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Foucaulf
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« Reply #75 on: August 25, 2011, 12:44:56 PM »

Since the second post has been adequately replied to, I'll take the first one.

Guess what: If you produce half as much stuff, you can only consume half as much stuff (in the long-run).
Americans these days would benefit from consuming half of the junk food they eat, among other things. Demand is not a means in itself unless you subscribe to 19th-century theories of rationality.

A much better proposition is switching the standard work week from five days of eight hour shifts to four days of ten hour shifts. That could potentially boost productivity among individuals (people may be more productive doing forty hours spread over four days with three days of leisure at the end of the week being a huge motivation) while cutting unproductive costs for all involved (e.g., less space required in office due to staggering of shifts which implies lower energy costs, less driving to and from work for individual workers, and many, many more examples I am sure).

-As if people are forced to stop working after fourty hours. Now that leisure is freely available, the work week is a signal between work that is demanded and work that is appreciated...
-Not to mention how overtime is harder to manage when there is less time left during weekdays...
-Also, wouldn't someone drive longer during a weekend getaway than during a commute?
Never mind, people also pay for something called "urban planning".

I'll refrain from pasting the Keynes quote on the long run because I'm not that pretentious. Could you at least pretend humans don't exist in a ceteris paribus vacuum, though?
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Politico
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« Reply #76 on: August 25, 2011, 02:38:56 PM »

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Absolutely!

So let's see Britain go back to the days of subsidizing bottomless money pits such as paying hundreds of thousands of miners to dig holes in the ground looking for minerals that are no longer there because they have already been dug up? Do you really think it makes sense to take from productive sectors of the economy in the form of taxation and give it in the form of subsidization to numerous people so they can dig pointless holes, a job that produces nothing?

1970s Britain is a great case study on the failures of socialism.

An experiment for all of you socialists/communists: Name a great invention that came out of the Soviet Union. Heck, name any invention created by a government bureaucrat...
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Politico
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« Reply #77 on: August 25, 2011, 02:43:21 PM »

By the way, some folks on here are espousing socialist/communist ideas. My questions to them:
 
When did you last visit a DMV?

I've visited them here in Thailand within the last year, and at the USA within the last three years.  In both cases I received prompt, brisk, friendly service.

In rural areas I have had pleasurable experiences at the DMV, but I cannot say the same about urban areas. The custom there is queuing, queuing, and more queuing without even an option of paying a bit more to save myself time.
 
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The point of the question is this: Usually nobody takes care of something when it belongs to everybody, and this is more true the more urban an area is. Nobody takes care of something when it is just "given" to them either (e.g., project housing). In comparison, at least you have a large degree of control over your life and what you own in the free market. It ultimately provides a better standard of living for you if that is what you want.

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Did you come to this conclusion from comparing North Korea to South Korea? Same people with the same history, but dramatically different standards of living...Why do you suppose that is?
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Politico
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« Reply #78 on: August 25, 2011, 02:55:49 PM »
« Edited: August 25, 2011, 03:07:14 PM by Politico »

Since the second post has been adequately replied to, I'll take the first one.

Guess what: If you produce half as much stuff, you can only consume half as much stuff (in the long-run).
Americans these days would benefit from consuming half of the junk food they eat, among other things. Demand is not a means in itself unless you subscribe to 19th-century theories of rationality.

Americans are not in the business of being told what they would or would not benefit from by anybody, American or otherwise. They would rather be free to choose how to live their own life. And, when you get down to it, as bad as the economy in America is right now one of the biggest problems in America is obesity among its poorest. Now, call me crazy, but I would think this is much preferable than starvation among its poorest, no?

Getting back to the point: The only purpose of producing more is to acquire more money. Otherwise, it is irrational to produce more if there is no reward where the marginal benefits of producing more outweigh the marginal costs. What does acquiring more money really mean? It really just means acquiring more goods/services at some point either in the present or future.

When it comes down to it, the twenty hour work week is not the norm because the vast majority of economic agents pursuing their own self-interest have decided that to do so would incur higher marginal costs than marginal benefits.
 
