Russia invades Ukraine

[Ares Land]

Tsarism, post-1991 plutocracy or Putin-era authoritarianism-plus-plutocracy were or are all pretty horrible systems.

The fact remains that all socialist/communist regimes turned out horrible (*) whereas quite a few capitalist regimes turned out okay (even though quite a few are horrible too)

(*)Unless you want to count varieties of mixed economies, such as social-democracies, communists as part of coalition governments, non-plutocratic takes on capitalism as experienced in the post-WWII US, and so on. I think you'd count all of these as capitalist.

Market economies with some aspects of a planned economy have turned out very well. Pure planned economies have invariably been disastrous.

(FWIW I do think the Soviet Union, while overall horrible, definitely had a few redeeming features.)

[Moose-tache]

The fact remains that all socialist/communist regimes turned out horrible (*) whereas quite a few capitalist regimes turned out okay (even though quite a few are horrible too)

This is an interesting beginning to a conversation, but not a great conclusion to one. The "best" Communist country is probably modern Cuba, which is easily a better place to live than half the Capitalist countries out there (it's by far the best country to be poor outside the OECD). But if that's the best case scenario, that's pretty bad.

However, our sample size is pretty small, and not random. Communism was especially popular in the 20th century as a last ditch option for countries in the midst of desperate liberation movements, fighting against one superpower and vulnerable to another. France's economy has done better than Cambodia's, but it's no coincidence that France never had a Khmer Rouge and Cambodia did.

If we compare Cuba to its neighbors, it has the highest HDI in the Greater Antilles (excluding Puerto Rico, which is not independent). Maybe Cuba is better off under Communism than a hypothetical Capitalist Cuba. Hard to say. I'm not sure we can use our dataset uncritically when there are so many overlapping variables.

[zompist]

This is an interesting beginning to a conversation, but not a great conclusion to one. The "best" Communist country is probably modern Cuba, which is easily a better place to live than half the Capitalist countries out there (it's by far the best country to be poor outside the OECD). But if that's the best case scenario, that's pretty bad.

Which era of Cuba are we talking about? In 2019, 32% of the work force was part of the private sector. According to Wikipedia, in 1981 it was 8%.

Or we could look at the percentage of GDP that's government spending. In France it's 62%; compare to Germany at 51% and the US at 46%. (Russia is 39%.) The Heritage Foundation estimates the number for Cuba as 65%. (Maybe not a great source as they're very conservative, but since they hate Cuba they're hardly going to underestimate the number.)

[Moose-tache]

I'm not sure I understand. How does Cuba's government spending relate to what I said?

If you're trying to say Cuba is not a nice place to live, I don't necessarily disagree. But it's doing at least as well as its neighbors, and its social safety net is pretty great. It's a terrible place if you want to start a business, buy imported food, or, you know, vote. But it's probably the least offensive Communist country to live in.

If you're trying to say that Cuba isn't really Communist, I'm not sure if we share a definition, but it's hard to imagine Cuba not qualifying. They only legalized private ownership of the means of production in 2019, and the economy is still dominated by state-owned and state-run industries. You yourself cited the Heritage Foundation, who classify Cuba as "least economically free," which I assume is code for "most Communist."

If you're trying to say something else, I'm afraid I'm going to need more clues.

[Ares Land]

However, our sample size is pretty small, and not random. Communism was especially popular in the 20th century as a last ditch option for countries in the midst of desperate liberation movements, fighting against one superpower and vulnerable to another. France's economy has done better than Cambodia's, but it's no coincidence that France never had a Khmer Rouge and Cambodia did.

That's kind of an odd point -- if you want a good-sized sample, with a convenient comparison to non-communist countries, how about the whole of Eastern Europe?
As I recall, the best performing communist country was East Germany -- about the perfect case for that sort of comparison. It ended up noticeably below West Germany. Plus the Wall and omnipresent secret police.

I do know that West Germany had its faults, 2022 unified Germany has its faults, and East Germany had its redeeming points. I still think West Germany was by far the nicest place. (I admit the ubiquitous Stasi surveillance is kind of a turn-off for me.)

