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TechnoratiIn Eastern Europe, People Pine for Socialism
BELENE, Bulgaria (Reuters) - In the dense forests of the idyllic Danube island of Persin, home to the endangered sea eagle and the pygmy cormorant, lie the ghastly remains of a communist-era death camp.
![[Thousands of supporters of Bulgaria's first democratic party, Union of Democratic Forces, participate in a pre-election rally in this August 26, 1990 photo. 20 years after the fall of communism, nostalgia for the past is growing across the former Soviet bloc. Capitalism's failure to lift living standards, impose the rule of law and tame flourishing corruption and nepotism have given way to fond memories of the times when the jobless rate was zero, food was cheap and social safety was high.]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/bulgaria1990.jpg "bulgaria1990.jpg")
Hundreds of "enemies of the regime" perished from beatings, malnutrition and exhaustion in 1949-59 in Bulgaria's Belene concentration camp, where dead bodies were fed to pigs.
Twenty years after the fall of communism, Belene is largely forgotten -- only a small marble plaque tells its horrific story. And nostalgia for the past is growing in the small Balkan country and across the former Soviet bloc.
Capitalism's failure to lift living standards, impose the rule of law and tame flourishing corruption and nepotism have given way to fond memories of the times when the jobless rate was zero, food was cheap and social safety was high.
"(The bad) things have been forgotten," said Rumen Petkov, 42, a former guard now clerk at the only prison still functioning on the Persin island.
"The nostalgia is palpable, particularly among the elderly," he said, in front of the crumbling buildings of another old jail opened on the site after the camp was shut in 1959. The communists imprisoned dozens of ethnic Turks here in the 1980s when they refused to change their names to Bulgarian.
Some young people in the impoverished town of Belene, linked to the island with a pontoon bridge, also reminisce: "We lived better in the past," said Anelia Beeva, 31.
"We went on holidays to the coast and the mountains, there were plenty of clothes, shoes, food. And now the biggest chunk of our incomes is spent on food. People with university degrees are unemployed and many go abroad."
In Russia, several Soviet-themed restaurants have opened in Moscow in recent years: some hold nostalgia nights where young people dress up as pioneers -- the Soviet answer to the boy scouts and girl guides -- and dance to communist classics.
Soviet Champagne and Red October Chocolates remain favorites for birthday celebrations. "USSR" T-shirts and baseball caps can be seen across the country in summer.
While there is scant real desire for old regimes to be restored, analysts say apathy is a vital outcome.
"The big damage of the nostalgia...is that it dries out the energy for meaningful change," wrote Bulgarian sociologist Vladimir Shopov in the online portal BG History.
DISENCHANTMENT
Across former communist eastern Europe, disenchantment with democracy is widespread and pollsters say mistrust of the elites who made people citizens of the European Union is staggering.
A September regional poll by U.S. Pew research center showed support for democracy and capitalism has seen the biggest fall in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Hungary.
The poll showed 30 percent of Ukrainians approved of the change to democracy in 2009, down from 72 percent in 1991. In Bulgaria and Lithuania the slide was to just over half the population from nearer three-quarters in 1991.
Surveys by U.S.-based human rights group Freedom House show backsliding or stagnation in corruption, governance, independent media and civil society in the new EU-member states.
The global economic crisis, which has wounded the region and put an end to six or seven years of growth, is now challenging the remedy of neoliberal capitalism prescribed by the West.
Hopes of catching up with the wealthy Western neighbors have been replaced by a sense of injustice because of a widening gap between the rich and the poor.
In Hungary, one of the countries worst hit by economic downturn, 70 percent of those who were already adults in 1989 say they were disappointed with the results of the regime change, an October survey by pollster Szonda Ipsos showed.
People in the former Yugoslav countries, scarred by the ethnic wars from the 1990s and still outside the EU, are nostalgic for the socialist era of Josip Broz Tito when, unlike now, they traveled across Europe without visa.
"Everything was better then. There was no street crime, jobs were safe and salaries were enough for decent living," said Belgrade pensioner Koviljka Markovic, 70. "Today I can hardly survive with my pension of 250 euros ($370 a month)."
GOLDEN ERA
In Bulgaria, the 33-year rule of the late dictator Todor Zhivkov begins to seem a golden era to some in comparison with the raging corruption and crime that followed his demise.
Over 60 percent say they lived better in the past, even though shopping queues were routine, social connections were the only way to obtain more valuable goods, jeans and Coca Cola were off-limits and it took up to 10 years' waiting to buy a car.