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Really? This happens all of the time even among full-time workers whose job falls under regulations that require OT for hours worked beyond forty hours. In their case, some employers refuse to pay them OT so they are forced to stop working after forty hours. In fact, people are forced to stop working altogether all of the time. For one obvious example, when they are laid off. For another example, there are millions more who only have part-time jobs where by definition they work fewer than forty hours. Many of these people would like to work even more hours (i.e., they are classified as underemployed seeking full-time employment). The list goes on and on. Why do you suppose most people want to work more than twenty hours per week, anyway?
 
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I am not going to pretend humans are irrational, or that I know what is best for anybody other than myself.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #79 on: August 25, 2011, 03:16:04 PM »

Oh dear. I'm afraid that... well... I think you just fell into what is technically called a...



...and a fairly easy one to avoid as well. Alas.

So let's see Britain go back to the days of subsidizing bottomless money pits such as paying hundreds of thousands of miners to dig holes in the ground looking for minerals that are no longer there because they have already been dug up? Do you really think it makes sense to take from productive sectors of the economy in the form of taxation and give it in the form of subsidization to numerous people so they can dig pointless holes, a job that produces nothing?

I'm not aware of that ever actually happening. The only thing that would seem to fit - and even then only vaguely - would be the Williamson Tunnels in Liverpool, but they were hardly the product of any kind of socialism and certainly didn't involve hundreds of thousands of miners.

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I suppose this should have been dealt with earlier (I think we were too busy laughing at you) but 'socialists/communists' is kind of inaccurate as a sweeping term of any sort and you should probably avoid using it if you want to be taken at all seriously.

As for the bizarre business of 'inventions', then some things certainly were invented in the Soviet Union and I'm a little surprised that you'd think otherwise. You must have heard of the AK-47; quite the international success story, or so I am told.

Bureaucrats, of course, are not paid to 'invent' things, so I'm not sure why their apparent collective failure to do so ought to be held against them.
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Politico
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« Reply #80 on: August 25, 2011, 06:27:59 PM »
« Edited: August 25, 2011, 06:31:34 PM by Politico »

I'm not aware of that ever actually happening. The only thing that would seem to fit - and even then only vaguely - would be the Williamson Tunnels in Liverpool, but they were hardly the product of any kind of socialism and certainly didn't involve hundreds of thousands of miners.

You are not familiar with the history of the coal miners in Britain? If memory serves, over 200,000 miners were employed by the state in the late 1970s (And I believe only something like 10,000 were still around after privatization). It was no longer a profitable endeavor by the end of the 1970s. In fact, there was not a lot of coal leftover by the early 1980s, so basically the state was subsidizing the act of digging holes by hundreds of thousands of miners. In other words, the state was engaging in massive subsidization of an industry that was mostly producing nothing. Is this the type of future you want to see? Tax the productive to subsidize the pointless?

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What do you propose calling yourself? I mean, do you or do you not believe that most economic activity should be planned by the government? Somebody who holds that opinion is, by definition, a socialist at the very least and a communist at worst.

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My question was to name a GREAT invention that came out of the Soviet Union. I would not put the AK-47 in the category of greatness. Perhaps some would. In either case, it is not like it was the first assault rifle of all-time. If you care to share some better inventions than the AK-47, please do so. I cannot think of anything else, can you?

Another exercise for you: Please argue why you support North Korea over South Korea. And please list the wonders that have come out of North Korea, which clearly trump the goods/services from South Korea, right?

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Once again, it was you, not I, who said that bureaucrats/politicians should be largely in charge of economic activity. If that is true, and bureaucrats do not invent anything, then how in the world are we going to progress if nobody is inventing anything in your world of supposed government utopia?
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opebo
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« Reply #81 on: August 25, 2011, 07:39:15 PM »


If we can be sure of nothing else, we can be sure of this, Politico..  though in fairness the 99% in our society who are slaves are operating under severe conditioning and in ignorance, which makes rationality generally beyond them (even aside from the fact that they don't have the power to do the rational thing - kill the rich - even if they were fully sentient).
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #82 on: August 25, 2011, 07:51:58 PM »

You are not familiar with the history of the coal miners in Britain? If memory serves, over 200,000 miners were employed by the state in the late 1970s (And I believe only something like 10,000 were still around after privatization). It was no longer a profitable endeavor by the end of the 1970s. In fact, there was not a lot of coal leftover by the early 1980s, so basically the state was subsidizing the act of digging holes by hundreds of thousands of miners. In other words, the state was engaging in massive subsidization of an industry that was mostly producing nothing. Is this the type of future you want to see? Tax the productive to subsidize the pointless?

