The Offtopicgrad Soviet: A Place to Discuss All Things Red

That "thing" is socialism. But you can call it what you want, since the process is happening, we just gave it a name.

As distribution and accumulation becomes more centralized (Wal-Mart, Chase Bank) the "socialization" of production has happened -- just with private ownership of those means.
Now, we have the "corporation, which is social, imo, the difference being who gets to keep the "profit," and who has controlling interest.

Under socialism, that "profit" (we call is surplus value -- unpaid labor) goes back to society, is socially owned.

Well that's certainly one option, and there are liberating ways of doing it and there are oppressive ways of doing it and both the liberators and the oppressors are happy to tell everyone else they're leading the socialist revolution to freedom.
 
He's not defending capitalism, he just thinks it's the best system out there. It's the same "logical and impartial" card that conservatives love to play. I'm not surprised to find it in the repertoire of such a Popper adulator as Alassius; his writing is laced with it, especially the theory surrounding The Open Society. He's not pro-capitalism or pro-liberalism, of course not. That would be too blatantly picking sides. But if one establishes standards which only ideology could possibly meet, then that's the exact same thing. It's like when there's a job opening, the qualifications of which can only be met by one person: the person they want to take the job, but have to technically put on the general job market for all applicants, to keep up appearances of fairness.

while that's interesting you seem to miss the essence of Hygro's post: if one has experienced both real existing Socialism and capitalism, and concludes that capitalism constitutes the less worse scenario, you're saying "that's picking sides". But is that really the point?
 
You know, maybe, though I doubt it, the DPRK can't take care of its people... it has been under economic blockade for decades, after all.

Maybe. We can only speculate. In the meantime, we know they spend the lion's share of their time saber-rattling with the South and spending money that apparently isn't there on making sabers with which to rattle.
 
Well that's certainly one option, and there are liberating ways of doing it and there are oppressive ways of doing it and both the liberators and the oppressors are happy to tell everyone else they're leading the socialist revolution to freedom.

Perhaps... but the "Chavez Revolution" started with a failed coup, then got IN via elections and stayed in power via democrati constituent assembly.

Bolivia did an election/ constitution thing.

Cuba used a guerrilla war as a focus around political demands.

These countries are building socialism, which, like all class systems, involves oppression -- but of the minority "owners" in favor of the majority.

That's how I see it.
 
So I'm not saying it, but...yeah I'm saying it.

http://rt.com/news/ussr-collapse-mistake-poll-585/

Majority in former Soviet states believe breakup was harmful mistake – poll

More than two decades after the Soviet Union collapsed a majority of citizens in the independent states believe that the split brought nothing but harm, according to a new Gallup poll.

Gallup a research-based, global performance-management consulting company released a poll conducted in 11 countries of the former Soviet bloc asked participants whether the “breakup of the Soviet Union benefitted or harmed this country?”

Overall statistics revealed that 51 percent of the combined total said that breakup hurt their country’s national interest while only 24 percent argued in favor of independence.

Kazakhstanis, Azerbaijanis and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. In Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Russia people answered they see “harm” three times more often than “benefit.” In Georgia, the people are more or less split.

The survey also reveals that those who had conscious experience of living in the USSR are nearly three times more prone to say its collapse harmed the country. People under 30 are split on the issue with 33 percent seeing harm and 30 percent – benefit, while 20 percent admit they don’t know and refused to answer.

The Gallup study concluded that those with higher education are more likely to accept and support the benefits that came from the split with Moscow, with Kyrgyzstan being the exception.

Those states that have witnessed ongoing conflict, violence or ethnic tensions are likely see greater harm from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the research says.

People who say that "most people” in their home states are afraid to express their political views voted in favor of Soviet conditions, while those who claimed that that "no one" is afraid in their country voted in favour of independence. The figures suggest “the freedom they thought they might have after the fall of the Soviet Union has not materialized,” the study claims.

Thirty percent of residents of 11 former republics who believe that future generations have the opportunity to learn and grow see the benefits gained after independence, compared with 18 percent among those who do not see such an opportunity.

“Overall, residents who see opportunities for their children and themselves to succeed are more likely to say the breakup benefited their country than those who do not,” the study says.

As for the Russians, 55 percent say it harmed their lifestyle with only 19 percent believing that the collapse improved life.

The Gallup study was based on personal interviews of at least 1,000 people conducted between June and August 2013 in each of the sampling countries, aged 15 and older. Uzbekistan, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia despite formerly being a part of the Soviet Union were excluded from the polling.


Link to video.

Also, that video is awesome en Espanol!
 
Today is 134-th anniversary of Stalin's birthday.



Inhabitants of Stalin's hometown Gori in Georgia are collecting signatures to re-erect his statue in the city.
 
That's what I saw with my eyes.

I dunno. I grew up in capitalist countries where there are people as poor or almost as poor as that. I wasn't born rich either and have seen much more spartan conditions.

Poverty exists everywhere. The bankruptcy of the global capitalist system lies in its failure to actively seek to address it. I'm sure you've heard plenty about the widening income gap in contemporary times.
 
Cheezy the Wiz said:
So I'm not saying it, but...yeah I'm saying it.
Having read into the breakup of the Soviet Union, I'm not really all that surprised that the Russians and Ukrainians would view it like that. Russia alone had something like 10 million excess deaths due to the collapse of the economy.
 
Kazakhstanis, Azerbaijanis and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. In Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Russia people answered they see “harm” three times more often than “benefit.” In Georgia, the people are more or less split.
This certainly puts a completely different spin on the recent protests in Ukraine.
 
So...

What did you think of Dr Zhivago?


Link to video.

(Really crap voice-over, btw.)

How close is the film to Pasternak's novel?

I thought it was a nice David Lean film.
 
I thought the central message was that individual experience trumps politics of any stripe.
 
Can't say anything, didn't see this movie.

Interestingly enough, just recently read an article of philologist and journalist who watched three movie adaptations of this novel to make analysis - he writes that David Lean's movie is the worst one, and more so, absolutely awful and catastrophic version, which has nothing to do with the novel.

He said that the image of Varykino homestead from this movie from now on, will be his nightmare until the end of his days :)

I'm not sure I can explain it, but indeed, this image of "Russian manor" causes mixed reaction of "WTF???" and hysterical laughter.
 
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