
When Boris Yeltsin Went Grocery Shopping in Clear Lake - areoform
https://www.nhregister.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php#photo-6130393
======
smogcutter
Alright I got one:

So it's a chilly Thursday morning in Brno, and everybody's in line to buy
meat. They're waiting and waiting, and the line's not moving at all.

Eventually a Party official comes out and says "Due to the conspiracy of
wreckers, there isn't enough meat. All the Jews need to get off the line".

So the Jews all get off the line and go home, but still everyone's waiting and
there's no meat. Hours pass, and eventually the Party official comes back:
"I'm sorry to report that there's still not enough meat. Everyone who's not a
Party member needs to get off the line."

So all the non-party members get off the line and go home. But still all the
Party members are waiting and waiting, no meat. After another two hours
waiting in the cold the official comes back and says, "We're sorry but there's
no meat today. Everybody get off the line."

As they're walking away from the line, one of the people who was waiting turns
to the other and says: "You see? The Jews always have it the best!"

~~~
fao_
EDIT: I misread the punchline of the joke. Ignore this.

    
    
        That's amusing, but at the same time it is horrifically anti-semitic. Especially given what the Jewish people went through in the years leading up the the Russian Revolution (One toddler was torn apart by a fascist mob, in another town a number of months later Jewish people were forced into a church and then the church and people burned alive).

~~~
okusername
How's this anti-semitic? I doesn't portray jews in a negative way. If
anything, it points out antisemitism.

~~~
fao_
The punch-line of the joke is "the jews have it better, once again"

~~~
smogcutter
The punchline of the joke is that the Jews were treated the worst, and the
antisemitic party members are going to resent them no matter what.

~~~
fao_
That's a fair reading, I guess.

~~~
distantaidenn
That's the only reading.

~~~
DevoidSimo
They have it better because they got to leave first. Party members had to wait
in line for hours. That was my reading of it

------
dmix
The same thing happened in Venezuela in the early 2000s when they initiated
price controls to make food more "affordable" for the poor. The variety of
products was the first thing that dropped to only the necessities. Then even
the necessities started to drop in supply:

> Further yet, price controls, expropriation of numerous farmlands and various
> industries, among other disputable government policies including a near-
> total freeze on any access to foreign currency at reasonable "official"
> exchange rates, have resulted in severe shortages in Venezuela and steep
> price rises of all common goods, including food, water, household products,
> spare parts, tools and medical supplies; forcing many manufacturers to
> either cut production or close down, with many ultimately abandoning the
> country as has been the case with several technological firms and most
> automobile makers.
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela#1999–2013](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela#1999–2013)

~~~
rayiner
My wife was a student in the eastern part of Germany in the early aughts, when
life in pre-unification eastern Germany was still fresh in peoples’ minds. One
thing that people would say is that “before the wall fell, we had plenty of
money, there just was never anything to buy.”

