Were and are socialist experiments beneficial to their respective inhabitants?

[Redflag]

In response to my introduction in this forum's Introduction section, mark francis wrote, "I am sorry you find Marxism attractive despite its failure to benefit nations that got trapped under its fascist ideology."

Firstly, I respectfully submit that fascism hasn't anything to do with Marxism aside from its being used by bourgeois societies to thwart communist movements within those societies. More broadly, fascism is the "iron hoop" used to prop up capitalism during crises of accumulation/economic depressions, i.e., Germany during the 1920s and '30s. The fact that no fascist movement has ever come to fruition within any socialist experiment, either past or present, is sufficient to understand the point.

Secondly, throughout their respective socialist experiments, workers' lives in the U.S.S.R., the GDR, and other former socialist societies improved immensely. Average life expectancy in the Soviet Union, for example, went from 32 years in 1917 to 68 years by 1975.

Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, homelessness, and other social ills were virtually and easily eliminated in socialist societies. I say "easily" because those pathologies are all but effortlessly eliminated when doing so becomes a governmental priority, unlike in the U.S.

Interestingly, the lives of American workers also improved because of the Bolshevik Revolution. The progressive achievements won by Soviet workers pressured the U.S. capitalist state to concede reforms for American workers. Reforms including homeownership, desegregation, investments in education, public healthcare, etc.

Concerning homeownership, in a 1917 Washington Post op-ed, New York financier and banker Simon Straus wrote, "Widespread and successful homeowning activities in the U.S. would do more to alleviate social unrest and build a bulwark against the encroachments of Bolshevism than any other development."

The Labor Department then initiated its Own Your Own Home program, later led by Herbert Hoover, which provided liquidity for banks toward the expansion of home loans. In 1933, the New Deal's "Home Owners' Loan Corporation was launched, which granted home loans to workers, making homeownership far more accessible and committing workers psychologically to capitalism.

In response to Sputnik and the education gap between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., the U.S. enacted 1958's National Defense Education Act, which made low-interest student loans, augmenting higher education. While noting the program's success, the late U.S. Senator Stewart McClure said, "I think if there was one thing I did during my work on the hill, it was to focus attention on the opportunity that Sputnik gave all of us who had been struggling for decades to establish a federal program of monetary aid to public education."

But with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and, therefore, the elimination of a countervailing system, the U.S. capitalist state began to claw back New Deal programs and other social reforms. Capitalism is, again, free to be as mean as it needs to be.

Be well.
Redflag

 

[mark francis]

In response to my introduction in this forum's Introduction section, mark francis wrote, "I am sorry you find Marxism attractive despite its failure to benefit nations that got trapped under its fascist ideology."

Firstly, I respectfully submit that fascism hasn't anything to do with Marxism aside from its being used by bourgeois societies to thwart communist movements within those societies. More broadly, fascism is the "iron hoop" used to prop up capitalism during crises of accumulation/economic depressions, i.e., Germany during the 1920s and '30s. The fact that no fascist movement has ever come to fruition within any socialist experiment, either past or present, is sufficient to understand the point.

Secondly, throughout their respective socialist experiments, workers' lives in the U.S.S.R., the GDR, and other former socialist societies improved immensely. Average life expectancy in the Soviet Union, for example, went from 32 years in 1917 to 68 years by 1975.

Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, homelessness, and other social ills were virtually and easily eliminated in socialist societies. I say "easily" because those pathologies are all but effortlessly eliminated when doing so becomes a governmental priority, unlike in the U.S.

Interestingly, the lives of American workers also improved because of the Bolshevik Revolution. The progressive achievements won by Soviet workers pressured the U.S. capitalist state to concede reforms for American workers. Reforms including homeownership, desegregation, investments in education, public healthcare, etc.

Concerning homeownership, in a 1917 Washington Post op-ed, New York financier and banker Simon Straus wrote, "Widespread and successful homeowning activities in the U.S. would do more to alleviate social unrest and build a bulwark against the encroachments of Bolshevism than any other development."

