You misunderstand. Unlike capitalism, socialism doesn't naturally punish lazy people. To make up for that fact, the Soviet state had to take that role instead. So it's not "the Soviets didn't punish lazy people", it's that the government spent all that effort, time, money, etc. to do what the free market does naturally free of charge here.bobinator said:
That's where I think the Soviet Union is kind of a hard example because it was never going to work there. Even in some kind of mythical utopian socialism, you have to put some systems in place that the Soviet Union was never going to have.
It had an inherent imbalance of resources and wealth when it started, and they built in a sort of Russia-bias into the system as well. Especially in non-Russia areas like the Ukraine, people that were actually meeting their quotas and things not being rewarded what they were told they would be was as much of a problem as the lazy people.
I do agree that this universal safety net is an inherent problem with some kind of utopian socialism, I just don't think it was that big of a deal in the Soviet Union.
Put another way, on the list of reasons why the Soviet experiment didn't work, I wouldn't have 'it didn't punish lazy people' near the top of the list.
Good description.bobinator said:aTmAg said:
I would take the real lesson further. Socialism inevitably leads to some form of communism because the lack of incentive encourages laziness. So the state has to provide that incentive through punishment (where the fear comes in). Then they have to set "guidelines" on what the standards of performance are acceptable (where bureaucracy comes in). Basically, the closer to socialism a society ia the more like this show it gets.
I 100% disagree that this is the lesson that should be learned.
What led to this kind of situation in the Soviet Union wasn't the idea of socialism itself. It's that enacting socialism is impossible. Even if 95% of a group of people want some kind of completely egalitarian society, that 5% is enough to ruin the entire thing. So it doesn't work.
The Soviet Union didn't have anything close to socialism. What it had was a sort of psuedo-feudalism where only a certain group of people had access to certain things and the only way to gain access to the class was to be part of the machine.
And all that anybody in the machine wants to do is move up the machine to get better stuff (housing, jobs, schools for their kids, etc) so there is absolutely no incentive to say that something isn't working. So everybody just pretended like everything was working all the time.
It wasn't laziness, in fact many of the people that were part of Chernobyl weren't lazy at all, they worked insanely hard. It's that they built a system that didn't allow for bad news.
Couldn't you say this about almost every socialist country that has ever existed? Maybe outside of some small homogeneous European societies?bobinator said:
The Soviet Union didn't have anything close to socialism. What it had was a sort of psuedo-feudalism where only a certain group of people had access to certain things and the only way to gain access to the class was to be part of the machine.
Boo Weekley said:
Capitalism is not perfect but it is by far the most ideal. Hopefully we can at least agree on that, without any qualifiers?
Nope.Champ Bailey said:
I always thought the lesson to learn from Chernobyl is that government is always incompetent, and having a political structure where government controls everything only exacerbates that.
Yes, I enjoyed it. A great compliment to the series.Swarely said:
Anybody listen to the official podcast? Just started it. It's hosted by Peter Segal of "Wait wait don't tell me" fame.
Yet it seems that those in power over socialist countries tend to think of their people as far more disposable than those in power of capitalist countries. Based on a body count in the many millions.Dr. Teeth said:Nope.Champ Bailey said:
I always thought the lesson to learn from Chernobyl is that government is always incompetent, and having a political structure where government controls everything only exacerbates that.
The lesson that needs to be learned from Chernobyl (and lots of other things) is that, generally, for those in power, the lives of the common people are disposable.
Maintaining the power of the government outweighs the lives of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people.
I think you're both right.Dr. Teeth said:Nope.Champ Bailey said:
I always thought the lesson to learn from Chernobyl is that government is always incompetent, and having a political structure where government controls everything only exacerbates that.
The lesson that needs to be learned from Chernobyl (and lots of other things) is that, generally, for those in power, the lives of the common people are disposable.
Maintaining the power of the government outweighs the lives of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people.
BenFiasco14 said:
Loving this so far except for the stupid British accents