"For part of the Bulgarians (social) security turned out to be more precious than freedom," wrote historians Andrei Pantev and Bozhidar Gavrilov in a book on the 100 most influential people in the Balkan country's history.
Nearly three years after joining the EU, Bulgaria's average monthly salary of about 300 euros and pension of about 80 euros remain the lowest in the club. Incomes in the more affluent Poland and the Czech Republic, which joined the bloc in 2004, are also still a fraction of those in western Europe.
A 2008 global survey by Gallup ranked Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania among the 10 most discontented countries in the world.
"Our parents' generation was much more satisfied with what they had. Everybody just wants more of everything these days," said Zsofia Kis, a 23-year old student in Budapest, referring to the way communist regimes artificially held down unemployment.
DALAVERA, MUTRI, MENTE
After two decades of patchy, painful reforms, the majority of people refuse to make more sacrifices, as would be needed to complete a revamp of the economy and the judiciary.
Demoralization and heightened popularity for political parties promising "a firm hand" are other consequences.
Not without reason.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, described the fall of the Soviet Union as the "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."
Kremlin critics have accused the authorities of a creeping rehabilitation of the Soviet Union to justify their clampdowns on the media and opposition parties.
"There is an idealization of the Soviet past," said Nikita Petrov, an historian from the Memorial human rights group. "It's a conscious policy. They are trying to show the Soviet authorities looking decent and attractive to today's generation."
In Bulgaria, oligarchs who control entire sectors of the economy have emerged from the former communist party's ranks and its feared secret services.
The names of corrupt politicians and crime bosses are an open secret, but Bulgaria has not convicted a single senior official of graft and has jailed only one gang boss since 1989. No one has been convicted for the communist repressions.
Some of the most popular words among ordinary Bulgarians are "dalavera," a Turkish word meaning fraud, "mutri," a nickname for ugly mafiosi and "mente," which means counterfeit products.
"People are losing faith that one can achieve success in an honest, decent way. Success is totally criminalized," said Boriana Dimitrova of Bulgarian polling agency Alpha Research.
She said the sense of injustice was particularly strong in the Balkans, Europe's poorest corner, where untouchable parallel structures of power reign. "Some people say: 'yes, the old regime was repressive but at least there was law and order.'"
A promise to end the climate of impunity helped tough-talking Prime Minister Boiko Borisov of the center-right populist GERB party to a landslide election win in Bulgaria in July.
Public discontent and recession mean only populist governments can survive in the region, analysts say.
"The level of mistrust in the political elite and institutions is so high that you cannot convince people to do anything under unpopular governments," said Ivan Krastev of Sofia's Liberal Strategies Institute.
Some in Bulgaria accuse the West of duplicity for easily swallowing the communist past of members of the new elite.
The election of Bulgarian Irina Bokova, 57, a former communist apparatchik and ambassador to Paris, as head of the U.N. culture and education body UNESCO in September was a stark example of the West's hypocrisy, critics say.
Bokova studied in Moscow during the communism and climbed the diplomatic career ladder in the 1990s thanks to her past.
"AMERICANIZATION"
On one front at least, some eastern Europeans say they have succeeded in catching up with and even outstripping capitalist standards -- the thirst for materialism.
A big chunk of the loans taken in the boom years was spent on fancy cars and yachts, flat TV screens, designer clothes, silicon surgeries and exotic trips abroad.
Copying foreign standards went as far as giving babies Western names and flooding TV screens with reality shows like "Big Brother."
"Bulgaria is becoming Americanized," said renowned Bulgarian artist, Nikola Manev, who lives in Paris. "I pick up the phone and they talk to me in English, I go to a restaurant and it's called Miami. Don't we have our own names for God's sake?
"Looking on the surface, I see new buildings, shops, shiny cars. But people have become sadder, more aggressive and unhappy," he said, prescribing spiritual cures.
This autumn for the first time in many years, tickets at Sofia's theatres are selling out weeks in advance.
Additional reporting by Marton Dunai and Gergely Szakacs in Budapest, Ivana Sekularac in Belgrade and Conor Humphries in Moscow; Editing by Sara Ledwith.
57 Comments so far
Show AllI guess the novelty of being able to buy Metallica CDs and Levi Jeans pales when you cant afford to eat live in a cardboard box, and the state has stopped feeding and housing you... meanwhile everything of worth in your country has been usurped by corrupt politicians and gangsters.
Why go to America? It came to you!
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
t_g
Continuing:
I knew from muted conversations that "if you talk, you get a headache" - poor translation, but it means that we should know what to say and to whom.