When I hear people say “X shouldn’t be subject to the market” I want to bang
my head on the desk. You can’t just decide that, e.g. food won’t be subject to
market forces by, e.g., imposing price controls. If you push on the balloon on
one side, it will expand on the other side.

~~~
areoform
However, it is fruitful to point out that not all markets are created equal.
Even if an exchange of money takes place in return for goods and services, the
market that exists is not necessarily a free market. Sometimes this is true
even in the most idealized of cases.

For example, healthcare isn’t composed of one market, but several between
different operators operating under different market forces and regulatory
rules. As it’s too complicated to go into each, I’ll go into one that’s most
apparent; the market between patients and healthcare providers (not insurance
companies!).

Assuming the most idealized of cases that exist without external constraints
and regulations, this market would never be a free market. Because the buyer
will never be in the position to make the decision to _not_ buy the good. Even
a rational free agent would not be in a position to disagree from making a
purchase. The value each sentient lifeform places on their life is for all
intents and purposes infinity in the healthcare context. No sane suicidal
individual or hero would sign up for a purposeless, slow and painful death.
This removes the essential mechanism that free markets have to regulate
themselves; the freedom to _not_ participate.

In most markets, if a good or service is too expensive then the business
selling them will go bankrupt or remain small due to a lack of buyers. This
creates an incentive for a cheaper mousetrap to exist. But healthcare isn’t
like that. Your choice is severely limited. At best, you can choose between
providers (though for serious, and sadly incredibly routine, issues the
immediacy of needing treatment trumps this) and at worst you’re unconscious
and unable to make any decisions yourself. So the element of choice isn’t
present making it axiomatically not a free market.

Please note that I am not going into ancillary factors like the difficulties
patients face in making informed decisions, the viral component that exists
for certain classes of disease (you choosing not to do X in the case of a
serious enough pathogen could lead to a sick household or an epidemic. See:
the return of measles), the difficulty of rationing care (Americans spend more
partly because they see their doctors less by design and are discouraged from
accessing preventative care), and overall incentive misalignment between
doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospital staff, insurers, HMOs etc that
creates runaway effects.

We treat all markets in the same way, but they aren’t all the same. The market
for healthcare is different from consumer electronics and the market for
plastic surgery (a procedure where I must note there is an option to say no).
Reductively put, you can choose not to buy a MacBook Pro. But you can’t choose
not to treat sepsis. So why does our literature usually assume that both are
the same?

~~~
CryptoPunk
>>this market would never be a free market. Because the buyer will never be in
the position to make the decision to not buy the good.

A free market does not mean a market where a buyer has a choice of not buying
something. It only means one where the market choices of agents are not
constrained by coercive intervention of other agents.

We need to buy food, but the market for food is still quite free, and
consequently, very efficient.

~~~
areoform
> A free market does not mean a market where a buyer has a choice of not
> buying something. It only means one where the market choices of agents are
> not constrained by coercive intervention of other agents.

That's not how I was taught this concept. I know, Wikipedia is a bad source,
but I would like to point out how widespread my specific interpetation is
amongst the economics textbooks I've read;

 _In a free market, individuals and firms taking part in these transactions
have the liberty to enter, leave and participate in the market as they so
choose. Prices and quantities are allowed to adjust according to economic
conditions in order to reach equilibrium and properly allocate resources._

Note, enter _and_ leave. This means both as a producer and a consumer, without
this we cannot have efficient allocation.

> We need to buy food, but the market for food is still quite free, and
> consequently, very efficient.

The food market is a really good counter-argument to mine, but when I was
first making my observations, I found that food is a very different market
that was originally constrained in similar ways but isn't. First is that it's
a "market" that's nearing globalized post-scarcity (this doesn't preclude
localized scarcity). We produce enough food that we can feed the global
population twice over [https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-
person](https://ourworldindata.org/food-per-person) (3k+ per capita for
developed nations and 2k+ for underdeveloped ones).

Humans have reached this state due to government-sponsored research and
sponsored application of revolutionary new technologies.

Second, our ability to process food has also led to a surplus in stored
calories. We can feed ourselves even during catastrophes (though distribution
will remain a challenge).

And third, historically (as I am not certain about this particular point, but
it is consistent with my reading of history), prior to the green revolution,
the food market was never this free - it has always been state managed to a
varying degrees. From feudal lords and chieftains to the Roman grain dole,
food has been a carefully managed resources until our time.

Due to its oversupply and heterogeneity, the food market has a very different
structure and dynamics that are inherent to it. But, taking my argument at
face value, I would argue that it is indeed possible to exit the food market -
we can grow our own food! Even a small-ish farm with good practices can feed a
family for a year or more using wild seeds, natural compost and herbicides
alone.

~~~
nitrogen
This is an interesting comment, thanks! (Writing instead of just upvoting
because the comment is deep in the gray)

~~~
areoform
Thanks! I have done my best to study about this topic as much as I can :)

I decided a long time ago that if I was going to be an entrepreneur; I was
going to figure out how the whole stack works. And that definitely includes
economics.

I’m doing my best to learn how to see things clearly and insightfully. :)

------
keketi
> Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's nodding his head in
> amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if
> their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions
> of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."

It's awe-inspiring to imagine that not too long ago the societal order of
multiple countries depended on their millions of residents being ignorant of
such a simple fact. What really gets my mind going is the next thought: what
are some simple facts that would cause revolutions nowadays if made widely
known?

