perfidy

I started this post as a comment to Ross' statements in the comments to Pythagosaurus' "You Think We Got It Bad? or, Ambling into Mediocrity" post of yesterday. It got a little long, so here it is:

Ross, your anti-Americanism seems to have taken over your brain. While the United States is not home to two-dozen languages and cultures, it is home to a melange of hundreds of languages and cultures. The diversity of this country is remarkable, in landscape, traditions, music, food and unique turns of phrase that can be found in the small nooks and crannies.

I agree with Pythagosaurus completely on the cultural issues - there is diversity, albeit within a larger American cultural frame. One of the reasons for this is that America is not an ethnic culture, one that grew up out of one people sharing history, language, and the rest. America is different; in that there is an American culture that anyone can join simply by accepting a (very) few core ideals. And then, they are part of the history of America, share its culture, while retaining many aspects of their own. And the rest of us benefit from this as well. Even you could Ross, though you are a Canadian.

So you think traveling within the United States is going from one Walmart to another? I think you need to twist the little knob on your head. Sure, there are Walmarts and the chain restaurants. Americans appreciate efficiency. But there are also the little diners, with the old guys at the lunch counter smoking Pall Malls and trying to decide how much of an asshole the local mayor is. There are festivals, fairs, monuments to civil war veterans, local historical societies running museums devoted to the story of pumpkin horticulture in a three county area. 

There are Ethiopian restaurants in Columbus. Vast numbers of ethnic restaurants everywhere. Sporting events, bitter rivalries, local beers, roadside attractions like the world's largest ball of string, just because some weirdo thought it'd be a good idea. The beautiful and the strange, the ugly and the wonderful, and more scenic landscapes than you can imagine. If many people don't see the value of hopping on a plane and ending up in Trondheim it's because you can hop on a plane in Indianapolis and end up in New York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco, Miami, New Orleans or Chicago with equal ease, rent an apartment and get a job. You have been able to do that in the United States for over two hundred years, and it is nice that the Europeans have finally caught up.

For all that you are claiming that the United States has suddenly rushed to set up a fascist state to ensure its security from strange and disturbing Europeans, even the Patriot Act doesn't even come close. Johno and I have criticized it here, and we have not been arrested. Nor are we likely to. Despite the clear threat from Middle Eastern men between the ages of 20 and 40 hiding in our midst to prepare attacks on innocent civilians, how did we react? Vast expulsions, internment camps, beatings and lynchings? I don't remember that happening. Our president, in the wake of the most horrific attack we have ever experienced encouraged everyone to be nice to Arabs. And everyone agreed.

The EU is making a deliberate set of choices when it comes to personal freedom. And I fear that they are the wrong choices. Unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels make regulations that affect almost 300 million people. Those people have no choice in selecting those bureaucrats. And those regulations decide whether you can form a business, publish a paper, what you say on the internet, and ten thousand other things. And there is no equivalent in the EU constitution of the Bill of Rights. The list of rights in the proposed EU constitution lists the rights of government, not of people. There is little real difference between personal freedom and freedom from regulation. The relationship between government and people is one that Americans appreciate more than anyone else. We argue about it constantly, and reprove our representatives when they overstep the bounds that we have set. We do not complacently accept dictates from elites. (At least, not all of us.)

The relative strengths of the European and American economy are related to this freedom. The more that the EU superstate layers the European economy in regulation, the more protectionist it gets, the weaker they will be. Chronic unemployment has been a feature of European economic life for decades. That we have unemployment now, in a recession, is unremarkable. The policies of Japan and Europe have kept them in the doldrums for well over a decade, during a period that America and to a lesser extent Britain were experiencing unprecedented growth and prosperity. This recession will end, likely soon by all indications. But where will Europe go? We prosper because we are free.

Ross, I resisted saying this in the last comment I made, but: if American sucks so completely; if we are a nation of provincial rubes who can't understand the wonders that the rest of the world has to offer; and have lost and forgotten freedom of expression and are busily setting up a police state; why are you living in Northern Virginia, and having this argument with two Americans on their website? And I don't mean this facetiously, in an "America, love it or leave it!" way. You are often hyper critical of America, which is your right. Obviously something compelled you to leave the country of your birth to come here. If America is as bad as you say, what are the reasons you came here?

This is just sad, and I'm sorry to do this, but from Ananova comes this reason why bureaucracy is not efficent as government.

German penises 'too small for EU condoms' Germany has demanded a rethink on EU guidelines on condom size after finding its average penis did not measure up.

