One of the things I've always appreciated about the WSN list is the
broader, international perspective that many writers bring to the list.
It is a refreshing break from so much of U.S. social science, which is
generally very narrow and "U.S.-centric." That's why I've been somewhat
astounded at the recent discussions about "capitalism and socialism."
So many of the comparisons between the USSR and the US are taken so
utterly out of international and historical context as to sound like the
rather narrow patriotic propaganda many of us were subjected to in the
1950's. Without attempting to get into the detailed discussions about
the failures and successes of the USSR, some points are worth noting:
OF COURSE the USSR has had a lower standard of living than the U.S. or
England. The USSR lost something like 20 million, or was it 30 million
people killed in World War II and had the equivalent of their New York,
Chicago, Detroit, etc. devastated. A disproportionate number of those
who died were inthe more productive 15-50 age group. How can anyone
make any kind of reasonable comparison between standard of living in the
USSR and the U.S.? Furthermore, the U.S. has had a powerful, highly
profitable international economic empire from which massive profits were
extracted. The Soviet Empire was primarily military and ultimately
drained resources from the USSR. And in 1917, the Russian Empire was
something of a backwater in terms of modernization, etc., with dozens of
languages, ethnic groups, and religions. Somehow they took the full
force of the Nazis and destroyed that regime--killing and capturing far,
far, far more Nazis than the U.S. did. (Although the saturation bombing
of civilian areas in places like Dresden did narrow the gap a little.)
People write about the 800-1000 dead in Tienamien Square, although it
is a massacre in scale to national population perhaps only 5% as severe
as the massacre of students in Mexico City in 1968. From Chile's
massacre of 30,000 and impoverishment of millions to El Salvador's
U.S.-funded death squads that killed 50-100,000 people (in a country
one-half of one percent of China's population!), to the CIA influenced
bloodbath in Indonesdia (500,000? in a month or so, and highly lucrative
oil contracts given to imperialist oil companies as the new regime
consolidated its power)---in these places and a hundred more, "highly
successful capitalism" has gained its prosperity on the blood of workers
and peasants. Yes, many died in the USSR, and many of those deaths were
innocent victims. I wonder how many people starved to death in
capitalist India in the early 1930's though?
One can't talk about the "successes" of capitalism based on average
standards of living in the core. Some readers of this list must have an
idea of what is going on in places like Ethiopia, Peru, Mexico, Eastern
Europe, as well as major parts of China. And as far as political
repression is concerned, I invite people to drive around Gary, Indiana
or North Philadelphia, or the west side of Chicago or a hundred other
cities and see how the police can and do stop, harrass, and arrest
people at random. U.S. prisons are flooded with young black men.
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Marxism aspires to a world free of exploitation. Capitalism endorses
exploitation as either a "positive good" or as a "necessary evil."
Maybe it is a unrealistic to think that Marxism will give us a better
world. But it is far, far more unrealistic to think that capitalism can
ever get us there.
Alan Spector