~~~
jbattle
I know people who genuinely believe that people in countries with socialized
medicine have to wait months to see a doctor

~~~
asdf21
... Because that's true, depending on the situation.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/06/13/if-
uni...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/06/13/if-universal-
health-care-is-the-goal-dont-copy-canada/#27492adb78d5)

>The most visible manifestation of Canada’s failing health care system are
wait times for health care services. In 2013, Canadians, on average, faced a
four and a half month wait for medically necessary treatment after referral by
a general practitioner. This wait time is almost twice as long as it was in
1993 when national wait times were first measured.

~~~
sriram_sun
I had Kaiser. A month-and-a-half to see a specialist. Any specialist
appointment - Heart or Brain is easily 2- 3 months out.

~~~
jedberg
I think it depends on the area. I have Kaiser now, in the Silicon Valley, and
I've never waited more than a day for a specialist. Oftentimes I can even go
in the same visit as my GP after he refers me.

I think it's the same in Canada. In some areas there are no waits and in other
areas there are long waits. I think they need to look at percentiles to get a
more accurate measure.

~~~
lostlogin
How does that work? Is the specialist sitting there with no patients, waiting
for a call?

~~~
Alex63
First, understand that there isn't really a Canadian federal health care
system. The Canadian government (federal) transfers funds to the provinces,
which operate health plans for provincial residents. The provincial health
plans control the number of available specialists. A health care provider can
only bill the provincial plan if they have a billing number, and the
provincial plans manage billing numbers to limit/encourage specialists and to
make sure doctors provide services in less populous areas. I don't know if
it's still the case, but historically there was no private alternative
available (so doctors couldn't operate a private practice that didn't need a
billing number from the provincial plan). If provinces chose to allow private
practices, the federal government threatened to withhold funds from the plan.

As with most western democracies, Canadian doctors are well compensated in
comparison to the rest of society. But it is generally understood that they
can make more money in the US if they qualify for immigration (and many can
because of rules allowing people with specialist skills to get immigrant
visas). This also contributes to reduced supply of specialists, and longer
waiting times.

To get to see one of the available specialists in Canada, you have to have a
referral from a primary care provider. Here in the US (in my experience) a
referral is as simple as saying to your GP, "I want to see a cardiologist."
Then your GP says "Oh, sure, this one's very good. I'll refer you." In Canada,
your GP has to follow plan guidelines for referrals, and confirm that it is
warranted. Then you get on the waiting list for the specialist. You'll wait
for a consultation. At the consultation the specialist will determine whether
or not you need treatment, and the urgency. Then you go on the waiting list
for treatment.

Of course, Canadians with the financial resources are free to travel to other
countries to obtain medical treatment more quickly. The provincial medical
plans do not pay for treatments obtained outside of Canada. Medical "tourism"
is not that unusual, including travel to the US and other countries.

------
akurilin
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTGsUyv8IE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTGsUyv8IE)
\- linked from the article. I still remember walking into those stores with my
mother during that era, to my eyes at the time that looked "just fine", I
didn't know any better. Looking back now, not so much.

And as someone on YouTube pointed out, that was in Moscow, which had it much
better than regions further away from the sources of power.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
It looked like people were paying money for food. Did they indeed pay, or was
some food free? How did that work?

~~~
BerislavLopac
Why would it be free?

~~~
bgutierrez
Lots of us are unfamiliar with the day-to-day details of soviet communism.
Were people paid for their labor? Was everyone given ration cards? Was a party
membership enough to get some basic food from one of these stores?

I think the question is, was money abolished along with capitalism?

~~~
vkou
> Were people paid for their labor?