We all heard that in the late 1940s and early 1950s there were people who disappeared and re-appeared much later or never. There was a mistery about some people. I have heard stories from my parents in the 1980s and 1990s. Not earlier, though.
But in the 1960s and 1970s life was not too bad in Hungary: we could travel to the West every three years, if we had family, we could travel every year, they just had to send a "letter of invitation" and promise to take care of our financial and other needs. To an Eastern Block country we could travel as ofthen as we wished to.
The shops were full of food, clothes, shoes, etc. There were even western goods: mostly from Spain, Italy, Austria and Germany. Good quality shoes, clothes, bags and small electrical appliances.
In the 1970s and 1980s there was an "underclass" (for lack of a better word), who started to "do some business" with Westerners. They were mostly people in hospitality, who had contact with westerners: taxi drivers, hotel workers, waiters, etc. They started to "change money" (buy Deutsche Marks, US Dollars, mostly) and sell it to Eastern Europeans, who could buy Western luxury goods in "Intershops" (shops, where you had to pay with Western money, for Western goods). Some of these people made serious money. There were other little crooks but there is not enough time and space to write about, but a lot of these crooks became quite rich and influential and the business and political elite of the new regime.
In the new regime money became the most important qualification for everything: if you could make yourself rich, you could make the town/county/country also rich. So the reasoning went.
The other elite of course stayed the ex-communist ruling class, who by the 1980s became rich and powerful anyway.
Should I continue?
Please continue.
t_g
This is a discussion where I can contribute from experience: I grew up in Budapest, Hungary. My father was Hungarian, my mother was French, whose parents were old school pre-WWII intellectuals and awoved communists. They moved to Budapest after WWII.
I lived in Budapest until 1977, when I moved to Vienna and later lived in South America, then travelled a bit more around the world and ended up in Australia.
As I remember my life in Hungary: carefree, happy childhood, long holidays at my parents' "dacha" at Lake Balaton (Tihany) and at my grandparents' "dacha" at the Danube Bend just north of Budapest. Then there were the camps with my fellow young pioneers. With my parents and grandparents we regularly travelled within the Iron Curtain countries, also yearly to ex-Yugoslavia. My father was an academic, he sometimes travelled to an African or Latin American country and very frequently to fellow Eastern Block countries.
I remember the adults always talked politics. Everyone did. They hated the regime, never considered it ideal or good, they hated the government, the "temporarily staying" Soviet forces and the travel restrictions.
They talked about world politics, philosophy, arts, history, you knew everything about everyone, but their religion. I came to realize this just recently, when I went back to Budapest for my high school reunion. Now everyone wears their religion on their sleeve. It was shocking for me, when old girlfriends started to tell me how they hate the Jews and how they could kill them and that they wouldn't tolerate their kids even befriending them. I decided not to tell them that I am one of the hated ones... even though not religious.
It seems to me that now that dialectic materialism is not in vogue, everyone has become religious. Is that an escape from the reality, that hasn't turned out to be ideal as they all imagined?
Now everyone still talks about politics, very derogatively, but somehow there are no more ideals and dreams to aspire to. Capitalism didn't turn out to be what everyone expected and they just can't see any alternatives.
In the old days we were all kind of equal: we had our little Eastern Block made cars, Eastern Block made electrical appliances, Eastern Block made apparel, etc. etc. And nobody really cared. If we somehow got a pair of jeans or a really nice branded perfume, we were in heaven! But now everyone seems to have too much "stuff". Too much of everything to make us happy.
And just like in the west, everyone lives off credit cards, sky high mortgages and debts. Back than, people bought what they could pay for with cash. Or minimum credit.
Don't want to write more as my word limit is approaching...
"A September regional poll by U.S. Pew research center showed support for democracy and capitalism has seen the biggest fall"
There you go again, Pew, reporting your poll findings in ways that reveal your incredible bias, or active participation in the propaganda campaign. Call it self-preservation. In all the communications in 21st century Oceania, lumping democracy and capitalism together is required, or you may be rendered out of a job.
Bureaucratic, "command economy" so-called socialism, and bandit corporate capitalism, are NOT the only two possibilities in the world. There is also co-operative democracy. Unfortunately, both command economy "state capitalism" and workers' co-operative democracy are linked together, in the popular mind, under the capacious name of "socialism," (along with welfare state capitalism).
In actual history, however, Soviet style state capitalism and workers' co-operativism have been deadly enemies. Read, for example, Maurice Brinton's 87 page booklet "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, 1917-1921," listed in both Amazon and Google. In the original Russian revolution, workers took over direct control of factories and ran them through democratic "soviets" or workers' councils. It took Lenin and Trotsky several years to wrest these industries away from the workers and into the hands of the party - state, which they were only able to do because the most revolutionary workers were away fighting Czarists and capitalists in the Civil War, who were being supported by troops from the United States and from 13 other Western nations.