The Labor Department then initiated its Own Your Own Home program, later led by Herbert Hoover, which provided liquidity for banks toward the expansion of home loans. In 1933, the New Deal's "Home Owners' Loan Corporation was launched, which granted home loans to workers, making homeownership far more accessible and committing workers psychologically to capitalism.

In response to Sputnik and the education gap between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., the U.S. enacted 1958's National Defense Education Act, which made low-interest student loans, augmenting higher education. While noting the program's success, the late U.S. Senator Stewart McClure said, "I think if there was one thing I did during my work on the hill, it was to focus attention on the opportunity that Sputnik gave all of us who had been struggling for decades to establish a federal program of monetary aid to public education."

But with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and, therefore, the elimination of a countervailing system, the U.S. capitalist state began to claw back New Deal programs and other social reforms. Capitalism is, again, free to be as mean as it needs to be.

Be well.
Redflag

Christian-based capitalism is based on protections for individual property rights and the right to earn and keep earnings apart from excessive government regulation and taxation. Other forms of governments that diminish individual freedoms in order to redistribute the wealth of workers to those who do not earn the wages include communism, socialism, Marxism, fascism, and imperialism.

 

[Redflag]

Christian-based capitalism is based on protections for individual property rights and the right to earn and keep earnings apart from excessive government regulation and taxation. Other forms of governments that diminish individual freedoms in order to redistribute the wealth of workers to those who do not earn the wages include communism, socialism, Marxism, fascism, and imperialism.

But Christianity is not capitalistic, nor is capitalism based on the spiritual teachings of the New Testament. Mark Francis may be thinking about the Protestant, also known as the Calvinist or Puritan, work ethic, which is based on the writings of John Calvin and the relationship of this concept with the early development of capitalism in Europe. The Protestant work ethic is the idea that it's the duty and responsibility of a person to achieve whatever success they can through working hard, maintaining self-discipline, and living thriftily, with this way of life being a sign to others that God saves them.

Of course, this means that the Protestant work ethic encourages individualism and entrepreneurship and thus was used as the earliest known justification of capitalism, not as the idea that enabled the emergence of capitalism. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels pointed out, with dialectical materialism, society comprises a base, the economy and mode of production, the superstructure, the politics and government, ethics and morality accepted by the populace, law, culture, and religion. The base determines the nature of the superstructure, which exists in a way and form that best promotes, organizes, and maintains the base.

That means that when the material conditions of a society change, like a new kind of economic system or economic crisis, new viewpoints will come into being as a reflection of this change, or new political, social, economic, and cultural institutions will develop to reinforce the base. Once capitalism started to emerge due to technological innovation leading to progress, the societal worldview had to change, so feudalism was no longer being reinforced, but capitalism was. First came the Protestant Reformation, and later the Age of Enlightenment as how the capitalist mode of production was to be maintained and its political system of a democratic republic solidified.

As for "protections for individual property rights and the right to earn and keep earnings apart from excessive government regulation and taxation." Although that partly describes the capitalist state's role within the capitalist system concerning the capitalist class, it doesn't elucidate the part of workers. Under capitalism, workers are paid back, in wages and salaries, only a tiny fraction of the economic wealth their labor power produces. Ergo, workers aren't afforded a right to keep all of the financial wealth they produce, for capitalism is predicated on the economic exploitation of workers, and the capitalist state's role is to facilitate and protect that system of exploitation. It is a systematic redistribution of wealth from the producing class - the working class - to the idle and parasitic class - the capitalist class.

Be well
Good evening to all
Redflag

 

[mark francis]

But Christianity is not capitalistic, nor is capitalism based on the spiritual teachings of the New Testament. Mark Francis may be thinking about the Protestant, also known as the Calvinist or Puritan, work ethic, which is based on the writings of John Calvin and the relationship of this concept with the early development of capitalism in Europe. The Protestant work ethic is the idea that it's the duty and responsibility of a person to achieve whatever success they can through working hard, maintaining self-discipline, and living thriftily, with this way of life being a sign to others that God saves them.