[zompist]

My point is that almost everyone has a mixed system these days. Cuba has been experimenting with more of a private market since 1992 at least. Maybe out of desperation, but it turns out "depend on a lot of support from the USSR" wasn't a sustainable model, so they tried something else.

A single statistic is probably misleading, but when the government/GDP ratio is almost the same in France and Cuba, how useful is it to place them in completely opposite categories, one of them "irremediably capitalist", the other "unrepentently communist"?

As it happens, I haven't been able to join in the usual leftist celebration of Cuba a) after every other country in Latin America managed to get rid of their dictatorships, and b) after meeting a guy who was thrown into a concentration camp there for being gay. Terrible things happen all over Latin America and always have, but I don't think Cuba is either an outstanding horror or an outstanding success.

[Moose-tache]

OK, well I don't disagree with any of that. Ares claimed that "all socialist/communist countries turned out horrible," and I said Cuba was merely mediocre-to-OK, and thus an exception. I made it clear that I don't think Cuba is a wonderful place, just decent on the sliding scale of Caribbean nations and compared to other troubled Capitalist countries (YMMV; I used HDI and social safety net as an indicator of decentness. For some, lack of political freedom will be a deal breaker, as it is in many Capitalist dictatorships). Also, since I don't expect Ares to disagree about Cuba being Communist, I didn't bother "proving" that it is.

But since you mention it, I guess it is worth wondering about. No economy is, as you point out, 100% Capitalist or Communist. I would say that the defining feature that distinguishes the two is private ownership of the means of production. That's changed a lot in Cuba over the last few years, but it's fair to say that private ownership of the means of production is still pretty restricted. I would argue that government budget as a share of GDP is pretty useless here. "How large is the government" is a very American Republican definition of communism; government revenue could theoretically be 100% of GDP and still leave all wealth in the hands of plutocrats. Sure, the government could tax the owner of the factory you work at to buy the widgets you make at the factory and give them to you so you can have widgets. But that's basically just UBI or welfare or something else that has nothing to do with Communism.

As an aside, I also don't have much patience for people who feel the need to paper over Cuba's faults. It's inevitable that any country that stands up to American economic hegemony and gets away with it will have stans. I try to ignore them.

[zompist]

But since you mention it, I guess it is worth wondering about. No economy is, as you point out, 100% Capitalist or Communist. I would say that the defining feature that distinguishes the two is private ownership of the means of production. [...] I would argue that government budget as a share of GDP is pretty useless here. "How large is the government" is a very American Republican definition of communism;

If your criterion is state ownership, then looking at the size of the government is a measure of that, and has the advantage of being something you can actually look up.
(Naturally there are methodological quibbles— e.g. do you use gov't/GDP as I did, or number of gov't employees, or what? These will give you different numbers, but they'll mostly correlate with each other— e.g. the measure I used accords with the impressionistic view that the US is more capitalist than Germany, which is more capitalist than France.)

government revenue could theoretically be 100% of GDP and still leave all wealth in the hands of plutocrats.

I don't see how, and I don't see any state that even resembles this. (Maybe you're thinking of kleptocracies like Russia? But the figure for Russia is 39%, less than for the US. And Putin keeps a very close rein on his plutocrats.)

Besides, once you start asking "but who is really in charge", you have to ask that of self-described communist states too. The answer is usually the nomenklatura. You can argue abstractly that "the workers = the state", but it's never worked that way, except maybe for a few months in 1917.

[Travis B.]

Besides, once you start asking "but who is really in charge", you have to ask that of self-described communist states too. The answer is usually the nomenklatura. You can argue abstractly that "the workers = the state", but it's never worked that way, except maybe for a few months in 1917.

This has been a perennial criticism of big-C Communists by other leftists, especially libertarian socialists such as anarchists — anarchists in particular predicted that big-C Communism would turn out this way before the October Revolution. Big-C Communism inevitably results in rule by a new class of professional politicians and bureaucrats rather than rule by the working class.

[Raphael]

Extremely pedantic eye-roll-provoking sidenote: there are no self-described communist states. Leaders of communist-ruled states are generally committed to the Marxist Theory of History, and under that theory, they generally describe their own states as being in the socialist rather than the communist stage of history. (The one exception that I can think of is that in China under Mao, some theorists apparently claimed that the people's communes were already an intermediate stage between the socialist and the communist stage.)

