Have you ever looked at the living standards in communist countries? Do you really expect that communism will improve anything for anyone other than the party bosses?

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breezybottom 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There are post Soviet countries that still haven't returned to their 1991 GDP.

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briandw 40 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Do you trust the Soviets GDP numbers? Even if you do, the Soviets were spending upwards of 40% of their GDP on the military, not exactly a quality of life enhancement. Even discounting that, the only states that I could find that might qualify are Moldova (about the same level) and Ukraine about 72%). Ukraine is pretty clearly the Russians are to blame there. Other post Soviet countries, like Turkmenistan are > 580% bigger real GDP. Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kazakhstan are around 3x bigger GDP. Belarus, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan are around 2x bigger GDP. Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Georgia are about 1.3x bigger GDP.

	▲	breezybottom 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It doesn't really matter if I do, it matters if the economists who study it do. It's not controversial to say that "shock therapy" was a disaster, and that living standards have plummeted since the collapse of communism in many countries.

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briandw 11 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

You said "living standards have plummeted since the collapse of communism in many countries" objectively not true. After communism collapsed (collapsing because it failed as an economic model) life in those countries was pretty bad. Living in the ruins of a failed system is going to be a bad time. Even so, of the 12 Soviet states, 10 are much better off. Turkmenistan is 582% bigger GDP. Moldova is about the same Ukraine is worse off, but being invaded by Russia will do that. Other states like Poland at 3.5x the GDP and Estonia are at 8x the GDP.

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vardalab 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Dude, it worked for a billion people in China, lol.

I grew up under communism. I don't like or don't care for communism, but I can't dispute that China lifted a huge number of people out of a warlord torn mess and misery. To some extent, Soviets did the same to Russian peasants, but of course, it got perverted along the way. But all things considered, I would take communism under soviets to being a serf under the Tsar.

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TFNA 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Serfdom in Russia was abolished half a century before the Soviets. Moreover, the tsar himself was gone by the time the Soviets came along. Their October Revolution overthrew the tsarless regime that had been instituted in the preceding February Revolution.

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briandw 8 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[delayed]

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logicchains an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

>Dude, it worked for a billion people in China, lol.

China starved tens of millions of people for two decades, it was only after they started opening up the economy in the 70s and allowed people to own farms/shops that living standards started increasing.

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maxglute 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Chinese peasants been starving for 1000s of years, it took Chinese communist speedrunning development at the expense of human lives a few decades to end that cycle. Same with Russian serfs. There's a reason PRC lifespan and industrialization was significantly higher than developing peers by the 70s, well before market reforms, fail fast, break eggs make omelette etc etc.

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nekusar an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

And just how many deaths do capitalists and capitalist policies inflict? We never see *those* numbers.

This is just one instance: a hepatitis drug named Solvaldi. Costs $1000 a pill, need 84 pills for full course. How much does the drug actually cost? $300 and you can make it with the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective's chemistry reactor.

But why is this capitalist deaths? Cause 5 million people per year die from Hepatitis. And this drug is a *cure*. But insurance wont pay the $84000 needed for the cure. So they get maintenance drugs that dont cure, and those people die from it needlessly.

And the numbers are going up to 6 million a year of needless capitalist deaths, from a single drug.

We can easily look at corporate death panels, err, I mean medical insurance. Its insurance fraud if we lie, but to them, they can just deny treatment and wait out the death clock.

Capitalism is even more extractive and devastating on the populace. And instead of "capitalism causes X million deaths a year", nope, its a individual's fault. Its always the individuals fault, no matter how systemic the problem is.

	▲	phainopepla2 26 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		In order to really do the math here, you'd have to determine whether such drugs are as likely to be created under non-capitalist regimes. In other words, even if capitalism has less-than-ideal mechanisms for distributing lifesaving drugs widely (during their patent period at least), maybe it is better at creating lifesaving drugs in the first place. It's possible that the net result of the capitalist pharmaceutical industry is millions of lives saved. Without taking that account, you can't do a real cost-benefit analysis. Of course, it's probably not really possible to do such a comparison, because there are so many other factors, and state intervention is everywhere even in capitalist countries, via publicly funded research. I think the only really fair way to compare which system causes more deaths than the other is to look at overall health outcomes and lifespans.

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nekusar 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One can agree to the findings in Das Kapital, and also not agree to the claims of the Communist Manifesto.

And to be fair, quite a few of the findings are basically restatements from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Then again, most 'economists' rarely ever get past page 30 of that treatise, like all the "unseen hands that realllly have to prevent monopolies etc etc etc"