Of course, this means that the Protestant work ethic encourages individualism and entrepreneurship and thus was used as the earliest known justification of capitalism, not as the idea that enabled the emergence of capitalism. As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels pointed out, with dialectical materialism, society comprises a base, the economy and mode of production, the superstructure, the politics and government, ethics and morality accepted by the populace, law, culture, and religion. The base determines the nature of the superstructure, which exists in a way and form that best promotes, organizes, and maintains the base.

That means that when the material conditions of a society change, like a new kind of economic system or economic crisis, new viewpoints will come into being as a reflection of this change, or new political, social, economic, and cultural institutions will develop to reinforce the base. Once capitalism started to emerge due to technological innovation leading to progress, the societal worldview had to change, so feudalism was no longer being reinforced, but capitalism was. First came the Protestant Reformation, and later the Age of Enlightenment as how the capitalist mode of production was to be maintained and its political system of a democratic republic solidified.

As for "protections for individual property rights and the right to earn and keep earnings apart from excessive government regulation and taxation." Although that partly describes the capitalist state's role within the capitalist system concerning the capitalist class, it doesn't elucidate the part of workers. Under capitalism, workers are paid back, in wages and salaries, only a tiny fraction of the economic wealth their labor power produces. Ergo, workers aren't afforded a right to keep all of the financial wealth they produce, for capitalism is predicated on the economic exploitation of workers, and the capitalist state's role is to facilitate and protect that system of exploitation. It is a systematic redistribution of wealth from the producing class - the working class - to the idle and parasitic class - the capitalist class.

Be well
Good evening to all
Redflag

Competition promotes diligence in labor, quality in workmanship, and affordability of products. Communism does none of those things.

 

[Boris Norris]

In response to my introduction in this forum's Introduction section, mark francis wrote, "I am sorry you find Marxism attractive despite its failure to benefit nations that got trapped under its fascist ideology."

Firstly, I respectfully submit that fascism hasn't anything to do with Marxism aside from its being used by bourgeois societies to thwart communist movements within those societies. More broadly, fascism is the "iron hoop" used to prop up capitalism during crises of accumulation/economic depressions, i.e., Germany during the 1920s and '30s. The fact that no fascist movement has ever come to fruition within any socialist experiment, either past or present, is sufficient to understand the point.

Secondly, throughout their respective socialist experiments, workers' lives in the U.S.S.R., the GDR, and other former socialist societies improved immensely. Average life expectancy in the Soviet Union, for example, went from 32 years in 1917 to 68 years by 1975.

Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, homelessness, and other social ills were virtually and easily eliminated in socialist societies. I say "easily" because those pathologies are all but effortlessly eliminated when doing so becomes a governmental priority, unlike in the U.S.

Interestingly, the lives of American workers also improved because of the Bolshevik Revolution. The progressive achievements won by Soviet workers pressured the U.S. capitalist state to concede reforms for American workers. Reforms including homeownership, desegregation, investments in education, public healthcare, etc.

Concerning homeownership, in a 1917 Washington Post op-ed, New York financier and banker Simon Straus wrote, "Widespread and successful homeowning activities in the U.S. would do more to alleviate social unrest and build a bulwark against the encroachments of Bolshevism than any other development."

The Labor Department then initiated its Own Your Own Home program, later led by Herbert Hoover, which provided liquidity for banks toward the expansion of home loans. In 1933, the New Deal's "Home Owners' Loan Corporation was launched, which granted home loans to workers, making homeownership far more accessible and committing workers psychologically to capitalism.

In response to Sputnik and the education gap between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., the U.S. enacted 1958's National Defense Education Act, which made low-interest student loans, augmenting higher education. While noting the program's success, the late U.S. Senator Stewart McClure said, "I think if there was one thing I did during my work on the hill, it was to focus attention on the opportunity that Sputnik gave all of us who had been struggling for decades to establish a federal program of monetary aid to public education."

But with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and, therefore, the elimination of a countervailing system, the U.S. capitalist state began to claw back New Deal programs and other social reforms. Capitalism is, again, free to be as mean as it needs to be.