Doctors around Essen were ordered by the government's health department to check out the average size suggested by Brussels.

They reported the EU has overestimated the size of the average penis by almost 20% and insist other countries will discover the same.

Urologist Gunther Hagler, head of the team compiling the research, said: "By checking hundreds of patients we found German penises were too small for standard EU condoms.

(I like the bit about insisting "other countries will discover the same." Even though it's a fair point, it comes off a little bit sheepish.)

Why is the EU in the business of setting condom size-standards?
 

For our collective edification, via Fark (the source of all hard news) comes this editorial from the Taipei Times about the differences between the US Constitution and the proposed European Union Constitution. Money quote: "Madison is a better guide to an effective constitution than is Descartes."

Food for thought, and plenty to disagree with too.
 

You think we've got it bad in the US? Think our economy's moribund? Well, unemployment in Germany's above 10%! Germany! Powerhouse of Western Europe!

I'm sure I don't need to go into the many and sundry examples of inefficiences and graft within the E.U. When that bureaucratic nightmare is laid on top of the demographic, economic, and political transformations currently afoot in Europe, you get this: 10% unemployment in an economy that not long ago was the star of the continent.

The E.U. is (or was) an interesting idea. As a layman, I can see why it is attractive to its participants. In the wake of two world wars caused by belligerence on the part of one or two member states, it makes sense that Europe would seek a super-national body to make sure that such a conflict does not happen again. Moreover, it was not too long ago that the modern European nation-states emerged as conglomerations of hundreds of petty feifdoms-- a process we can watch in reverse as some nations disintegrate. For this reason too it makes sense that Europe would seek a collective road to regional stability.

Of course, big solutions create big problems. One of the advantages of the US state system, for example, is that Michigan's economy can be in the crapper while California's zips along. The problems of one state, in general, stay within that state. But the EU's governing bodies have a hand in everything-- trade, criminal law, measures and standards, economics-- and as a result suck the vigor (vigah) out of hot sectors while funneling money (inefficiently!) into poor sectors.

All in all, and again I'm speaking as a layman, but it's not a good sign when nations who have not yet adopted the euro-- Sweden, the UK-- are reluctant to do so, especially when their economies are performing better than the EU. That's what we call a "sign."

Maybe the EU would be better off breaking up, or at least getting the hell out of the economies and internal affairs of its member states. Things aren't THAT bad now, but if it stays on the present course the EU is doomed to a slow amble into mediocrity. Maybe it's time for the EU experiment to end, before it grinds to a halt like a mealy-mouthed and stultifyingly dull version of late-stage Soviet Communism.

No, we need not fear the invasion of North Korean troops disguised as insurance salesmen that the Weekly World News predicted a couple months ago. A recent article has noted that the US Congress is preparing to dramatically increase the number of North Korean refugees allowed to enter the country.

Some US officials are concerned that North Korean advocate groups are pushing the change as a way of "imploding" Kim Jong-il's regime. The advocate groups draw parallels with the fall of communist Europeafter huge refugee movements out of eastern bloc countries destablised the regimes there.

As far as I'm concerned, that's not a bug, it's a feature. Other concerns included the responses of China and especially South Korea; legally, North Koreans are considered citizens of South Korea and not entitled to refugee status in the US, though the article did not say whose laws made that illegal.

If we can get the Martians in charge of North Korea out of power, the world will be a far better place. And we can welcome the North Koreans as well - their southern cousins have been very successful here in the states. And Korean women are very, very cute in my experience. (Did I say that on the outside?)
 

Michael Novak has a thought provoking three part ((#1), (#2), and (#3)) piece on the root of the recent arguments between American and Europe. Me, ahm jus a simple rednek consuhvativ, I uhsly jus say them all You-Ro-Pe-Uns purely suck, and we all kicks ass.

Mr. Novak has a much more thoughtful commentary. His conclusion is worth pondering, "Despite their particular origin, furthermore, our common values have important meaning for all cultures universally, as many in other cultures have long been testifying. Others may not accept these common values wholesale, or in the same way that we do, but nothing in these common values belongs solely to us. Like all things human, they both have a particular historical origin, and also they are part of the common heritage of humankind." 
 

The good people over at Crooked Timber are all over the meltdown in the wake of David Kelly's suicide. More here and here.

All I can say is, I've seen this situation before. The hot potato drops because everyone is using both hands to cover their own ass. Shameful behavior all around, especially on the part of the drool-catchers at the BBC, but especially on the part of whoever let Blair and Bush run with this information.