Yes. Different jobs paid different amounts, and people were paid for overtime.
(With a bunch of malarkey about what exactly qualifies as overtime.) Some jobs
had a harder time attracting workers, because of relatively poor conditions +
poor pay, compared to others.

Most prices for essential goods (Basic food, housing) was set by the
government to be very low. Many well-paid people had money, that they couldn't
really spend in the official system.

> Was everyone given ration cards?

Yes. There were a large number of consumer goods (meat, vodka, butter) that
were rationed. Other goods, of which there were no real shortages of (In the
post-war period), were bought at regular stores. If you weren't a drinker, you
would often trade your vodka ration to someone who was.

For yet other goods, of which there _were_ shortages of (Fresh vegetables, for
instance), the government encouraged private production of them. Some Russians
had plots of personal land.

You could have a plot of personal land in one of two ways. You could either be
a collectivized farmer, and, after you met your annual slave-like obligations
to the collective, you could work on farming your small personal plots.
Alternatively, you could be a well-off city resident, owning a datcha (A small
summer home, often with a small plot of land.)

You could then grow produce on your personal plot of land, and sell it at
farmer's markets. Due to shortages, and artificially low prices in the
official system, food at farmer's markets cost many times what it would cost
at a grocery.

> Was a party membership enough to get some basic food from one of these
> stores?

Official government prices for food were very cheap, and if you weren't picky,
there was no shortage of cheap calories that you could buy. So, people weren't
starving to death, but if you wanted more then your 500g of sausage, and 90g
of butter/month, you needed to spend money in the private markets.

Party members in good standing had access to party-only stores, which sold
more limited items.

> I think the question is, was money abolished along with capitalism?

No. You see, the Soviet Union never actually reached communism - for its
entire history, it claimed to be in a transitional period, from capitalism to
communism. Once communism would be reached, there would be plenty for all, and
money would, obviously, be irrelevant! (Or not. The powers that be weren't
super-clear as to how exactly that would work, and none of the citizens really
gave a shit, because it was clear to everyone with a room-temperature-or-
higher IQ that communism would not ever be reached in their lifetimes, and
that it's better for your mental and physical health to not ask too many
questions about it.)

But, in the meantime, as people were working their way _towards_ communism,
money was still necessary as an incentive for good work. State-ran businesses
did financial accounting, they would purchase raw goods from other state-ran
businesses, would sell their products through state-ran stores. For consumer
goods, there would be multiple competing brands, with different quality, and
pricing.

The difference between the USSR and the USA, in this sense, is where the
profits would go, and how much of the accounting was 'real'. The government
would often place economic orders that it wouldn't need to pay for (If the
army needs to move a 50 soldiers from Moscow to Vladivostok, it doesn't pay
the transportation department the price of 50 train tickets.) It would also do
financial malarkey with the profits of state enterprises (To subsidize things
like staple foods, housing, education, medical care, etc, which were provided
to the citizenry at below-cost prices.)

PS: Bonus point:

You may ask: Well, what did people who had extra money/vodka/etc do with it?

There were a few things you could spend it on - there were some non-essential
consumer goods that had vastly inflated sticker prices. Luxury goods (Which
you might buy second-hand from a party member, who bought theirs from an
official, party-only store), and domestic appliances were one example. Cars,
were another - they would cost multiple years of wages - and also came with a
multi-year, sometimes decade-long waiting period.

Bribes were a third one - with a large bribe, you could often shave a few
years off your waiting period for a car.

The black market was a fourth one - a lot of people in the Soviet Union stole
from their workplaces. And I do mean a lot. There weren't department stores,
you couldn't go into a Lowe's, and buy a bunch of new roof shingles for your
datcha. Yet, everyone who cared about the roof of their datcha had new roof
shingles. How was this possible?