Be well.
Redflag

Try and make it Longer and mills and Boon would be interested in it.

 

[pjmret]

china used socialism to vastly improve the lives of people in their country. 800 million lifted out of poverty. that's impressive. The communist party is doing some good work there in terms of economics

 

[mark francis]

china used socialism to vastly improve the lives of people in their country. 800 million lifted out of poverty. that's impressive. The communist party is doing some good work there in terms of economics

I guess some people think improving the lives of 800 million is worth the price of destroying the lives of 1 million slaves in the process.

 

[pjmret]

I guess some people think improving the lives of 800 million is worth the price of destroying the lives of 1 million slaves in the process.

Who said it was? That's a subjective value judgment of course that everyone can make or not make. It would be an interesting analysis to see how much slaves did or did not contribute to that effect and all that stuff but as always you come up with the most simplistic possible post showing how simplistically you think

 

[Redflag]

Competition promotes diligence in labor, quality in workmanship, and affordability of products. Communism does none of those things.

If that blanket statement were true, the Soviet Union would not have transformed itself from an impoverished peasant society in 1917 to an industrial powerhouse that had outperformed the U.S. concerning the space race by the 1970s. China would not now be on its way to being the world's most robust economy. And among many other such examples, Cuba would not have been able to transition from being the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere in 1959 to having the second highest standard of living in Latin America by the 1980s. Yes, Cuba's living standards have fallen since then. However, Cubans still enjoy a higher average life expectancy than the U.S., as well as lower rates of infant mortality, neonatal death, and illiteracy. So, too, is homelessness nonexistent in Cuba.

And if "diligence of labor" pertains to the persistent need of workers under capitalism to work laboriously, that is true. Indeed, under capitalism, an ever-growing need exists for an ever-increasing number of workers to work at two or even three jobs simultaneously to survive, let alone live.

Per the "affordability of products," it was once the case that the average family could afford a wide array of commodities, with only one family member having to work. But with the capitalist system's progressive era long past, that is no longer the case; even with two members engaged in the labor market, most families' consumer spending is financed by debt. American families are towing $17.29 trillion in debt, with the average household debt being $103.358. It is representative of an impending catastrophe.

 

[Redflag]

I guess some people think improving the lives of 800 million is worth the price of destroying the lives of 1 million slaves in the process.

Although an estimated 5.5 million Chinese peasants are indeed compelled to work as chattel slaves and sex slaves, it is a function of highly illegal behaviors carried out by rogue capitalists that are in no way condoned by the CCP. China constitutes an enormous landmass and a gigantic population that is difficult to control. However, the Chinese government has made headway against these antisocial practices and continues to do so.

I'll leave the subject of wage slavery stand as a subject for another time. But suffice it to say for now that the U.S. has no room in which to criticize any other society concerning slavery of any stripe.

Be well.
Redflag

 

[the annoying thing]

In response to my introduction in this forum's Introduction section, mark francis wrote, "I am sorry you find Marxism attractive despite its failure to benefit nations that got trapped under its fascist ideology."

Firstly, I respectfully submit that fascism hasn't anything to do with Marxism aside from its being used by bourgeois societies to thwart communist movements within those societies. More broadly, fascism is the "iron hoop" used to prop up capitalism during crises of accumulation/economic depressions, i.e., Germany during the 1920s and '30s. The fact that no fascist movement has ever come to fruition within any socialist experiment, either past or present, is sufficient to understand the point.

Secondly, throughout their respective socialist experiments, workers' lives in the U.S.S.R., the GDR, and other former socialist societies improved immensely. Average life expectancy in the Soviet Union, for example, went from 32 years in 1917 to 68 years by 1975.

Poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, homelessness, and other social ills were virtually and easily eliminated in socialist societies. I say "easily" because those pathologies are all but effortlessly eliminated when doing so becomes a governmental priority, unlike in the U.S.

Interestingly, the lives of American workers also improved because of the Bolshevik Revolution. The progressive achievements won by Soviet workers pressured the U.S. capitalist state to concede reforms for American workers. Reforms including homeownership, desegregation, investments in education, public healthcare, etc.