Oh, I think it's probably fair to say that I know a reasonable amount about the history of coal miners in Britain. Ask anyone here.

I'm going to avoid getting embroiled in a debate about the economics of the coal industry in the 1970s and 1980s because I'd need to dig through a couple of boxfiles worth of notes and photocopies and I'm not going to do that just to argue with some prick on the internet, but I think I should correct you on a couple of points. The first - and most important - is that you are completely wrong to suggest that coal had mostly run out by the early 1980s; the British coal industry was one of the most efficient and productive in Europe (the most, I think) and was at the time essential to the British economy as most power stations were still coal fired (the switch to natural gas didn't happen until the early 1990s and nuclear power was never as popular with policy makers as it was in, say, France), and most estimates in the early 1980s put Britain's provable coal reserves at about three hundred years or so (almost all of which is still down there). So... actually the state was subsidising keeping the lights on.

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I'm proud to call myself a Socialist, but I'm not a Communist. This should really not be an issue in 2011.

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Look, I am really not here to defend the U.S.S.R, an awful regime that I am not (and have never been) an admirer of. I'm also no expert when it comes to technology so it isn't as though I could rattle off lists of 'great inventions' even if I wanted to. Of course there were many cultural achievements within the Soviet Union, if that counts.

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I'm afraid that I don't, me duck. Sorry.

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And once again, and with all the regret that I can muster, I must post this picture:



Anyways, lay off the ketamine. It's not good for you.
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Politico
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« Reply #83 on: August 25, 2011, 08:21:17 PM »
« Edited: August 25, 2011, 10:22:30 PM by Politico »


If we can be sure of nothing else, we can be sure of this, Politico..  though in fairness the 99% in our society who are slaves are operating under severe conditioning and in ignorance, which makes rationality generally beyond them (even aside from the fact that they don't have the power to do the rational thing - kill the rich - even if they were fully sentient).

Kill the rich? What, like they did in the Soviet Union and North Korea? How did that work out? If I may, why do you want to cut down the tall trees in the forest to the size of the short trees instead of having policies that promote growing the short trees?

Correct me if I am wrong, but your ideology appears to be that command economies are better and more "fair" than free enterprise. If you can name a single historical example where standard of living improved after moving from free enterprise to command and control, please do share. After you are done doing that, then you can explain to me why North Korea and South Korea are so dramatically different by most every way possible (By the way, people are more "equal" in North Korea if your idea of being equal is everybody "enjoying" the lowest common denominator; even the poorest in free enterprise South Korea enjoy a considerably better life than everybody in North Korea other than the upper echelon of the Communist Party).
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Politico
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« Reply #84 on: August 25, 2011, 08:30:50 PM »
« Edited: August 25, 2011, 08:38:42 PM by Politico »


I'm going to avoid getting embroiled in a debate about the economics of the coal industry in the 1970s and 1980s because I'd need to dig through a couple of boxfiles worth of notes and photocopies and I'm not going to do that just to argue with some prick on the internet, but I think I should correct you on a couple of points. The first - and most important - is that you are completely wrong to suggest that coal had mostly run out by the early 1980s;

The low hanging fruit was clearly gone by the early 1980s. I do not know what the reserves are like today, but surely they are not nearly as large as you think considering the fact we have not seen massive investment in getting it out like have seen, for example, in the Alberta Tar Sands of Canada or the level of investment in mining in Australia.

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Oh really? Then how do you explain the fact that nobody in Europe, or anywhere else in the world, threw gobs of capital at the industry when it was privatized? Gee, maybe because it was the exact opposite of what you describe: inefficient and unprofitable?

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The state was subsidizing "keeping the lights on"? Then how do you explain the fact that the lights were still on even after all of the numerous strikes, and even after the workforce went from approximately 200,000 to less than 10,000?

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And I am proud to point out to you that socialism was a failure in the United Kingdom. But you are more than welcome to cling to a silly belief that going back to socialism will somehow be different this time around. One would not expect that in 1981, let alone 2011, but here we are.

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Fair enough. With that said, I think it is safe to say that you, since anybody else can, would be able to rattle off a list of great inventions, amazing goods/services, that have come from free enterprise countries over the past decade, no? I mean, what has brought us together in this conversation right now as we speak?

