Charles wrote:
>>It's hard because the Soviet Union (and all socialist
>>inspired economies) had to put so much economic
>>emphasis on military defense because capitalism was
>>constantly invading them or threatening to nuke 'em.
>>This throws off all ability to measure from Soviet and
>>socialist inspired history what might be the benefits
>>of a peaceful socialist development of a regime of
>>safety from our own machines.
David:
>Cop out. In my experience, there was one example of a
>socialist inspired car in the capitalist market: the Yugo.
>Case closed.
Respectfully, David, your response is itself a "cop out." Yugo... you be
nice now.
Just this eve, I was spending some time talking about history with a
friend. She brought out a book with a variety of graphs. The most
salient one, in this regard (thread), was the shift of population from
"agricultural workers" to "industrial workers." The graph only measure
100 years, starting from 1860.
The curves that the UK and US generated with meagre slopes in that time
frame. Those units had made that "relocation" much earlier. Japan's
curve started around the 1880s. The USSR was around 1930. (There were
others, like Turkey, with similar steep relocation curves.)
I mentioned to her, in talking about that, that the one thing that I
found the most knee-jerk and unreflective about the right is that they
make unsophisticated comparisons, usually assuming from some mythical
"ground zero" that the US and Russia started on a level playing field
and only socialism crippled Russia.
I think you may have done something similar by offering the Yugo as a
piece of evidence ("case closed!") when it is really just a propaganda
symbol of something about the historical reality of two very different
cultures and economic developments.
Ken.
--
Hear how he clears the points o' Faith,
Wi' rattlin' an' thumpin'
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath
He's stampan an he's jumpan!
-- Robert Burns
"The Holy Fair"