We both have engaged in a significant amount of moral finger pointing. This person is bad, this person is evil, this person is more diabolical than this other person, naughty, naughty. If you want to level such accusations, feel free. I'm just unwilling to continue it myself.

As to the leftist protestors, I see a consistent amount of vitriol directed at leftist protestors, in so many words liberals who do this, liberals who do that, liberal stupidity, idiot socialists, in actual words "Commie Tommie Daschle" (as if), leftist "ass-hatted fuckwits," and so forth. Extremely negative comments are consistently directed at people whose ideas and statements fall to the left of the political spectrum, and it gets personal. Just because there are occasional caveats, fine shades of meaning, and distinctions, when someone in so many words or in plain language denigrates and insults a group of people to which I belong I am in turn and by extension denigrated and insulted. I don't recall offering myself specifically as a punching bag. Nor do I recall making blanket statements about the stupidity or ass-hatted fuckwittery of conservatives, or people right of center, what have you, of any stripe.

I have made specific criticisms of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, and much further outside the realm of credibility herself, Anne Coulter, but when have I extended those criticisms to any group of right-winged people? I have criticized Fox News, not for being on the right, but for reporting inaccurately, and for such instances as when they have a guest who believes that EYE-rack is "full of Buddhists," without correcting that guest, or offering a retraction or correction. The New York Times, many of whose staff members appear to hold leftish beliefs, has also dropped the ball on accurate reporting. Have I defended the NYT and attacked Fox News solely on the basis of political orientation? If you can find evidence that I have done these things I claim to be innocent of, I'll make a public blog apology.

I have after all, in times past, said, in so many words, "Okay, fine, fair enough, alright." When have points ever been conceded to me? Are you still holding a belief that Nazis fell on the left of the political spectrum? Was there smoldering in silence without concession?

Back to the leftist protestors, personal liberties in America were not created in America, but rather maintained in America by people with leftist ideas and through protest. The American Civil Liberties Union is largely left in character, for want of a better term, and has defended personal liberty to the point of arguing that Neo-Nazis should be permitted to march in Skokie, Illinois. Leftish reporters who refuse to reveal their source protect freedom of the press. Anti-war protestors who seized control of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago defended their right to freedom of assembly while simultaneously protesting the war.

And where do those ideas about personal liberty really come from? America? Don't make me laugh. Ideas about freedom of the press, assembly, and speech, as well as societal egalitarianism and responsible government with separate branches came collectively from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was Swiss, Voltaire, who was French, John Locke, who was English, and various other European thinkers, most of whom were your arch-nemeses as Frenchmen and women. And correct me if I'm wrong, but ardent supporters of those rights in the political field, such as Georges Danton, sat on the LEFT side of French assembly houses, hence the term. And let's see, Alexander Hamilton, a rightist of his time and place, OPPOSED the Bill of Rights! Hmm, gee I wonder, who, oh who must have pushed for that Bill of Rights? Well, if Hamilton the rightist opposed it, then maybe it was the left of that particular time and place? You think? Thus, both the creation in Europe and the maintenance in America of individual liberties come from the leftists of the past, the recent past, and even the current time, as I've argued, are thanks to filthy, puking leftists.

As foot-notes:

1) Morocco did not oppose, and technically invited, the American military presence in 1942. The World War II analogies don't work. That was there and then, this is here and now. History is not the present, it is the past.

2) The pronunciation of Iraq is not the same as Paris. Paris in English is Paris. Roma in English is Rome. Deutschland in English is Germany, Espana is Spain, (please forgive the lack of an appropriate diacritical mark), Eire is Ireland, Italia is Italy. Those things are all fine. EYE-rack is not the English word for Iraq. Saying EYE-rack is roughly the same as saying, "last night I had EYE-talian food at the Olive Garden." Which has more than a grain of truth.

3) Hussein has been removed from power. Fine. But there was nothing altruistic about the U.S. government and military initiating his removal. When a consigliare wants a Capo whacked, he gets whacked. It had nothing to do with the fact that the Capo was selling drugs to children in his own mother's neighborhood. All I've asked is that the administration, for once, tell the truth about why it went to war. Improving the lives of Iraqis no longer under Hussein wasn't it. They could give a damn about the lives of Iraqis. That was an unintended consequence. I doubt, for that matter, the Iraqis killed by American bombs and various other American weapons of mass destruction feel all that liberated. Whether or not Iraq was truly liberated has yet to be seen. It depends on what follows. An American puppet state won't protect the liberties of Iraqi's, seeing as Hussein didn't back when he was still taking orders from Washington. There's good in this, and there's also bad. How much bad remains to be determined. Bad in that the administration has lied to the American people and the world. Bad in that civilians were killed. Bad in that American military personnel lost their lives, and their families will never see them again.