Even in the midst of the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 39) leftists who believed in workers' control were slaughtered by pro-Soviet communists. (For that history, read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia.")
And today in Venezuela there is not a two way struggle between capitalism (still the majority of the economy) and socialism, but a three way battle between private capitalism, bureaucratically controlled state industry, and a growing movement for workers' control, which has created thousands of co-ops and many "co-managed" industries. (See: "Venezuela: Power Workers Fight Against Bureaucracy," at: www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4908. In general venezuelanalysis.com is a good site to keep up with.)
It is not surprising or unusual that Reuters has presented the story of Eastern Europe in terms of the old and inaccurate two sided battle. I know for sure that there are other currents, but to find more details we are going to have to do some serious research. For starters I googled: "eastern europe","workers control" and got 8,820 results. Enjoy!
thanks for the venezuela site.
Do any of these discontented countries' governments have constitutions? If so, then are they used as a guide for good egalitarian government? If not, then, why not? It was said rightly and while brief, was well explained by George Markley, Socialism does not equal Communism.
Some straightening of terms might be useful
Democracy does not equal capitalism.
Socialism does not oppose democracy.
"Materialism" does not equal hyperconsumption or, while we're on it, greed.
Desire for socialism does not indicate a pining for Joe Stalin.
EXACTLY. I wish we could pound this into the pundits but it's never mentioned. Socialism and democracy are quite compatible. In fact capitalism is anti-democratic in practice. I think the mistake is purposeful to be frank. It serves the owner class just fine to perpetuate the myth and keep us from our future.
Excellent reminders!
HEY! Let's come up with our own 'ism.
Like come up with a whole new modern way/form that invokes the spirit of the U.S. Constitution and uses modern technology and sciences or at least is up to date with them.
Let's make lobbing absolutely transparent.
Let have real two way debate over the public airways. Having as many people as there are now and still we are made to feel like a focus group instead of real citizens.
What ever 'ism we choose really doesn't matter; it's the people who make any system work.
It's the people who make or break any government that is trying to do it right. When the government is rogue, the PEOPLE are out for themselves. Kind of a what comes around goes around.
The problem is how to get good people IN government. Elections? HaHaHaHa!!!!!
SOCIALISM IS NOT COMMUNISM!
>Twenty years after the fall of communism, Belene is largely
>forgotten -- only a small marble plaque tells its horrific
>story.
The authors of the article had to first make it clear to their readers just how inherently EVIL socialism is by confusing it with failed communist regimes - they can't have people thinking there's any alternative to the existing corporate/CEO monarchy - better the devil we know!
Socialism is NOT communism, and communism is NOT inherently evil. America once had slavery, few rights for women, no worker rights, etc., etc. The social system that modern-day capitalism rests upon did not come about thanks to capitalism - it came about thanks to people fighting for their rights and freedoms. Corporations, after all, were more than happy to work with Hitler.
There is NOT just one form of capitalism; there is NOT just one form of socialism.
Socialism can easily blend with capitalism to produce a mixed economy - and a political system that isn't controlled by big business and the super rich.
It is not a take it - corporate capitalism! - or send us to a "communist" HELL situation.
Let's not confuse Stalinism with communism.
By "failed communist regimes", I meant communism that went wrong. There is a legitimate concern over communism, though: before the state can wither away and get out of everyone's hair, the state must become dominant in order to weaken the grip of the existing economic system. That's the point at which right-wing dictators like Stalin can enter the picture. It's also a warning for capitalism: a few individuals - via big business - are gaining almost complete control over the lives of the rest of us: we exist to serve them, rather than the other way around.
The Russian monarchy are ultimately to blame for the creation of the Soviet Union. There was a mini-revolution in 1905 - strikes and protests across the whole of Russia. The Czar relented and created a Duma - similar to Britain's parliament - but he then took away its powers. Twelve years later, in 1917, the people had had enough.
"Socialism is NOT communism, and communism is NOT inherently evil."
Really, let's try it again. Maybe we'll get it right this time. NOT!
I guess they ain't teachig history any more.
Saying that communism is inherently evil is like saying that religion is inherently evil - if you look only at crusades, the Inquisition, witch burning, religious wars, pedophile priests, the only conclusion you could possibly draw, is that religion is inherently evil. But is it? Maybe it's not the system that is the problem, maybe it's people. I don't think "justice and equality for all" is any more "inherently evil" than "love thy neighbor". In fact, it's hard to find anything evil about these two statements.