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Oh, please humor me with a listing. Does the list of great cultural achievements include the Gulag/NKVD?

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I'm afraid that I don't, me duck. Sorry.[/quote]

A socialist who admits that the free enterprise of South Korea blows the command and control economy of North Korea out of the water? We are talking about the same people with the same history, but dramatically different economies. The socialist way you support leads to North Korea sooner or later no matter where it is implemented. The sooner you can come to this realization, the better.

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ag
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« Reply #85 on: August 25, 2011, 08:50:23 PM »


There is no law that prohibits you from working 20 hours a week or less, if you'd so like. For that matter, nobody forces you to work at all. What, exactly, is your problem?
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Politico
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« Reply #86 on: August 25, 2011, 10:05:21 PM »
« Edited: August 25, 2011, 10:07:41 PM by Politico »


There is no law that prohibits you from working 20 hours a week or less, if you'd so like. For that matter, nobody forces you to work at all. What, exactly, is your problem?

Thank you! I have been thinking the same thing since stumbling upon this thread. However, I did not feel like I had enough stature, such as the great reputation you possess, to ask something like that.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #87 on: August 25, 2011, 10:37:46 PM »

The low hanging fruit was clearly gone by the early 1980s.

1880s, actually. In some places probably the 1780s. Most reserves were still quite easy to get to, even in the older coalfields (and would have been easier had the NCB actually invested money in modernising those pits, but that's a different debate).

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Those figures were commonly accepted at the time, so it isn't really a question of what I think. Of course much of the coal would be harder to get at now because of the pit closures and the inevitably flooding underground.

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Domestic demand for coal collapsed following (amongst other things) the 'dash for gas' in the early 1990s. But, for what it's worth, there are quite a few opencast pits around these days (they don't last for long and they don't employ many people, of course), and a new drift mine was opened near Neath a few years ago, and vague plans for larger projects elsewhere are proposed every now and again.

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I never said it was profitable, though some areas certainly were. But that it was an unusually efficient and productive coal industry is an established fact. The reason why no one 'threw gobs of capital' at the industry when it was privatised was because the market for coal had collapsed by that point.

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Numerous strikes? Bollocks.

During the strikes in the early 1970s the lights (rather famously!) did not stay on. During the strike in 1984/5 the lights stayed on because the government was prepared (massive stockpiles of coal outside every power station, months in advance of industrial action) and because Scargill was an idiot (the strike started in summer).

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This is a very strange discussion.

I still wonder why you've not actually responded to this image...



...and it's associated accusation. Despite it being used twice.

Odd.

Trolling? Or dense?

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Actually what started this bizarre conversation (such as is) was your failure to understand that my mocking response to your idiotic contribution to the thread (even more idiotic than opebo's, and that's saying something. Want a medal?) was... mocking and sarcastic. And it's continued because, well, this is the internet.

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Ah, I think you are trolling, yes? Maybe your contributions - such as they are - to this thread make sense now. Because I've already mentioned my distaste of the Soviet Union (how retro!) and I was careful to use the word 'within'... all of which means that I'm hardly saying that Shostakovich's eighth quartet (or whatever) is proof of the brilliance of the U.S.S.R. and why we should all miss it greatly.

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Think you'll find that the number of people who have a high opinion of North Korea can be counted on the fingers of one hard, so I don't think the surprise (or even mock surprise, if that's what it is) is at all warranted. So, probably, you're just trolling. Kind of pathetic as trolling goes though. Must try harder, as school report cards hardly ever actually said.

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lol
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patrick1
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« Reply #88 on: August 25, 2011, 11:10:28 PM »

My question was to name a GREAT invention that came out of the Soviet Union. I would not put the AK-47 in the category of greatness. Perhaps some would. In either case, it is not like it was the first assault rifle of all-time. If you care to share some better inventions than the AK-47, please do so. I cannot think of anything else, can you?





As for the rest of the thread, Stop the fight!!!
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Politico
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« Reply #89 on: August 25, 2011, 11:41:11 PM »
« Edited: August 26, 2011, 04:07:38 AM by Politico »

Those figures were commonly accepted at the time, so it isn't really a question of what I think. Of course much of the coal would be harder to get at now because of the pit closures and the inevitably flooding underground.