4) I do not believe the UN is a cesspool. I think it's a good step toward a single world government. The kinks have yet to be worked out, but these things take time.

5) World opinion is not irrelevant. Americans, though many of them seem to think so lately, are not on this planet alone. We live with other nations. I think we should work with them rather than against them.

6) Dictators are problematic. Perhaps working with the international community might alleviate that.

7) As to salving the fragile egos of the Middle East, it's got nothing to do with that. I'm just tired of people who reveal and indeed revel in their ignorance with gratuitous mispronunciation.

Buckethead, good point. It does say something about the perfidy of the NK regime that an expatriate recommends starting over from a glassy, radioactive tabula rasa.

I wasn't necessarily offering an endorsement of the Korean exile's opinion. Nevertheless, for someone to think that the people in charge of his native land are so entirely bugfuck that they would recommend that we nuke it; well I think that says something about the nature of the regime. In the bit excerpted in below, I think that that is entirely lipservice. What person working for one of the world's last authentically Stalinist (tm) states would say to a foreign journalist, "Psst, we all really love America here, and btw, Kim is a complete nutbag who likes to bang twelve year olds." People, no matter how cut off from the rest of the world, are not stupid. Some Noerth Koreans would remember the days before Communism, and those stories would be remembered. Those few fortunate enough to have TVs or Radios would get South Korean broadcasts much as the East Germans did.

Certainly, there are those who are true believers, and those who go along because they benefit from the status quo (though they are few - most North Koreans are by all accounts severely fucked and near starvation most of the time.)

They may not know much about us, but I feel sure that they know that their system is inhuman, evil and farcical.

A defector from N. Korea, Park Gap Dong, is suggesting that the US mount preemptive strikes on that nation's nuclear facilities, to forestall Kim Jong-il's regime from arming its missiles with miniaturized nuclear warheads.

The article has some interesting quotes:

"U.S. strikes against North Korean targets would force Kim Jong-il to seek asylum in China. Kim is a coward. If attacked, he will flee. The North Korean army would not fight after the regime collapsed." 

"Many North Koreans believe that the United States is their savior and the only nation that can liberate North Korea," he said. The flood of hate-America propaganda from North Korea represents only the relatively small number of people around Kim Jong-Il."

Park also warned that the North, given the opportunity to develop nuclear weapons, would use them against the south, Japan and even the United States.

Park heads the National Salvation Front, a group of high-ranking North Korean exiles that includes five former generals of the North Korean army, the former vice minister of home affairs, the former vice minister of culture and the former superintendent of the North Korea Military Academy.

Tomorrow will be a big day in Iran - the fourth anniversary of the student protest movement. It will be interesting if this gets any traction on the major media, or comment from the administration. The latter is more likely, even though the protests could involve hundreds of thousands of people around Iran. This despite the fact that last week the government arrested over 4000 protest leaders, including 800 students, and has closed the University of Tehran and most other schools as well.

I pray that the protestors can bring down the mullahs, and that we support them in their efforts.

Well ho-ly.... 

Tony Blair has abolished the position of Lord Chancellor in Britain, in favor of what is essentially a Supreme Court. Ho-ly cow. Volokh Conspiracy guest-blogger Iain Murray has the story here. 

Can he do that?!? 
 

By way of Jay Nordlinger of the National Review, this quote from Michael McFaul, a poli-sci prof at Stanford, writing in the New York Times Review of Books. The book under review was Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History. Here is the beginning of the review:

In visiting Poland last month, President Bush took the time to go to Auschwitz and tour one of the most ghastly assaults to humanity in the history of mankind. After finishing his tour, he remarked: "And this site is also a strong reminder that the civilized world must never forget what took place on this site. May God bless the victims and the families of the victims, and may we always remember."

The next day, Mr. Bush was in St. Petersburg, Russia. While there, he did not make it up to the Solovetsky Islands, the site of the first camp of the gulag. Nor did he call upon the world to "always remember" the millions of people who perished in the Soviet concentration camps well before Auschwitz was constructed and well after Auschwitz was dismantled. The families of the victims of Soviet Communism — much more numerous than the families who lost loved ones in Hitler's camps — received no special blessing from the leader of the free world. Mr. Bush should not be singled out for failing to remember the innocents killed in the gulag. Rarely do visiting dignitaries take time to remember the tragedies of Soviet Communism.