Concerning homeownership, in a 1917 Washington Post op-ed, New York financier and banker Simon Straus wrote, "Widespread and successful homeowning activities in the U.S. would do more to alleviate social unrest and build a bulwark against the encroachments of Bolshevism than any other development."

The Labor Department then initiated its Own Your Own Home program, later led by Herbert Hoover, which provided liquidity for banks toward the expansion of home loans. In 1933, the New Deal's "Home Owners' Loan Corporation was launched, which granted home loans to workers, making homeownership far more accessible and committing workers psychologically to capitalism.

In response to Sputnik and the education gap between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., the U.S. enacted 1958's National Defense Education Act, which made low-interest student loans, augmenting higher education. While noting the program's success, the late U.S. Senator Stewart McClure said, "I think if there was one thing I did during my work on the hill, it was to focus attention on the opportunity that Sputnik gave all of us who had been struggling for decades to establish a federal program of monetary aid to public education."

But with the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. and, therefore, the elimination of a countervailing system, the U.S. capitalist state began to claw back New Deal programs and other social reforms. Capitalism is, again, free to be as mean as it needs to be.

Be well.
Redflag

They indeed are failed social experments

 

[pjmret]

They indeed are failed social experments

is china a failed experiment?

 

[mark francis]

If that blanket statement were true, the Soviet Union would not have transformed itself from an impoverished peasant society in 1917 to an industrial powerhouse that had outperformed the U.S. concerning the space race by the 1970s. China would not now be on its way to being the world's most robust economy. And among many other such examples, Cuba would not have been able to transition from being the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere in 1959 to having the second highest standard of living in Latin America by the 1980s. Yes, Cuba's living standards have fallen since then. However, Cubans still enjoy a higher average life expectancy than the U.S., as well as lower rates of infant mortality, neonatal death, and illiteracy. So, too, is homelessness nonexistent in Cuba.

And if "diligence of labor" pertains to the persistent need of workers under capitalism to work laboriously, that is true. Indeed, under capitalism, an ever-growing need exists for an ever-increasing number of workers to work at two or even three jobs simultaneously to survive, let alone live.

Per the "affordability of products," it was once the case that the average family could afford a wide array of commodities, with only one family member having to work. But with the capitalist system's progressive era long past, that is no longer the case; even with two members engaged in the labor market, most families' consumer spending is financed by debt. American families are towing $17.29 trillion in debt, with the average household debt being $103.358. It is representative of an impending catastrophe.

The USSR went bankrupt in 1991.

 

[the annoying thing]

is china a failed experiment?

Yes the people have low wages a repressed life style slaves communist rule
sure you’ve heard of the Great Wall of China but have you heard of the Great Firewall of China?


The Chinese government blocks most major websites and apps, the most notable of which are Google and YouTube as well as social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.


Keeping in touch with friends and family, finding a decent movie to watch or even doing basic research can be a major problem.

The Chinese do not share information and lie and hide the truth , very limited freedoms so yes it failed do you recal when the chinese ran over protesters with tanks they have a brutal goverment

 

[pjmret]

Yes the people have low wages a repressed life style slaves communist rule
sure you’ve heard of the Great Wall of China but have you heard of the Great Firewall of China?


The Chinese government blocks most major websites and apps, the most notable of which are Google and YouTube as well as social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.


Keeping in touch with friends and family, finding a decent movie to watch or even doing basic research can be a major problem.

The Chinese do not share information and lie and hide the truth , very limited freedoms so yes it failed do you recal when the chinese ran over protesters with tanks they have a brutal goverment

low wages? what ae you talking about, *****? lol
per capita income, ppp basis, is $21K, that's hardly "low wages". top 1/3 of the world, just behind capitalistic and oil rich mexico.

World Bank Open Data

Free and open access to global development data

data.worldbank.org

considering where they were in the 1970s, its a ;huge improvement. its 600 times higher than then. economically its a huge success story, 800 MILLION people lifted out of poverty.

you just can't get past your need to hate china. lol.