Or, perhaps even more likely, the estimates of reserves were blown out of proportion in the 1980s in a desperate attempt to continue pushing for the policy of mass subsidization of an industry that should have never been subsidized to begin with?

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Domestic demand for coal collapsed following (amongst other things) the 'dash for gas' in the early 1990s. But, for what it's worth, there are quite a few opencast pits around these days (they don't last for long and they don't employ many people, of course), and a new drift mine was opened near Neath a few years ago, and vague plans for larger projects elsewhere are proposed every now and again.[/quote]

Let's stick to the 2010s, not the early 1990s. Demand for coal is on the rise. Why are we not seeing the type of investment in coal mining in Britain as we are seeing elsewhere in the world, including the USA? Could it be that there is not much coal left in Britain, and has not been for a long time?

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Efficient and productive yet not profitable? Do you not realize what you are saying?

Look: The British mines, or at least most of them, had reached the end of their useful life by the end of the 1970s. This is why the free market has not brought about a re-emergence of mining in Britain despite the rise in demand for coal recently, and the anticipated high levels of demand for coal moving forward through the 21st Century. In the late 1970s, there was a policy in place of subsidizing hundreds of thousands of miners to basically do work that could have been done by ten thousand miners. In other words, the policy can be best summed up as: tax productive activities to subsidize a pointless activity. Your failure to appreciate this fact is mind-boggling.

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And how do you explain the shape of coal mining in West Virginia during the same time period?

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Numerous strikes? Bollocks.[/quote]

There were more than just one or two strikes, right? Hence numerous.

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I am admittedly more familiar with the strike of the mid-80s.

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Even you have to admit, or should learn, that Scargill and the union's inept leadership ought to give you pause when considering whether or not to espouse central control of an entire industry, let alone an entire economy.

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lol
[/quote][/quote]

Let me rephrase: Wherever the socialist way is implemented, it leads to North Korea eventually if, despite all continued failures, the state continues to push the socialist agenda with greater and greater degrees of coercion. History has displayed this time and time again. The socialist way will either lead that way, or eventually lead to a situation such as the "Winter of Discontent" and what ensued following that calamity. In either case, it is a road I would rather not see America ever go down.
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Politico
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« Reply #90 on: August 25, 2011, 11:44:39 PM »
« Edited: August 25, 2011, 11:52:53 PM by Politico »

My question was to name a GREAT invention that came out of the Soviet Union. I would not put the AK-47 in the category of greatness. Perhaps some would. In either case, it is not like it was the first assault rifle of all-time. If you care to share some better inventions than the AK-47, please do so. I cannot think of anything else, can you?





As for the rest of the thread, Stop the fight!!!


Stealing research and technology from Nazi Germany, probably only successfully enabled by the good fortune of the German rocket center being located in the Soviet occupation zone following WW II, does not count.
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patrick1
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« Reply #91 on: August 25, 2011, 11:52:23 PM »


Stealing research and technology from Nazi Germany does not count.





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Politico
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« Reply #92 on: August 25, 2011, 11:55:46 PM »
« Edited: August 26, 2011, 12:10:06 AM by Politico »


We were talking about the Soviet Union, not America. I am not going to argue with where you are going. Both sides clearly benefited from German scientists following WW II. With that said, we are getting away from the main point: the fact that command and control economies have an atrocious record on innovation, especially compared to nations that largely utilize free enterprise. For example, I can assure you that the list of inventions that have come out of America the past one hundred years as a result of free enterprise, well, that list absolutely destroys the record you will find in any socialist country (including all of them combined). Do you really want to play that game? The list for America is inexhaustible (hell, it is as self-evident as the fact the sun will come up tomorrow), yet not a single person on here can name even a single great invention that came about under the command and control economy of the Soviet Union.

Perhaps an even better game: Compare the inventions of Britain before it adopted socialism with the inventions of Britain during its socialist experimentation. After that, compare the worldwide status of Britain before it adopted socialism with its status during its socialist experimentation.
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patrick1
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« Reply #93 on: August 26, 2011, 12:19:47 AM »

I happen to support regulated free enterprise. 