I agree, wholeheartedly. Some of the nations of Eastern Europe are examining the crimes of their communist governments, like Hungary. Russia has not, and shows no sign of even thinking of it. And far too many people give the Communists a free pass on millions of deaths.

Thomas Friedman of the NYT (yeah, I know, I know) has an interesting perspective on the tax cuts here. Here's a little textbite:

"That is, when the president says he wants yet another round of reckless 'tax cuts,' which will shift huge burdens to our children, Democrats should simply refer to them as 'service cuts,' because that is the only way these tax cuts will be paid for - by cuts in services. Indeed, the Democrats' bumper sticker in 2004 should be: 'Read my lips,
no new services. Thank you, President Bush.'"

There are scare quotes within that particular quotation. Deal with it.

As to the NYT having a reporter who made things up, and a lot of the made up information was of course inaccurate, I saw some goofball on MSNBC last night complaining that Iraq is full of Buddhists and no one complains, but everybody complains about America being full of Christians.

Yah-huh. See? This is why we should have well-paid educators. America might be full of Christians, but my complaint is that America is full of stupid people, some of whom make things up and report inaccurately in various media formats. Well paid, competent, dedicated educators mean less stupidity, resulting in less making stuff up and inaccurate reporting. It also means less people will believe the made-up inaccuracies.

As to Friedman's editorial, well, it's a matter of opinion.

It looks like certain types are always going to quote him out of context to make their own political points. Perhaps he missed an opportunity to shut up, but shouldn't we want our leaders to be discussing matters of policy? I thought that's what they're supposed to do.

Instapundit links to a post that makes a good point, though Insta makes his own point a bit inelegantly. The full text of Wolfie's speech suggests that he made his "sea of oil" quote in regard to the ineffectiveness of economic sanctions against Iraq. That is, North Korea doesn't have oil, therefore sanctions are possible, but Iraq has lots of oil, which they can always sell to mitigate the effects of sanctions. Nevertheless, I'm thinking Wolfie would have done very well not to have brought it up. To paraphrase Jacques Chirac, he missed a golden opportunity to keep his fat yap buttoned.

Interesting to see where this one is gonna go. I may have jumped on this grenade a bit too soon, but hey, it's pretty early to tell either way.

I apologize for the over-the-top characterization of your arguments, I have sacked the overzealous aides responsible for the phrasing of my remarks. Nevertheless, I felt that your statement, "The weaknesses of the Soviet bloc economies did not develop until the mid 1970s." was flatly untrue. We have a run and gun type methodology here, as you may have noted in the running battles between Mike and I. Despite the occasional drop of bile, Mike and I will sit down to a comradely beer as soon as we are in the same zip code. Your opinion (and I have enjoyed reading your comments over the last few weeks) is certainly worthy of consideration. It just happened that you were wrong. 

In your lengthy comment, which I posted below, you revise and extend your first remarks. Saying that Soviet economic situation only became exploitable in the late seventies is a different thing. In many respects, your comments make my point - which is that Reagan won the cold war, and another point, which was that the weakness of the Soviet economy existed before the late 70s. I will work around to this in a minute.

But first, some thoughts on your comments. You ask the question, do economies that can't grow fail? They don't fail of themselves, they fail when they come into direct conflict with a more capable economy. While this sounds like rank social Darwinism, we have seen this time and again. A great power which can no longer compete must fail, or become a backwater. 

Your example of Prussia is interesting. Prussia for years remained an economic backwater. In pre-industrial warfare, a small nation could become a power all out of proportion by a high degree of mobilization, and inspired leadership. Frederick the Great was a military genius, and one reason he was successful is that he was willing to commit his troops to decisive battle when most of the powers of the age were locked in a mindset of limited warfare of maneuver. In this sense, Frederick prefigured the genius of Napoleon. But the economic backwardness was a permanent brake on the ambitions of Prussia. Prussian leaders ameliorated this situation somewhat by absorbing more economically vital regions of Germany through military power. But the Junker class resolutely kept the Prussian vaterland in a state of economic backwardness. Prussia was destroyed by the unleashed monster of Revolutionary then Napoleonic France. Would a more economically powerful Prussia been able to resist? Possibly, but the only nation that successfully resisted Napoleon took a rather different path. 