The answer is, of course, elementary. What you would do, is get in touch with
an alcoholic who works at the roof shingle factory, he will arrange for a
pallet of shingles to fall off the back of the delivery truck, and you will
arrange for him to get fifty rubles, and four bottles of vodka. He will be
drunk for two days, the truck driver will buy a radio for his girlfriend, his
workplace will do some accounting bullshit to try to avoid blame, the
government construction site that expects these shingles will have to delay
work for a week, and the Regional Minister of Construction Supplies will give
a radio speech about how if we only worked really hard, to produce enough roof
shingles, in a few decades, we will finally attain communism, and we might
have department stores, where private citizens could go to, and purchase
shingles for their datchas.

It's all insane, of course, but I've yet to live in a country which wasn't.

~~~
dbancajas
did you grow up in russia? great write up

~~~
vkou
Only during the very tail end of it. But I have asked all of these questions
to my parents, and all four of my grandparents.

Between all of us, we had two cars, one datcha, one relative who was an
agricultural auditor (and, therefore, recipient of food-related bribes), one
black and white television, one vacuum cleaner, a few people with the status
of 'victims of political repression' (awarded post-1991), one four-room
apartment with a solarium (for six people), and one three-room apartment (for
five people).

So, all-in all, we were quite well-to do. (Thanks to my grandparents, who were
factory workers. My parents, who were physics professors, were not making very
much.)

My earliest memories include standing in bread lines during the transition
period in the early 90s, reading through textbooks with pro-communist pages
crossed out, and listening to TV news announce a higher and higher dollar to
ruble exchange rate on a day-over-day basis.

------
TaylorAlexander
It’s interesting the notion of waiting in lines. Yesterday at Home Depot I
needed a four foot length of hose cut from their hose area. Most employees,
even a pair standing and talking right near the hose, said they couldn’t help
me, we needed someone from plumbing. They called three separate times for
someone from plumbing and after 10 minutes or so someone arrived. But another
man had been waiting since just before me, so he was helped first. That took
an additional 20 minutes. Even once he came to me, it took maybe 10 minutes
because the hose didn’t have the right SKU and he didn’t know what to put on
the ticket.

So I had to wait more than 30 minutes for a single piece of hose.

I bet that’s not as bad as lines were sometimes in the Soviet system, but it’s
not fantastic on its own. Imagine if Boris Yeltsin had to wait 30 plus minutes
for a four foot length of hose that none of the employees standing around were
able or willing to help him with...

I’ve been remembering to go to the small Ace Hardware store in town lately.
They are much smaller but still seem to have stock of the right items, and I
can get a person or two to help me immediately.

Capitalism as we know it played a big role in the abundance we’ve had here,
but it has also left the US with the most expensive medical care and alienated
individuals. Our system may be better than the Soviet system in many ways, but
is it the best we can do?

~~~
derp_dee_derp
Capitalism also funded the research and development of that medical care
you're complaining about being too expensive. Better that it exists and is
expensive rather than that medical care not existing at all.

~~~
KirinDave
This sounds like a positive claim that could use proof.

~~~
maxerickson
I think arriving at a hard percentage would be difficult, but I don't see how
it is controversial that US government funded research has been well supported
by capitalism and contributed much medical knowledge, or that there has been
lots of private research and development work in the medical field in the
United States (I guess lots and lots of development has been privately
funded).

Of course, that history played out that way is a different argument than
claiming that we could only arrive at our current level of medical knowledge
by that path.

~~~
KirinDave
All we'd need to do is look at the tax code for health care businesses.

------
wastenaut
Hmmm, I always thought it was me, but there really is a natural reaction of
dismay, to witness what seems to be a bottomless pit of goods always on
standby on store shelves.

In particular, with perishables, I look at the things that won't possibly sell
before being removed for lack of freshness, and I've always considered it to
be an absurd waste.

The other night, I walked by a Dunkin Donuts, and a garbage bag of donuts and
bagels had spilled across the sidewalk. It was probably $100 worth of food
getting dumped into a landfill because it was day-old baked goods. But the
line out the door at eight in the morning meant that profits had more than
cleared that margin of disposable food. How to reconcile that with the bums
panhandling and playing doorman all day?

