This is in no way a pro-communist or anti-communist perspective, but a look into the socioeconomic benefits that the United States had and the socioeconomic hardships the Soviet Union faced, in comparison. The main points are that 1. the Soviet Union (and the Russian Empire) faced socioeconomic collapse in both of the world wars, as well as utter destruction of their industrial infrastructure in the second world war. 2. lost untold millions in the war, this has several consequences such as a great reduction in industrial capacity, more of a chance of social problems because of an unstable social environment (which can lead to widespread multiplication of cultural and sub cultural corruption on many levels). 3. after the second world war the European allies allowed without opposition the United States Dollar to become the world's international reserve currency. This provides an exponential increase of international buying power (as well as trading authority). Ultimately, the Soviet leadership sought to compete as a world power against innumerable odds instead of dealing with more practical and essential issues at hand. This fact, coupled with corruption, lead to the demise of the state and created many more hardships in the long run. It wasn't necessarily a political or economic system that brought this downfall, but a mix of extremely unfortunate events and decisions in leadership. [video=youtube;ALJq1XaKGlE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALJq1XaKGlE[/video]
primarily it was the poor infrastructure that made distribution of goods nearly impossible and wildly inefficient, especially food, combined with no well-defined banking system.
Yes, those are secondary causes (but not the banking system, this is dependent on type of economic system). This video mostly deals with root causes.
I watched the video. A lack of an effective banking system made it difficult to trade for goods and services and goes to the economic causes; and I am sorry, but if you think the inability to deliver food to the masses before it rotted was a secondary cause, I think you are sadly mistaken. The nation didn't even have a uniform set of rail widths for its trains so food would have to be loaded and unloaded multiple times the further it went from Moscow.
What I mean by secondary is not less important, i am just implying it isn't the root problem. When things are in place properly, or somewhat properly, errors like the ones you mention are not made. For instance, consider a situation where you have the wrong people in power (be it public or private) making poor decisions. Their decisions or lack there of are a step after them being in power, and several steps after the situation that allowed them to get into power. I am not disagreeing with you on the level of importance, I was just stating that there are deeper reasons why such problems you mention come about in the first place. And again, the banking system has to do with the economic system in place. You could run a perfectly fine economy with or without a banking system. But if we are speaking of a type of economy that needs a banking system, then a poor one can be detrimental to it (perhaps in this case). But nonetheless, it is not a root cause. I am not meaning to argue you here, I was just mentioning the fact that they are not root causes. But of course they still should be mentioned, and an in depth analysis certainly would reveal more reasons upon the collapse. The basic premise of the video was implying that the main factors for failure in the Soviet Union were it's tragic history and the socioeconomic effects of that history.
Funny thing is I completely forgot that I took a class on Russian history until this post. I agree they have a tragic history but it predates even both World Wars. The Russian people have known nothing but misery for its entire existence. That was such a depressing class.
I agree, but the effects felt from the world wars were so huge, and had a great effect upon the subject matter. But even looking to the past as you mention it's easy to see how things can go wrong socioeconomically in such circumstances, and the wrong people end up getting in power. This can be seen in many of the former Soviet puppet states, corruption that did not exist before exists now because of the collapse of socioeconomic infrastructure. Many of these countries were somewhat refined civilizations before the world wars and Soviet oppression.
I probably have a higher threshold for what I consider corruption in places like that than most people. I try not to impose western concepts of such things on people in places where the challenges are so daunting. A lot of behaviors that would be unacceptable here, I can tolerate as the probably the lesser of two or more evils in struggling nations.
"It wasn't necessarily a political or economic system that brought this downfall, but a mix of extremely unfortunate events and decisions in leadership." An economic system that dispenses with private property leads to a very rapid downfall. Even Lenin realized that collectivism was destroying the Soviet Union, within 2 years he abruptly changed course. - - - Updated - - - Private people have no "power", power comes from the ability to coerce. When a private businessman makes a wrong decision, he/she fails, that is all.
You give me empty words with no substance. Generally after making a statement like this you are supposed to give it some substance using concepts that possibly support the statement. What Lenin did or didn't do does not matter without this. Of course someone in the private sector can have power, what are you thinking?
I believe that the collapse of the Soviet Union came about because of the mass withdrawal of passive consent to be governed by average people who became fed up with government corruption and incompetence. They just stopped participating in it, almost all at once, all over the country, by passive refusal. No government can maintain power without the consent of the people.