Good points Bea!
"Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true." -Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)
They don't seem to be teaching English, either - what's your point?
Communism is not about an all-powerful state. Under real communism, the state is gone, and ordinary people own the means of production, NOT a government, NOT a few rich individuals or investors. There is nothing inherently evil about that. It's, in effect, capitalism for all - everyone becomes a stakeholder!
I'm NOT defending capitalism, socialism, or communism. If I must state a position, then a mixed economy is what I'd plump for.
Yeah, sorry abt the spelling.
My point is, the system has been tried and it failed miserably. Let's see how it works for all them countries in South America that are starting to try it. My guess is, it will be more of the same. Hopefully with less dead people.
South America? You mean like Chile, in which the U.S. helped put Pinochet into power, a brutal right-wing dictator. Thousands were killed to get him installed. America even undermined Chile's economy to create instability, easing the way for a coup d'état. Pinochet was put into office to prevent nationalisation of certain industries and companies that would have deprived U.S. corporations of Chile's wealth.
It will take too long now to go into how much damage the U.S. has done to South American countries. America isn't alone, though, in meddling with countries to feed its capitalist system:
Britain was broke after World War II and desperately needed Iran's oil, so after the democratically-elected Iranian government nationalised its oil industry in 1951 - to improve the lot of Iranians! - Britain created a fake communist threat. This gave a pretext for the U.S. to get involved. Britain paid protestors to take to the streets and pretend to be communists. America claimed Iran was about to fall to the communists, installed the Shah, another brutal right-wing dictator, and gave the oil concessions back to Britain - America got a share, too.
You can read more about the 1953 coup in Iran, here:
http://markcurtis.wordpress.com/2007/02/12/the-coup-in-iran-1953/
"You mean like Chile,".
No mean like Venezuela and the few others who are on the path of discovering the benefits of communism in the near future.
Oh, and Iran is much better off today, isn't it? A bastion of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
You miss the point. The point I was making is that we are being presented with a false dichotomy: it's either an evil "communist" system or a brutal capitalist system controlled by large corporations.
This is a ploy the supporters of corporate globalization and corporate capitalism use to get us to say that, yes, we don't want anything like how it was in some "communist" countries, so we all better accept the system how it is.
The fact is, we don't have to accept the system how it is - it's not an either-or situation! That's what we should be discussing.
Really, let's bail out the banks with billions. AGAIN. Capitalism Uber Alles !!11!!.
Hey, I'm with you. The state bailing out banks is not capitalism. Should have let them fail and the market correct itself. Now the gov owns banks and auto manufacturers. So you and I now own AIG, GM, Chrysler etc. Wow, how do we call a society where the people own the means of production?
standard of life is one half of what it was before ending of berlin wall, productivity doubled and most profit is exported - whole eastern europe is a model of modern banana republic
edweg
tt
SO? Here in US Vulgaria we're becoming Bulgurized!
BoysGramps
you are SO FUNNY , WITTY and at the same time PRECISE in your descriptions!!
"food was cheap" - what food?
"We lived better in the past," said Anelia Beeva, 31. Anelia, you were 10. everyone thinks life is good when they are ten. I guess you never had to stand in line at 0400 in the morning in subzero temp to buy some bread, huh?
The sentence that sums it up best:
"Twenty years after the fall of communism, Belene is largely forgotten"
Baa, baa the sheep want to go back into their pen.
BAD SAMARITANS
And the capitalist pen feeds people does it? Tell that to Kenyan farmers who work for British American Tobacco - they get paid so little, they can't afford enough food for their families. BAT made over $2.5 billion in profit last year. BAT also meddles in Kenyan politics to worsen the situation generally for Kenyans.
Ask Nigerians about the theft of their oil wealth - protestors there get shot and killed by Nigerian "security forces" armed and trained by the U.S. Nigeria is the fifth largest oil supplier to the States. Britain also has oil interests there.
And what about Bolivians, who saw their water supply sold off to a British subsidiary of an American corporation, Bechtel. Bolivians live on barely $2 a day. After privatization, their water bills doubled and it was made illegal to collect rain water.
I can go on and on, even to child labor to provide the cobalt used in every cell phone.
You think capitalism is a rising tide that lifts every boat? You think rich, capitalist countries grow organically and, thus, want to help poorer nations develop, too? Then read this transcript of an interview with a professor of economics at Cambridge University, England:
"Bad Samaritans: How Rich Country 'Help' Hurts the Developing World":
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/092008/interview-chang.html
It may cure your misconceptions.