However, you can't make groundless arguments to support your cause and not expected to be called on it. The claim that there were no inventions is simply wrong.  There is also a connotative difference between invention and science- Edison would probably be able to expound on this.  Manned space flight, the first satellite and amazing advances across the sciences warrants praise that cannot be ignored.  And it was not all the work of Nazi tech, no more than the Apollo program was the sole work of Von Braun. The Soviets simply did not monetize their advances.  You and Al have a running discourse on some of your claims so I'll let you continue that on your own.
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Politico
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« Reply #94 on: August 26, 2011, 12:29:52 AM »
« Edited: August 26, 2011, 12:43:17 AM by Politico »

I happen to support regulated free enterprise.  

However, you can't make groundless arguments to support your cause and not expected to be called on it. The claim that there were no inventions is simply wrong.

I never said there were no great inventions, just that nobody has listed one yet. It really says something about their system.

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I am not going to argue with that, but I am also not going to ignore the "piggy-backing" on Nazi research and resources. Ultimately, it is the only reason the manned space flight and first satellite happened in the Soviet Union. As such, they really cannot be labelled solely as inventions or scientific advances brought about due to the command and control policies of the Soviet Union. You can, of course, list the other "amazing advances across the sciences," if you so wish, but I can assure you that those achievements came at a great cost to their society.

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Ultimately, their advances were always the result of coercion. Any benefits came at a great cost to their society, and I think it is a safe bet that none of it was worth the Gulag, all of the paranoia, all of the disappearances, etc. I have a big problem with the coercion that dominates that system, as should anybody who supports freedom. On top of that, all things considered, I am absolutely one hundred percent confident that the advancements of Russia in the 20th century would have been much greater under free enterprise than the command and control hierarchy they adopted. One just needs to look at the great contributions to American society by Russian-Americans in the 20th century through today.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #95 on: August 26, 2011, 12:34:03 AM »


An experiment for all of you socialists/communists: Name a great invention that came out of the Soviet Union. Heck, name any invention created by a government bureaucrat...

Tetris.
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Politico
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« Reply #96 on: August 26, 2011, 12:37:27 AM »
« Edited: August 26, 2011, 04:14:59 AM by Politico »


An experiment for all of you socialists/communists: Name a great invention that came out of the Soviet Union. Heck, name any invention created by a government bureaucrat...

Tetris.

I love Tetris as much as the next guy, but is it really so much an invention as a great video game? If the first video game was an invention, is Tetris really an invention or just another variant? And does Tetris ever exist if video games are not invented? Plus, can you name any other great video games from the Soviet Union? I can name quite a few from Japan and America. What would video gaming be like if people only had Tetris to choose from?
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Politico
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« Reply #97 on: August 26, 2011, 12:50:19 AM »

By the way, the Russians involved in advancing science and mathematics, along with Pajitnov for creating Tetris, should be proud of their accomplishments. However, I suspect that most, if not all, of them believe they would have accomplished even greater things in a free enterprise system like America compared to the command and control hierarchy they were forced to put up with.
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« Reply #98 on: August 26, 2011, 01:00:39 AM »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_inventions#.C2.A0Soviet_Union

Not to mention Soviet visual art and film which were largely terrific and couldn't have existed if their creators had been thrown to the wolves of the free market.
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Politico
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« Reply #99 on: August 26, 2011, 01:31:33 AM »
« Edited: August 26, 2011, 01:44:38 AM by Politico »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_inventions#.C2.A0Soviet_Union

Not to mention Soviet visual art and film which were largely terrific and couldn't have existed if their creators had been thrown to the wolves of the free market.

And which of these films, let alone the aforementioned inventions, provide benefits to mankind that outweigh the costs of 25-62 million deaths (men, women and children) by mass executions, death camps, and state-caused famine?

Source for 25 million deaths: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076082
Source for 62 million deaths: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM

By the way, what you call the "wolves of the free market" are just the consumers of the free market (i.e., those who buy goods/services). In a free market, led by an invisible hand powered by the human characteristic of pursuing one's own self-interest (ultimately providing cooperation without coercion), the consumers ultimately decide what is consumed and therefore what is produced (those who produce good/services that consumers are unwilling to buy eventually end up failing without government intervention).

By the way, here is the American counterpart to your Wiki link (four links rather than one, and none of them brought to the world by mass executions, death camps and state-caused famines of women and children):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions_%28before_1890%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions_%281890%E2%80%931945%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions_(1946–1991)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_inventions_%28after_1991%29

And for a database containing details on great American films (and some pretty awful stuff, too), go to www.imdb.com
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