Why Communism Failed
- Thread starter CELTICEMPIRE
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While Mises had a point about the signaling of the price mechanism, But that whole piece isn't really about the fall of communism, but rather to make Mises sound good. And he really doesn't, not when you know more about economics.
The article is really a puff piece for Mises and Austrian economics. And so really tells us nothing of use about the fall of communism.
The article is really a puff piece for Mises and Austrian economics. And so really tells us nothing of use about the fall of communism.
kramerfan86
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There is no need for articles, the reason is very simple: human nature. In order to transition to communism you need to hand large amounts of power to a central government to enforce it, governments are run by people and people like power. People are greedy, corrupt, and power hungry. The exact problems that make capitalism bad at times dont disappear because you want to do communism IMO.
Terxpahseyton
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Mostly, duh, flavored with annoyance about assumptions subtly webbed into the article which are in dire need of second-guessing. Like that one needs private property to have a market.
That one can't just centrally plan an entire economy is pretty common knowledge nowadays and pretty self-explanatory, too if you ask me. But alright, cuddos to Mises for seeing this right away without the wisdom of hindsight.
However, that doesn't mean there aren't viable alternatives to our current system. Just not a simple one like "let's plan everything!".
@kramerfan86
It is funny how you can know that democratic Communism must turn undemocratic if there never was a democratic Communism to turn undemocratic, just some revolutionary democratic buds - which are always cut off easily.
That one can't just centrally plan an entire economy is pretty common knowledge nowadays and pretty self-explanatory, too if you ask me. But alright, cuddos to Mises for seeing this right away without the wisdom of hindsight.
However, that doesn't mean there aren't viable alternatives to our current system. Just not a simple one like "let's plan everything!".
@kramerfan86
It is funny how you can know that democratic Communism must turn undemocratic if there never was a democratic Communism to turn undemocratic, just some revolutionary democratic buds - which are always cut off easily.
Those are some shockingly bad examples given how many railroads, bridges and dams are built by states even in "capitalist" societies and how even when private companies do them it's generally through a tender process overseen by a state authority of some kind. Infrastructure planning is one of the areas where, you know, planning is needed. Functional and effective electricity systems and transport networks don't just spring forth by themselves out of the anarchy of the free market.
CELTICEMPIRE
Zulu Conqueror
I'm not saying that the government should never use public money in infrastructure projects. I'm just saying that the free market is far superior to Communism.
aelf
Ashen One
Enforce what?
Communism is not an institution that is the opposite of the free market.
Terxpahseyton
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@CELTICEMPIRE
Here is a suggestion. Why don't you just drop the term communism and stick with centrally planned economy instead? It seems to be what you actually are talking about and would a go a long way in preventing some confusion.
Here is a suggestion. Why don't you just drop the term communism and stick with centrally planned economy instead? It seems to be what you actually are talking about and would a go a long way in preventing some confusion.
Define "free market". If you went with Mises definition, or the definition of the website you linked that article from, then we need a companion article named "Why Capitalism Failed: It listened to Mises".
aelf
Ashen One
I believe that's not the correct term either. Arguably, most economies today are centrally-planned, since their management is within the purview of modern-day governance. Command economy is probably the most accurate term, but then I'm not sure what the basis for equating communism with command economy is.
Terxpahseyton
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Fine, and to answer your question: history.
Princeps
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The lack of market economy definitely distorted the soviet economy in many ways, but none of them were really critical to its collapse. The planners didn't concern themselves with prices too much, which did lead to inefficiency, some products were too heavy because the producers didn't bother to save materials or were required to use all the materials for a small number of goods, some goods were too light and fragile because producers tried everything to reach a production quota with too few materials. It all lead to many laughable situations, especially as the planning stagnated once everyone knew it was a failure. Nevertheless, I think the primary reason for soviet economic downfall was military spending, which was simply massive and crowded out social spending and consumer priorities, the productive sort of investments.
History_Buff
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And that's where you're wrong.
Saying communism is superior to the free market is a pointless thing to say. If we embrace either of those ideals, our economy will suffer. Communism lacks price signalling, markets fail. It's simple economic fact.
The ideal economic system lies somewhere between those ideas, and likely is not a static target at all.
aimeeandbeatles
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Does this mean that what might seem Good at One Time may be Bad at Another Time and it should depend on the situation?
rugbyLEAGUEfan
Deity
@Princeps....Agreed . Excess turnips and lightbulb shortages is just that , excess turnips and lightbulb shortages . Surly it took far more to bring down such a powerful empire
History_Buff
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Essentially yes.
Though it's worth saying that, beyond the obvious need to constantly refine things on their own merits, the extremes are extremely dangerous places to be, and almost never the preferred solution anyway.
innonimatu
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Yes, but in essence the reasons the economy (nearly) stagnated there were three:
1) End of increasing efficiencies through technological development in industry (the "west" had that too).
2) Lack of a commercial services economy to "produce GDP" after that event. What the west achieved through the privatization of social relations, the soviets were reluctant to allow. Their was the more humane ideal there, imho.
3) The end of state-enforced hard-labor imposed on soviet workers. Let's not pretend that Stalin's economic development policy wasn't every bit as exploitative of workets as that of the most greedy western capitalists, towards the same goal of capital accumulation and reinvestment. The end of this left workets. eventually (the process took a couple of decades) virtually free to decide how hard they'd actually work. They still worked anyway, and the USSR was still getting many projects done in the 1980s (it was still second only to the US as a developed economy, though its huge size meant that infrastructure and transport, there as in the US, cost much more than in, say, Germany or Japan.
The USSR was, economically, successful. It's standard of living by the 1980s was very good, espe4cially compared to what it had been not so many years ago. The rise was amazing. Never mind the talk about stagnation then, Japan is stagnated now for what, 20 years, and no one is yet saying that it is a failure and must collapse. The "west" was dangerously close to continuing stagnation also until it figured out that creating new jobs in services which were previously not within the commercial realm was a way to solve its unemployment problem in the 1980s. And much has been said about the USSR not having led the way in the spread of domestic computers. So what, after a few years the west has already outsourced most of its manufacturing anyway...
The USSR and the "West" were roughly on pair, economically, right until the late 80s. The west had more diversity of each type of product, and better quality on the top, but the difference in the average stuff wasn't big, not the difference in the "way of life".
I disagree. The USSR could sustain its defense spending. The only way its military policy weakened stability was through its involvement in Afghanistan. And even that would not have been enough. No, it was Gorbachev's utterly idiotic management of his "Perestroika" that caused the collapse of the USSR. Not the military spending, and certainly not the economy.
I may well be out of my depth here, I haven't studied the later days of the USSR very carefully. But in my opinion the war in Afghanistan and then the spectacle of a government that continually flogged itself with revelations of how nasty it had been in the past, which deliberately resurrected old conflicts... that was what left the USSR vulnerable to collapse, by shattering people's willingness to fight for its continued existence. Even that would not have been enough, as (apart from the Baltic states) the people of the USSR were quite happy with continuing with the union. No, it also took Gorbachev the Idiot's total mismanagement of power politics to allow a coup which, with the USSR frail as it was, shattered it.
aelf
Ashen One
And, of course, I counter that there are no real historical precedents for communism.
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