No, the capitalist pen does not feed its little sheeple either. However, you actually have the opportunity to feed yourself. Actually I visited my country of birth this year after 20 years living abroad. Guess what? The unemployment was at 5% and people could afford to buy food, live decently and travel abroad. And guess what else? The same people that were losers during the communist regime are still losers now. It's the ones that want everything handed out to them.
Personally if i had choice i would pick western capitalism over any other society available today.
I was cured of my misconceptions a long time ago.
Personally if i had choice i would pick western capitalism over any other society available today.
-------------------------------------
The world can be roughly divided into 2 camps (it's actually much fuzzier, but we humans love bright-line taxonomies).
One group is interested in itself alone. Their motto is "Take care of Number One" and they measure everything by how well they themselves are making out. If they're doing well, that's the best system regardless of what it's like for anyone else. They're the minority who live in gated communities, and whose lives are spent in exploitation and my-new-yacht games. They feel a sense of entitlement that's without question or limit.
The other group is interested in everyone, or at least everyone near enough. They have the vague, unfocused feeling that an injury to one is an injury to all, and that it's a bad idea to allow things to get out of balance. So their motto is something like "Sharing is best". They feel grindingly guilty, and are usually much poorer than the other group. They're much more numerous, but, oddly for people with such painful social consciousness, much less well organised.
Everything you've written here places you in the first group, mentally if not economically. I wonder why.
Actually there's three groups, at least in the US:
Group 1, 1% that owns 40% of the wealth, group 2, 40% that own 1% of the wealth and then there's group 3, the 59% that own 59% of the wealth. I belong in the latter. I work for a living, own a small business that's still doing good. I'm the one that still keeps this economy running, the one that's gonna pay for "free" healthare and the one that bailed out the banks so that 40% that pay no federal tax can enjoy their entitlements and keep bitching they are having a bad life. I'm the one that gets shafted every day by the 1%+40%. I'm the one that will stop this country before it drops into the abyss it's heading toward. I'm the one that gets no thanks.
I'm the silent (ok maybe not so silent) majority , a term that got twisted by the religious nuts during the Reagan years.
I think you should check your numbers: they're delusional. See the research of Prof. Edward Wolff for real data.
I always enjoy reading an analysis like that. It's kinda like global warming. Depends what portion of the bell curve you are reading, or, in the case of GW which year you use as a base. I guess we agree that 1% own 38% of the wealth, the bottom 20% own nothing. What that tells me that the rest of 71% own about 62%. Pretty close to my numbers.
You are familiar with the saying about lies, damn lies and statistics, right?
Sure, and the average of my income and Gates's is both fully calculable and totally meaningless, as is your statement that "71% own about 62%".
There are at least 3 books available, now industry standard texts, about how to represent quantitative information honestly. The author's name is Tufte. You should study them.
t_g
There were very big differences in the living standards in the Eastern Block countries. In Budapest, Hungary, where I spent my youth, my mother used to bring home every day something nice: fresh fish (carp and trout mostly, sometimes catfish), chicken, goose (often with liver: foie gras), duck and beef. We didn't eat pork. As for fresh vegies and fruit: it was seasonal, but in the winter there were oranges and bananas - from Sicily, Italy the blood oranges, from Spain the bigger ones, grapefruit and bananas from Cuba, dates from Egypt, figs from Libya, etc. etc.
And there was lots and lots of sauerkraut!
We travelled to Bulgaria once flew just to Sofia, but twice drove all the way to Albena and "Slantshev Brjag" at the Black Sea. Nice holidays...
u.s. = unceasingly stupid. would any of you knowledgeable folk like to tell us about your experiences in the socialist bloc, back when you worked and lived there? right. but i have actually done this and returned to the belly of the beast only to prevent you from raining more destruction on us.
oh, buddy, have i got some stories for you. like the one where you had a car battery on the charger all day long to be able to study after dark. or the one where you freeze your a$$ off in line for some nonexisting food that might or might not show up. Or maybe you wanna hear about my grandfather being picked up by the secret police. let's just say they were not waterboarding their prisoners when they asked questions.
whoever is nostalgic after those times is sick in his head
by the way your post does not make too much sense. care to explain?
t_g
Nobody in their right mind is nostalgic! After WWII until Stalin's death it was nothing but a grey, depressing labour camp, gulag, if you wish the whole Eastern Block. No freedoms at all. A disgusting dictatorship. But things have gradually changed and by the 1960s Hungary was more or less OK. They called it "goulash communism".
