[LatteLazy]

I don't actually advocate for communism but...

Is that that different to the Western model: I have a masters degree in physics. I either have to give up on having a family and buying a house and do research / teach. Or I can go work at a bank doing something with no real social value and have an Ok life.

Even down to "if my parents were rich and connected I would have more options" our system mirror the soviet one in actual opportunities and outcomes. We just have better marketing...

[estaset]

Lol, what do you think you'd do in the soviet system? That'd depend on your parents. If they are party members with connections, you'd get some prestigious (by soviet standards) job. The coolest were to do with production of food, distribution (because then you can "distribute" some to your pockets), embassies (you can go to work in GDR, almost "капстрана", and smuggle some jeans/parfume or something), party apparatus (you're the highest class: you've got your own shops with stuff that isn't available for laymen since 1917, hospitals with western drugs, vip rooms in stations and airports, special reserved train cars and hotel rooms just in case you show up, and gourmet food at prices fixed in 1939). If your parents aren't important after graduation you'd be sent to some remote Shitville in the middle of nowhere, say as a physics teacher's assistant, to redeem your "free" education, no choice, you're "allocated" to "uplift the province", off you go.

[LatteLazy]

That's sort of my point: It's about the same as our current system here in the west because your "choices" are very limited and the outcomes you get primarily depend on your parents' positions...

It doesn't actually matter what system you are stuck with. It matters whether that system offers you actual opportunities and choices. Both can do that. Both can fail to do that. Right now, we in the west are failing.

[ityngyn]

Seriously? Do you stay in 1hr lines every morning to buy bread and milk? Do you need a year savings and connections to buy furniture or tableware? Can you visit a neighbouring city without asking permission of officials? Do you need a registration of your address at the police, do you need a permission of your employer for it, would you be detained by the first police patrol without it? Can you resign and live off your savings without being arrested? Can you go somewhere during work hours and not being detained? Does your employer uses you as free labor for gathering veggies in the fields? Are you forced to take part in marches and clean up events during your weekends? Are you forced to spend 2 years of your life in the army, can you be sent to Afganistan? Can you leave the country for a personal purpose of yours and without testifying before the commission of homeland security, do you need to pass an ideology exam for that, do you need references and impeccable biography? Can you buy a car, do you need to wait for 5-10 years for that, do you need to prove the sources of income and your __necessity__ (why you need it) to the officials? Do your dentists spend 5-15 minutes per patient, do they have to serve at least 40 people per shift? The list of qustions is endless.

[LatteLazy]

I think you've missed my point here. I am absolutely NOT advocating for communism. I am advocating for opportunity. Right now, we provide very very little of that.

We also ignore our own system's similarities to the failing parts of communism. Take for instance your own question:

>Do you stay in 1hr lines every morning to buy bread and milk? Do you need a year savings and connections to buy furniture or tableware

Of course I don't. Wasting an hour a day for essentials would be terrible right?

Instead, as a rich western capitalist, I waste 2 hours a day commuting to and from a job because our free market has totally failed to provide affordable housing for working people.

It would be madness to have a system where people wasted an hour a day getting bread. So how is it so sensible that the same people waste 2 hours because of crippling housing shortages?

You can do the same comparison with 101 other things like education. I am not required to work for the state to repay my communist state education on pain of arrest. Instead I am required to work for private companies to pay my student loan on pain of homelessness and starvation. But neither system has much opportunity right?

[Dma54rhs]

In Soviet Union you were expected to do both and for lousy pay. The joke about women was that they were expected to with in male fields and be there traditional housekeeper at the same time.

[LatteLazy]

The great success of the soviets was getting people from farms to factories (big gain in income and opportunities). The great failure was not getting them any further. It's sort of interesting looking at the stats from Stalin's time. He took the USSR from a feudal society to industrial society. I think this is an under appreciated ability of communism (the same thing has happened in China, Vietnam, Cuba etc). The problem is communism cannot get you any further than that (or so it seems). Hence countries stating "communist" and embracing private industry and free markets (Vietnam and China).

It makes me wonder what we will do next. Is the service economy the final form? Will we need different political/economic models to move to whatever the next form is?

[estaset]

> The great success of the soviets was getting people from farms to factories

People working at farms ("колхоз") got their passports in the 70s. You have no right to leave without a passport, that's a criminal offence. Not to mention you must be registered at a specific address ("прописка", "регистрация") or you'd be detained by the first police patrol. And they got their first salaries in the 50s. Farmers in the USSR were effectively serfs for the most part of history. Slogans aside, no one got them anywhere.

> He took the USSR from a feudal society to industrial society.

Thanks, american taxpayers and spiness commie sympathizing administrations for sponsoring and building the "soviet" industry.

[nickpp]

The difference is you: you have choices, and they are your choices.

Under communism you'd just get told what to do, by others.

In capitalism, if the system is not providing you opportunities, you can go out and attempt to make your own opportunity. It's damn hard, near impossible, but nobody is stopping you try. Under communism, it was illegal and they would shoot you for it.

[LatteLazy]

Not really though. My choice is to do what others say or go starve on the street. That's the exact same choice communism offered. Capitalism only actually offers choices when there is a lot of opportunity. But we have drained the opportunity out of the current system.

I don't think people actually really care about communism vs capitalism. They want opportunity. When communism provided that, it did great. When it stopped it fell (after a few shitty decades). Now capitalism has stopped actually giving people actual opportunities...