At the same time, describing such states as "socialist" is arguably a slur against non-communist socialists, so I myself usually try to use the term "communist-ruled".

[Travis B.]

Extremely pedantic eye-roll-provoking sidenote: there are no self-described communist states. Leaders of communist-ruled states are generally committed to the Marxist Theory of History, and under that theory, they generally describe their own states as being in the socialist rather than the communist stage of history. (The one exception that I can think of is that in China under Mao, some theorists apparently claimed that the people's communes were already an intermediate stage between the socialist and the communist stage.)

At the same time, describing such states as "socialist" is arguably a slur against non-communist socialists, so I myself usually try to use the term "communist-ruled".

I use "Communist" (note the big "C") because such states are ruled by authoritarian Marxist-Leninist parties known as Communist parties, because I don't believe in the Marxist Theory of History, and because, as you say, calling such states "socialist" is used in turn by rightists to attack non-Communist socialists and even social democrats and social liberals. Note that for me the capitalization of "Communist" is important because lowercase "communist" refers to communist political systems other than authoritarian Marxism-Leninism, which is not truly communist to me in the first place, such as anarcho-communism, council communism, and left communism.

[zompist]

Nice article on the battle for Kyiv: https://www.ft.com/content/e87fdc60-0d5 ... fd22f770e8

Best bits:

* The Ukrainians hid themselves from thermal drones using $1.50 foam mats
* The same government website used for getting drivers' licenses can be used to report Russian troop locations
* Earlier there was flooding in the plains north of Kyiv, and it was assumed Ukraine purposely did this to impede Russian movements. Turns out the Russians did it to themselves by destroying a dam.

Apparently the current Russian plan is to take the Russian troops who failed to take Kyiv and send them to the east to secure a glorious victory before the May 9 holiday. This plan is, as the military dudes say, no bueno.

[bradrn]

* The Ukrainians hid themselves from thermal drones using $1.50 foam mats

In fairness to the Russians, this is just a weakness of all thermal sensors. Any thermal insulator will do — foam mats just happen to be particularly common and effective. Still, the rest of it does show breathtaking incompetence on the part of the Russians, and what we’re seeing now appears no more competent than the rest.

[Linguoboy]

New Ukrainian commemorative stamp:



Someone also updated the Wikipedia page for the Moskva (the flagship of the Russian fleet pictured here) yesterday to say: "Current status: On fire" which gave me a good laugh. A US analyst was quoted today saying it's unclear if it was actually hit by missiles, as the Ukrainian military claims, but the other possibility was that the fire was due to Russian incompetence, so whatever story Russia media tells, it's a big blow to public perceptions of the Russian navy.

Update: The Russian Ministry of Defence has reported that the Moskva sank while being towed to port. They're going with the "incompetence" explanation rather than give Ukraine the satisfaction.

[Travis B.]

Someone also updated the Wikipedia page for the Moskva (the flagship of the Russian fleet pictured here) yesterday to say: "Current status: On fire" which gave me a good laugh. A US analyst was quoted today saying it's unclear if it was actually hit by missiles, as the Ukrainian military claims, but the other possibility was that the fire was due to Russian incompetence, so whatever story Russia media tells, it's a big blow to public perceptions of the Russian navy.

Update: The Russian Ministry of Defence has reported that the Moskva sank while being towed to port. They're going with the "incompetence" explanation rather than give Ukraine the satisfaction.

Thing is, the Russian gov't's explanation almost makes them look more incompetent than the Ukrainian version, because the Russian gov't's version essentially admits that their own crews were astoundingly incompetent to the point that they would allow a fire to reach the magazine, whereas at least the Ukrainian version puts it as their ship was severely damaged, and eventually sank, due to enemy fire (even though it still demonstrates plenty of incompetence on their part because the Moskva had defense systems designed specifically to prevent things like cruise missiles from hitting it).