But I hate to hear lies. There were stories of horror, but if you "blended in" you got along. Health care was for free, education was for free and nobody went hungry.
True, nobody could travel freely whenever and wherever they wanted, but you could always choose a good profession and excel in it, that took you around the world, or you could become a reporter, a film maker or an athlete. For god's sake, there are always possibilities for everyone, everywhere.
As I look at the world now, what is so great about living in the West? We have better cars, labelled clothes, branded shoes, this or that gadget... but are we really so happy?
As for the police: I can imagine that the police is never stroking and caressing a criminal or a political detainee...
Romanticizing the past always happens when things get tough. Maybe there is a systemic cultural problem of corruption, nepotism and rule by oligarchs, be they communist, socialist or capitalist.
Socialism is not Communism. Communism claimed to be socialism, but it was a totalitarian form of socialism that soon became worse than its capitalist rivals when implemented in Russia and China. That is, it became even more corrupt. Socialism has been around for at least 2000 years. It was practiced by the first group to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is basically a form of government that believes in sharing and in cooperative action that benefits all, as opposed to capitalism which is founded on cut throat competition and selfishness.
To bad those in the Eastern Block have never tasted true socialism, and that they exchanged a monstrous form of 'socialism' for capitalism. No wonder they have a funny feeling they've been screwed.
Some of you points are well-taken, but it is debatable whether the Soviet system was worse for the majority of it's citizens than if the capitalist Czar's empire has continued to present.
By most measures, life is better for the majority of Cubans than the majority of almost any other country in the Caribbean or central America.
"Some of you points are well-taken, but it is debatable whether the Soviet system was worse for the majority of it's citizens than if the capitalist Czar's empire has continued to present."
So what? So you're saying that Bolshevism is better than the system that of serfdom that preceded it? That's a very low standard of comparison. Just like Bolshevism, and especially Stalinism shouldn't be the standard of what socialism and communism is, the Tsarist system shouldn't be the standard of what capitalism is.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Who has tasted "true" socialism besides the old Israeli kibbutzim?
Anyone who is or has been an owner-member of a collective or cooperative of any kind. That's somewhere betwee 800M and 2G people the world around. See
http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/index.html and
http://www.youngco-operatives.coop/About-Us/About-Co-operatives-Worldwide
To read about 90,000 workers in hundreds of independent but interlinked co-operatives, google: mondragon,spain
Only one example throughout the world of workers' co-operative democracy.
Trading one dictatorship for another is hardly a solution:
http://ni4d.us/
The article cites polls showing the disaffection of the majority of the populations of these countries with the current system, but does not distinguish between the following:
(1) Economic reforms, neo-liberal policies that have caused massive lay-offs, cut-backs in public services and other austerity measures, and a sense of unease about the future. This "restructuring" (analogous to "structural adjustment" dictated by the IMF in the developing world) and austerity measures for "fiscal responsibility" have directly caused historically high unemployment rates and the impoverishment of the large segment of the population that works in the public sector (teachers, transit workers, medical workers, etc.) and pensioners.
(2) Reforms granting a number of personal rights and liberties, to a large degree ending of political gulags and arbitrary arrests, freedom of conscience, freedom of travel, etc..
The economic reforms are supported only by the fraction of the population that works as professionals with Western banks and firms, etc., typically less than 15%, but are overwhelmingly unpopular and quite understandably so. On the other hand, the reforms granting personal rights are near universally popular. So its fair to say that capitalism in these countries has thus far failed and has made most people worse off economically, while the personal freedom gained when communism in its Eastern Block form ended has been a boon to the people.
Josh
"Power coceded nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Frederick Douglass
The workers of Amerika should be pining for Democratic Socialism also. The jury is in and the only thing Capitalism is good for is making the wealthy wealthier while holding the reins of a corrupt government.
http://www.dsausa.org/pdf/widemsoc.pdf
Northern Europe can construct social democratic societies only because that area of the world exploits (and has exploited) the resources and cheap labor of the impoverished sections of the world economy.
Throughout the article, the authors frequently mention the negative aspects of Bulgaria's previous command economy.
This approach would be similar to a writer -when discussing the USA- constantly harping on the semi-genocide of the native Americans, hundreds of years of slavery, the severe exploitation of ethnic groups when they first enter(ed) the US, the many unprovoked and deadly wars against Third- and Second-World peoples, the internment of Japanese Americans, the constant attack on civil liberties and privacy by the corporate-sponsered political parties, the lack of healthcare for all, etc. etc...