That stores display perishable products for the sake of advertising to foot
traffic has always freaked me out on visceral level. To waste a quantity of
human activity for purely ostentatious purposes doesn't sit well with one's
primal conscience.

~~~
scotty79
> It was probably $100 worth of food getting dumped into a landfill because it
> was day-old baked goods.

100$ at their prices or 100$ of flour and sugar? I think what they mostly were
throwing out was peoples work but that's exactly same thing as with any form
of advertisement.

------
hellllllllooo
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/werner-herzog-
gorbachev](https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/werner-herzog-gorbachev)

Recent Werner Herzog interview talking about interviewing Gorbachev. He
discusses a little about the Yeltsin years following and puts Putin's
popularity in context of how bad things were during Yeltsin's term. Worth a
listen if you have 20 minutes.

------
aasasd
Yeltsin here looks like just some late-middle-aged executive guy—which he was,
as he wasn't president yet.

My favorite pic of his, from the time of actual presidency, is rather
different:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clinton_Yeltsin_1995.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clinton_Yeltsin_1995.jpg)

------
depa
A very similar reaction to the Romanian communist chief of state when visiting
a Macy's in New York:
[https://twitter.com/NightmarEclipse/status/97837502295490969...](https://twitter.com/NightmarEclipse/status/978375022954909696)

------
kumarski
I'm from Clear Lake.

This is hilarious and is making its way through private threads I have with
former astronauts and Nasa Employees.

Love HN.

------
baybal2
Really the key quote is:

> Yeltsin, then 58, "roamed the aisles of Randall's nodding his head in
> amazement," wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if
> their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions
> of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."

------
stcredzero
The link in the article: "By contrast, this is what a Russian grocery store
looked like at the same time."

I remember going back to my hometown to visit my parents, who live in a
somewhat rural part of a "Red State." By the Walmart out by the run-down local
mall, there's this depressing discount food store, which, as far as I can
tell, exists for the people who are too poor to shop at the Walmart. Most of
it contained boxes and bins like the Soviet store. Most of it was dry and
canned goods.

There is great wealth and opportunity in the US. There is still something left
to do, however. The solution isn't to emulate Venezuela or the Soviet Union,
obviously. Yet, there is disaffection here in the US as well, and there is a
reason for it. The solution isn't to punish and blame the disaffected.

------
bazooka_penguin
If only he could see the free food samples at Costco's and Korean groceries.

------
antonpirker
"451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons" \- Sorry, this content is not available in
your region.

Oh come on! Seriously?

------
mindcrash
"In 1989 Russian president Boris Yeltsin's wide-eyed trip to a Clear Lake
grocery store led to the downfall of communism."

It didn't led to the downfall of communism but it helped tremendously in
Yeltsin's understanding what communism really was and is: just another form of
human exploitation by a small group of elitists (or aristocrats).

Noteworthy is the following description of events which happened while
travelling in the US:

""For a long time, on the plane to Miami, he sat motionless, his head in his
hands. 'What have they done to our poor people?' he [Yeltsin] said after a
long silence." He added, "On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the
pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the 'pain for all of us, for our
country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments'." He
wrote that Mr. Yeltsin added, "I think we have committed a crime against our
people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of
the Americans." An aide, Lev Sukhanov was reported to have said that it was at
that moment that "the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed" inside his boss."

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin)

In case anyone wants to know what actually led to the dissolution of the USSR
check out this Wikipedia page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Unio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union)

------
socrates1998
I remember this, but I wasn't sure if it was real or not. It seems like
Yeltsin really did want to abandon communism after he visited a grocery store.
Crazy.

Cool article.

------
elamje
Any other Clear Lakers here?

~~~
bawigga
Here! Always fun seeing Clear Lake mentioned on HN!

------
jbarham
Actually Canada has a stronger claim to speeding the fall of Communism given
that Gorbachev had a similar revelation when he visited Canadian supermarkets
in 1983:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15129713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15129713)

------
Mugwort
He looks skinny.

