ID: WookieeMark @EvilGenXer posted:

"OK so look, Capitalism is right wing.

Period.

If you are pro-capitalism, you are Right Wing.

There is no pro-capitalist Left. That’s a polite fiction in the US that no one can afford any longer as the ecosystem is actually collapsing around us."

  • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    31·
    3 days ago

    North Korea was ahead of South Korea in economic development up to the 1960s, IIRC. Happiness is of course mandated by the party.

    This has little to do with communism though. Centrally planned economies can transform an economy rapidly from agrarian to industrial, improve education and healthcare immensely. The Human cost for this is can be extremely high though.

    • lurklurk@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 days ago

      I found this article on the subject which was pretty interesting. It seems they did develop faster right after the war:

      The North Korean economy initially showed promise. North Korea controlled 80 percent of the peninsula’s coal and minerals as well as the vast majority of heavy machinery from Japanese colonial rule; this advantage allowed the country to rapidly industrialize in the first decade after the Korean War. With total power in its hands, the government ensured that all citizens attained primary and secondary education, and it leveraged its large supply of machinery and electrical power to produce goods and grain for its people.

      Since then, obviously, they have fallen far behind

      • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        31·
        3 days ago

        The Soviet Union also did pretty well overall. The Russian Empire went from a backwards feudal agrarian society and economy to a world superpower in a handful of decades. It wasn’t clear if the Soviet system might have superior outcomes until the 1970s. The Soviet Union ran into huge difficulties after the introduction of semiconductors and computers.

        Happiness wise of course it’s mixed. The lack of political, artistic, and economic freedom made people‘s lives smaller and more grey. There was a huge desire among the population in the Soviet block to leave to a western country. The millions who died from hunger, forced labor, horrible conditions from the 1920s to 1940s certainly weren’t happy.

        • lurklurk@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 days ago

          That sounds more like “pretty well initially” than “pretty well overall”; I guess it’s an effect of the authoritarianism that they get stuck after a while, as people can stay in power even if they’re not doing well

          • bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            If there’s a ton of low hanging fruit to be picked and large developments possible just by sheer brute force, you can achieve quite remarkable effects. These brute force economic developments were effective, but not efficient.

            A huge issue for the Soviets was the immense coverups of failures and underachievements. The plan demands a factory make 10,000 widgets per year. Failure is not an option, because you might get thrown into gulag as a saboteur. So they sacrifice quality or outright lie to meet the quota. If you get that all over the system, you end up with bad data and thus bad decisions.