We have imprisoned whole Native American tribes (and many times they were forced to relocate with the bayonet), constructed the largest prison system in the world, do possess the world's largest totalitarian command economy (the Pentagon), and we have a long history of exploiting black people within our owngulag -the large plantation system.
In other words, those nations that are presently wealthy didn't (and don't) get that way because they were/are goody two shoes.
And the rich nations' form of elite democracy (one that supports economic wealth and privilege first) is very limited in representing the general population. In fact, worldwide, the rich nations' form of political democracy is getting less and less representative of the average citizen.
So I can understand the Eastern Europeans' nostalgia for the previous command economy. At least they had it better -culturally, physically and socially- than they do now.
When Eastern Europeans deem it worthwhile to judge their earlier system by its negative consequences, the average Eastern European considers those consequences as about as much as US citizens judge their own system by including the much vaster negative consequences as I have listed above.
The long-term problem of a command economy is that the political elite eventually wants to gain the same enormous benefits they see acrue to the West's economic elite; in addition, with private accumulation comes the included bonus: they aren't held accountable to anyone for the consequences of their economic decisions. Freedom!
However, freedom for the economic elite doesn't translate into freedom for the economic nonelite.
"This approach would be similar to a writer -when discussing the USA- constantly harping on the semi-genocide of the native Americans, hundreds of years of slavery, the severe exploitation of ethnic groups when they first enter(ed) the US, the many unprovoked and deadly wars against Third- and Second-World peoples, the internment of Japanese Americans, the constant attack on civil liberties and privacy by the corporate-sponsered political parties, the lack of healthcare for all, etc. etc...
We have imprisoned whole Native American tribes (and many times they were forced to relocate with the bayonet), constructed the largest prison system in the world, do possess the world's largest totalitarian command economy (the Pentagon), and we have a long history of exploiting black people within our owngulag -the large plantation system."
Actually, compared to your list, the authors of the article glossed over much of the unpleasant aspects of authoritarian communism. They barely scratched the surface.
Hello Balakirev,
Bureaucratic, "command economy" so-called socialism, and bandit corporate capitalism, are NOT the only two possibilities in the world. There is also co-operative democracy. Unfortunately, both command economy "state capitalism" and workers' co-operative democracy are linked together, in the popular mind, under the capacious name of "socialism," (along with welfare state capitalism).
In actual history, however, Soviet style state capitalism and workers' co-operativism have been deadly enemies. Read, for example, Maurice Brinton's 87 page booklet "The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, 1917-1921," listed in both Amazon and Google. In the original Russian revolution, workers took over direct control of factories and ran them through democratic "soviets" or workers' councils. It took Lenin and Trotsky several years to wrest these industries away from the workers and into the hands of the party - state, which they were only able to do because the most revolutionary workers were away fighting Czarists and capitalists in the Civil War, who were being supported by troops from the United States and from 13 other Western nations.
Even in the midst of the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 39) leftists who believed in workers' control were slaughtered by pro-Soviet communists. (For that history, read George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia.")
And today in Venezuela there is not a two way struggle between capitalism (still the majority of the economy) and socialism, but a three way battle between private capitalism, bureaucratically controlled state industry, and a growing movement for workers' control, which has created thousands of co-ops and many "co-managed" industries. (See: "Venezuela: Power Workers Fight Against Bureaucracy," at: www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4908. In general venezuelanalysis.com is a good site to keep up with.)
It is not surprising or unusual that Reuters has presented the story of Eastern Europe in terms of the old and inaccurate two sided battle. I know for sure that there are other currents, but to find more details we are going to have to do some serious research. For starters I googled: "eastern europe","workers control" and got 8,820 results. Enjoy!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Not enough thinking is given to a third way that leaves obsolete theories of capitalism and communism behind and is based more on science and habitat/species management combined with principles of democracy.
The way things are going now the entire world is regressing into high-tech colonialism, cold and hot resource wars, and predator/prey capitalism at every level of society--including some oligarchs--except for the oligarchs in the U.S. who have fortified themselves for decades to run this brave new global machine for themselves. If our ruling oligarchs weren't so blindly focused on oil/pipeline wars, they would have already sent economic hit men to privatize and ravage the remaining resources of the Eastern European countries mentioned in this article, and will, no doubt soon get around to it. Hopefully, those countries can learn from the democratic socialist countries of northern Europe (as could we if our people weren't so intellectually lazy and brainwashed).
Hell I'm nostalgic for communism, and I'm from L.A.!!
You know the pentagon misses communism! when we had someone big and organized to fear... all those missiles!! Thats when the military industrial complex made sense!
Hey the market breeds greed and corruption, privelege makes us mentally ill, who knew?