they also control. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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