If you drag everyone down to the ground that’s kinda what happens.
Opps, turns out creating a bunch of charts without fixing the value makes life in the USSR look amazing… Only no, no it was not. Go back make all of your charts again, but this time dont use relative change or log to make things look like they were closer or better.
Oh man, what did the US and UK have that the USSR didn’t? That’s right, a giant fucking empire grinding hundreds of millions of third world slaves into the dirt.
And yet, even without that the USSR was growing so much faster it would have caught up to and surpassed them eventually - until they couped it, destroyed it and ravaged its people and economy.
Look at where the U.S.S.R started and also 1940-1945 in comparison to the U.S. Eastern Europe was just dirt poor, and then relative to the U.S took a massive hit as Nazis ravaged their countries. Looking at relative growth of GDP is valid because it equalizes for how little the U.S.S.R started out with, and what it overcame. The U.S.S.R was not perfect by any means, but materially life in the U.S.S.R got better at a faster rate than capitalist countries, and those graphs also show that more people enjoyed that growth than those in capitalists countries where GDP is basically just a measure of “how rich the rich are.”
That’s pretty wrong though. Check some numbers on USSR citizens pre-fall and compare them with some European countries and thr US at the time.
Look I appreciate value and history of socialism, but suggesting that life was good under Soviet rule ignores reality. If you talk to people who lived under it life was so bad that risking death and imprisonment to flee to the west was a worthwhile endeavor. Bread lines existed, famine happened, quality of goods was shockingly bad, violence was how order was maintained, and the idea of free speech and discourse even in ones own home came with great personal risk.
Now, dont think for a second that just because I take issue with remembering the USSR with rose glasses I think things are all rainbows and holding hands in the west throughout history. Capitalism is clearly more destructive to the world. Capitalism created global warming and climate change, it has extracted nearly all wealth and value from people to the extent that most people in the US struggle with basic needs.
Suggesting that authoritarian police states like the USSR are where life was good is a dangerous re-painting of history, as is suggesting that capitalism comes with no risks or costs to humanity. We obviously need something better, but the USSR is not the history lesson we should base our next society on.
I was specifically commenting on some common economic figures I’ve seen. I’m not into authoritarian governments.
Speaking of experiences though, the systems in the Eastern bloc weren’t identical in every country and for everyone. I know people who feel the regime they escaped was hell on earth. I know people who lived well and have been worse off ever since the collapse. This survey from a few years ago provides some insight on people’s attitudes in aggregate:
I grew up in Soviet union. Life there was absolutely fine. What you’re spewing here is absolute nonsense.