England was a rising power. Though the primary focus of England was on Naval power, the real source of her strength was financial. By copying the financial system of the Netherlands and then improving it, they laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution. But the full economic benefits of the Industrial Revolution did not really take hold until after the Napoleonic wars. In all of its eighteenth century wars (except one - yay, us!), and in the Napoleonic wars, England's powerful economy allowed it to prevail. It provided the navy, it subsidized economically backward but well populated continental allies, and allowed the Royal government to borrow money at rates well below anyone else. 

You mentioned, "Spain, as a world power, could have survived had it not been for the changes in warfare. New defensive methods made waging war against cities long and costly." Who instigated those changes? The Dutch, and later the English. Maurice of Nassau completely reinvented the European army. The British adopted and improved on this. And invented the modern navy. Why did these nations take the lead in the revolution in military affairs? They had societies and economies that were open to change and innovation. The closed economy of the Spanish, kept alive on life support from New World gold and silver, had the plug pulled eventually. 

How did the tiny Netherlands hold off the Hapsburg empire that was half of Europe, for ninety years? Part of the reason was their advances in military technology. But the biggest part was finance. The Spanish broke themselves on Dutch mercantile savvy. No matter what the Spanish destroyed, the Dutch could afford to rebuild, again and again. And eventually, the Spanish ran out of American silver. The result was a Spain impoverished for centuries. 

When you speak of Eastern Europe, you say that the government implemented reforms under cover of détente. But these were not reforms, as you yourself state in the next couple sentences. What it was, was a shift of production goals, using the same totally inefficient system of central planning. There was no change in the apparatus of the communist economies, in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union. Same five year plans, same endemic misreporting of economic data, same shortages of staple goods. I would argue that the Blue Jeans revolution was not a desire for actual levis, but rather for the freedom that the levis symbolized. That the governments of the Eastern Bloc attempted to bribe their citizens with material goods - after the political protests of 56 and 68 - tends to support this. (And if the Yugo is the prime example of a communist economy surmounting inherent structural problems, well, damn.) 

The reason that in the west, "High levels of defence expenditure became steadily less burdensome to the US as growth increased in the 1980s," was a result of Reagan's economic policy. That the Soviet economy stagnated was a result of the political ideology of the Communists. It stagnated quicker, because the leadership made the strategic error of trying to use an inadequate tool to achieve too many goals. If they had continued to limit consumer production, the instruments of state terror could have kept the people in line - but the result would have been the same. There is no way that the Soviet economy could have kept up with the west, especially as computer technology became more and more prevalent in the west, instigating the immense productivity boom of the nineties. 

Soviet growth was not exceptional - it was unstable, in that it couldn't continue. But the pressure that Reagan put on the Soviets, both through political, military and economic means, pushed them over the edge. The Soviets were spending over 30% of GNP on defense in the late eighties, in a vain attempt to keep pace with the Americans. We were spending 5%. 

Of your four possibilities for the fall of the USSR, the first two really ignore Soviet history before Brezhnev. The fourth is wrong, I think, and for some of the same reasons. In the last years of Tsarist Russia, the economy was booming. Industrial production, investment, agricultural yields were all growing at high rates. The revolution put an end to all that. Between the revolution, the civil war, the disastrous first years under Lenin's economic plan, then the purges and famines of the thirties - these tragic blunders set the USSR back decades. So, while there is debate about how high Soviet GNP growth rates were in the fifties and sixties - given the constant misinformation that lower level officials fed to their superiors - they were on the steep part of the growth curve. 

China dodged the bullet of communist economic decline, and achieved double digit growth rates when they introduced real market reforms - again, on the steep part of the curve, when gains are easy. If the best that the Soviet Union could do was on par with the growth of the mature industrial economy of the US, that is pathetic. The problems of the Soviet Union went far beyond those of the Tsarist regime. Brezhnev never made any structural changes to the Soviet economy - just changed production goals in the five year plan. And by the time of Gorbachev, it was too late. 

While I believe that the Soviet economy was limited from the start, that is not the sole reason that the Soviet Union fell. The Soviet economy was limited because of the political ideology of the Communist rulers. In the absence of the west, an isolated communist system could have survived indefinitely. North Korea limps on, while its people starve, because the west has no driving need (yet) to directly oppose that lunatic regime. If Brezhnev had made the decision to continue to limit consumer production, and used the instruments of state terror to keep the populace in line, he might have prolonged the demise of the Soviet system. But the decision of the west to fight communism (and the fact that their political/economic system is so much more productive and flexible) is what doomed communism in general. The actions of Reagan and Thatcher in particular led to the actual downfall.There were other times when the west could have exploited significant economic weaknesses in the Soviet Union. The twenties and thirties, right after WWII, up to the mid fifties, at least in Eastern Europe. No one actually did, though. And Kennedy almost got us all killed a couple times in the sixties, when the Soviets were probably at their strongest in relation to the west. But Reagan used the freedom that is essential to both our politics and economics to defeat the Soviets. This is appropriate, and good.