[Torco]

I wonder if ukraine is going to become russia's afghanistan (well, another one, afghanistan was russia's afghanistan first). not to get all pro-the-russian-narrative, but ukraine does have a nazi problem, and however the formal war ends up ending up, is whatever peace treaty that gets signed going to be accepted by azov? sbovoda? trident? aidar? s14? possibly not. plus, the west is known for funding extremist paramilitary groups (a la muhayadeen) when they're likely to fight its geopolitcal adversaries. things really look grim for the people in that area.

[zompist]

Uh, sure. Russia is an out and out fascist regime, invading its neighbor for no reason, deporting people in territory it controls into reeducation camps, bombing and terrorizing civilians, shooting civilians in the head and leaving them on the ground to rot, using its own goddamn fascist mercenaries (Wagner Group, Kadyrov's thugs), to say nothing of treating its own soldiers like shit and criminalizing all dissent, and Ukraine "has a Nazi problem."

Amazing that of all the events of the 1930s, leftists have decided that the Nazi-Soviet Pact is the golden moment to emulate.

I used to think leftists believed in liberation of some sort. I guess they decided, fuck that, let's cheer on the fucking fascists for the lols.

[Torco]

whoa. zomp, just because someone says something that isn't hurray ukraine boo putin doesn't mean they're some nazbol that wanks to the molotov-ribbentrop. I know you have a side here, but still that's kind of unfair, no? like, did I say glory to russia ZZZZZZZ ? merely musing about the long-term stability of the region is not support for the special operation... or the evil demonic invasion, if you object to the term special operation.

don't get me wrong, what you say is true, russia is p fash and all the rest of it, and all of it is bad (except the no reason part, that's just bad analysis. and no, saying that doesn't mean the same as yey putin: hitler also had reasons for invading poland, and saying that does not make one a nazi, and the us did have reasons for nuking civilian cities, and that doesn't make one a nuke-civilians-apologist, and south africa did have reasons for apartheid, and saying that does not make one pro-apartheid) but do you think ukraine does not have a nazi problem? or that all of the recently very well armed irregulars, political and paramilitary formations will surely fall in line whenever zelensky and putin sign whatever peace they -hopefully soon- will sign?

also, liberation does not very obviously mean perpetual nato victory: is it really so hard to understand that people don't cheer for the us side in a war? i don't have a side here, and I get that you do but people can be something other than either nazbols or pro-nato.

[Ares Land]

but do you think ukraine does not have a nazi problem?

To put things in perspective, the Ukrainian far-right got something like 2% of the vote in the latest elections.

I've read one or two Russian opinion pieces on the subject: their view of the "Nazi problem" and their suggested solution (which is something like complete forced 'reeducation' of the entire Ukrainian population) is completely out of proportion with that number.

FWIW: the far-right gets 42% of the vote in France. Should Russia nuke us entirely, just to be sure?
I don't think you'd be hard pressed to find 2% white nationalists in any country.

(And yes, you will find neo-nazi elements in the military of any country. These folks are drawn to guns and uniforms.)

[zompist]

whoa. zomp, just because someone says something that isn't hurray ukraine boo putin doesn't mean they're some nazbol that wanks to the molotov-ribbentrop.

What the fuck does it mean then when you repeat Putin's propaganda? What does it mean when you pop off about "Nazis" in Ukraine while, you know, pretending that the Wagner Group is a group of tankie choirboys? What does it mean when you call the country being destroyed by a fascist invasion "the US side"?

Your country has a fascist problem, as you know. The US Republicans are pretty well fascist now. Russia is full on fascist. 41% of France voted for the fascist. But of all these threats, the one you're worried about is the Azov battalion. How well do you think they're doing in Mariupol, by the way, as Putin razes the city and bombs hospitals and refugees?

Look, I get it, it's hip to be anti-American, and it's hard for a Latin American to trust the US about anything. But some things are not about America. If leftism just means "fuck America" to you, well, enjoy the fascist century that you're cheering on. There are some things worse than American plutocrats, and if you want them I'm sure you'll get them.

Ukraine, fighting a fascist invasion, is the anti-fascist side. No one's asking you to go and fight or even wave a flag. But repeating Putin's propaganda and making this all about the USA is an insult to Ukraine and Europe.