I must not think bad thoughts posted a lengthy commentary to my Reagan post, I reproduce them in their entirety, so that I may respond to it. 

While I can admit that my point is debatable, calling it absurd is unreasonable and insulting. This is long. I feel I need a broad base by which to deal with the critique--that my opinion lacks merit. I am embarrassed that I must prove that my opinions is worthy of consideration. 

First, I am not complaining that there were no structural problems with the Soviet economy until the 1970s. What I am claiming is that they did not become exploitable until the communists attempted to ameliorate their economic structure. 

My point was that the need to use consumerism to placate calls for political reforms exposed limitations of the Soviet economy. Did those limitations always exist? Yes. Were they fatal? This is a highly debatable point.

Do economies that have limited capacity for growth ultimately fail? Gerschenkron would say no: they apply a combination of political pressure and force in order to maintain acceptable levels of production. This is especially true of states that have agrarian economies. Prussia, for instance, achieved substantial worldwide influence starting from a feudal economy. The feudal lords (Junkers) joined the state in a project of Central European conquest; the serfs remained a disenfranchised underclass. The undoing of Prussia was not the economy or the political system, but the ambition of the political class in international affairs. They were not inhibited by the structure of the economy. One reason why was because the Junkers learned to coexist with other economic elements in the emerging German state (the Ruhr coal and steel barons.) (See Arno Mayer, Persistence of the Old Regime.) 

Spain, for a counterpoint, became a world power through the discover of the New World. The precious metals that it received financed military expansion on both land and sea. What Spain did not do was invest in production--the Spanish economy remained fixed in feudal agricultural modes and had little chance of expansion. However, its undoing was not immediate. Spain, as a world power, could have survived had it not been for the changes in warfare. New defensive methods made waging war against cities long and costly. From the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries Spain waged war in highly urban areas: for almost eighty years in the Northern Netherlands, and for thirty years in the German Rhineland. Furthermore, Spain committed itself to maintaining dominance in the Mediterranean (as a defense to the expansion of Islam.) In the Spanish case the circumstances that were encountered led to its demise (a slow death while it could barely keep control of its empire.) New World gold flowed through Spain, barely touched by the Spanish themselves, and passed on to foreign merchants and bankers who produced armaments for the crown. (See Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road.) 

The demise of Spain corresponded to the ascent of the Netherlands (or more properly, the United Provinces.) The Dutch perfected merchant capitalism. They introduced financial innovations and greatly expanded the scope of banking (Amsterdam Bank, Wisselbank.) They introduced the concept of private ownership of public services (a popular cry was that anyone could buy stocks in the Dutch East India Company.) Most economic historians would agree that Amsterdam was the "center of the world" until 1690. The economy had no limitations. Why did it decline? The Netherlands failed to industrialize because the economy had been so well perfected--no one willed such change. There were no financial impediments to industrialization. Even after Britain soared ahead on the innovations of Arkwright, the Dutch made no attempt to emulate British factories. (See The First Modern Economy, van der Vries.) 

Do communist economies ultimately fail? China is a glaring example of how they might not (of course, the jury is still out.) What has impressed some economists and brought chagrin to the doomsayers is that the Chinese government has proven to be very adaptable to Western intrusion, adopting "limited market reforms" where other communist nations have failed. Some fear that China will marry capitalism to authoritarianism (a point which I would dispute, but that is nonetheless allowable.) 

China might be sui generis. How about other communist economies? The collapse of Yugoslavia is almost impossible to explain by reference to economics. There exists a near consensus that national identity played the dominant role in the collapse of Tito''s state. I haven''t the qualifications to debate this point. I would only point out that Yugoslavia succeeded better than other communist states at producing for the world market, overcoming some of its economic shortcomings. 

Eastern European states present the most glaring example of state collapse of the Soviet type. But there appears to be consensus on this issue. Following the 1968 revolutions the hardline communists, after purging their ranks, focused on placating the populace by providing them with consumer goods. It was under the conditions of detente that these governments attempted economic reforms. This worked for a while. However, making consumer goods accessible meant keeping purchasing costs low at the expense of the state. In essence, the state financed consumption. This is a bad sign for any economy: one wants to sell a lot at home to keep production costs low and make back money through exports. The other side of the equation did not work well either: the goods that they produced generally flowed only within the CMEA through exchanges of goods rather than monetary transactions. By the late 1980s the states could not finance consumption or increases production of consumer goods. Consumer issues drove political protests. The trope of the "Blue Jeans" revolution is so pervasive as to be stifling. (See Rothschild, Kaser, Ash ... hell, anyone who is serious about Central and Eastern European studies.) The big exception to this story might be East Germany, which had always been highly endowed with consumer goods (in order to invite comparisons with West Germany; this has probably fueled as much of the current animosity toward Germans as has WWII.) Nationalism (desire to reunite with other Germans) did more to lead to the collapse of Honecker''s government. 

What about the USSR? Was its demise genetic? After a review of the literature, there appear to be four prevailing opinions. First, Brezhnev undertook economic reforms that led to stagnation in the 1980s that brought the downfall because the Soviet system was incapable of making the necessary political reforms (closest to my opinion.) Second, related to the first, that the stagnation became problematic because of how Gorbachev handled it. Third, that the communist regime had only limited potential from the start (closest to your opinion.) The fourth is surprising. I was not aware of it until I reviewed the lit. It basically says that the problems of the USSR were inherited from the previous governments. The collapse of the Soviet Union should, in this context, be seen as the demise of an Asiatic Russian empire that failed in its European ambitions. (This last view is new to me, but it is somewhat attractive.) There are other views that put the collapse more clearly in the politics rather than economics. 

The current guru of economic history, Niall Ferguson, would place the collapse in about the same era as I would:

"From 1950 until around 1974, the Soviet Union enjoyed real GNP growth rates compared to those of the US; indeed in the late 1950s and late 1960s they might even have been higher. But from the mid-1970s Soviet growth lagged behind. High levels of defence expenditure became steadily less burdensome to the US as growth increased in the 1980s. But the Soviet defence burden rose inexorably because the arms race accelerated while the planned economy stagnated. ... The advantage lay with the side capable of paying for armaments without stifling civilian consumption and living standards in the long run." (The Cash Nexus)

Ferguson clearly places consumerism into the mix. The USSR did experience extraordinary growth up until 1970. Brezhnev and other state planner realized that this growth was unstable. Reform of production was becoming critical. However, these reforms could not take place simply through normal economic planning.(G Schroeder) They required greater involvement by workers, either through economic incentives or through political power. The latter was clearly impossible:

"A lesson from ... the Brezhnev years was that tinkering with the command economy would make little fundamental change in economic performance. Some degree of marketization was required. But the more radical the economic reforms that one envisaged, the more likely it seemed that political reform would need to proceed them. The general secretary is not the tsar. If he trods on his colleagues'' toes without reducing his dependence on them, he could be removed from the Politburo." (Lieven)

Walter Laquer points out that poverty was pervasive in the Soviet Union. However, the people who lived in shacks and picked wild berries were not the ones to revolt. The ones who did were those of the "middle class" (professionals), the ones for whom "there was enough bread, and virtually everyone had a television" during the 70s and 80s. 

The Brezhnev years are difficult to come to terms with. He set out reforms that some would credit with setting the stage for Perestroika. Others, while acknowledging this fact, also point to the muddling of the reforms--that they led to stagnation. (S Cohen) 

Consumerism was the only carrot that the communists held out to Soviet citizens. Financing consumption placed greater demands on the economy, further negating the effectiveness of investments in production. The need to engage in production for consumers greatly taxed the Soviet system, displacing pressure from the political arena into the economic. Laquer, however, points to an unwillingness on the part of the political classes to engage political reform rather than on the inability of the communist economy to adapt; the decisions to postpone political reforms intensified economic problems. It is in this context that Reagan''s policies must be seen.

That the weaknesses of the Soviet Bloc did not appear until the seventies is ridiculous. The only thing that changed in the seventies is that the Soviet Bloc was now trying to do two things with an inefficient economy, instead of one. In the sixties, the Soviets were spending 10-15% of GNP on defense, and even higher if you count nominally civilian projects with military uses. They were spending a larger fraction of a smaller economy on defense. But the nightmares of the Soviet economy go back to forced collectivization, the rural electrification projects, and the like in the twenties and thirties. To say that economic problems suddenly developed in the seventies ignores the inefficiencies that were always present in the Soviet system.