------
el_don_almighty
Khrushchev to Nixon in the 1959 Kitchen Debate, "...we will pass you and your
capitalism in our advancement and wave to you as we go past..."

SOCIALISM... some people never learn

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CvQOuNecy4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CvQOuNecy4)

~~~
Animats
"...we will pass you and your capitalism in our advancement and wave to you as
we go past..."

In our high-speed train. That's China.

------
HillaryBriss
supposedly something similar happened when Kruschev visited Los Angeles
decades ago and thought that all the cars/trucks he saw jamming up roads and
freeways were put there to impress him.

we tell ourselves these stories to make ourselves feel good about our
misshapen consumer-oriented economy. and it doesn't quite work as well now
because they more or less have the same stuff in China. also, we're buying a
lot of that stuff from China, so it makes even less sense.

~~~
titanomachy
Is there any meaningful sense in which China is communist?

~~~
eropple
My understanding is that the party controls all land, has controlling
interests in many if not most critical companies--as of 2016 the Chinese
government owned three percent of all companies in China and up to thirty
percent of industrial output[0]--and even theoretically independent companies
have former Party officials or relatives of those officials running the show.

So it's surely not your textbook Leninist system, but it has many aspects
thereof; I suppose you might characterize it as a mixed-command economy. It
isn't what we would describe in the vernacular as "socialist"\--as that word
today generally, outside of the fever swamps of the American right wing,
refers to countries like the Nordic or other Western European countries that
work within something of a mixed-market system; it's definitely more command-
oriented than that, still. Leninist/Stalinist communism generally sports a
number social factors that definitely still exist in China outside of the
economic structure, such as strong informational control, a smorgasbord of
human rights abuses, and a generally totalitarian mode of governance and
operation.

So I guess the question becomes "well, what does 'communist' mean?" My own,
inexpert answer would be "it's not 'communist', except insofar as 'communist'
is defined to mean 'what China does'," and my own thinking is that today it
maps more to an ethnonationalist--though this isn't a perfect description as
many groups are accepted, but at the same time one can see see the routine
oppression of Tibetans, Uighurs, etc.--totalitarian state with a largely
centrally-controlled economy. That doesn't map to any historical definition of
'communist' that I know of, but reasonable minds can differ.

[0] - [https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/Wendy-L...](https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/Wendy-Leutert-Challenges-ahead-in-Chinas-reform-of-
stateowned-enterprises.pdf)

~~~
stcredzero
_My own, inexpert answer would be "it's not 'communist', except insofar as
'communist' is defined to mean 'what China does'," and my own thinking is that
today it maps more to an ethnonationalist--though this isn't a perfect
description as many groups are accepted, but at the same time one can see see
the routine oppression of Tibetans, Uighurs, etc.--totalitarian state with a
largely centrally-controlled economy. That doesn't map to any historical
definition of 'communist' that I know of, but reasonable minds can differ._

We've seen other centrally controlled ethno-nationalist governments in the
past, particularly in the early to mid 20th century. The confusion we have in
2019 is that we label those historical examples as "right-wing." This is
actually quite strange, since these historical examples had highly centrally
controlled societies and economies. The government set prices, determined
working conditions, and dictated who sold to whom. Centralized control
extended to all aspects of society and culture. Those are hallmarks of far
left and communist governments. As in present day China, human rights were
nullified, and certain ethnic groups were vigorously oppressed. As in present
day China, industry "worked closely with" the government, and while wealthy
oligarchs were created, they were very much subject to the whims of the
government. There was also very close control of the media and information
access by the public.

The only real categorical differences I see amount to stated ideology, and
thus lip service: Is ethnicity important, or is class important? I think
that's 1) only relevant to how the ideology is propagandized and sold and 2)
only orthogonal to the left-right axis. It might also have an affect on
whether and how obviously rich oligarchs are allowed to exist. (Can't
contradict the party narratives, too much.)

I think the "right wing" label being applied to such totalitarian governments
with centrally controlled economies and many left-wing characteristics is
itself a propaganda maneuver of convenience. It's really the degree of
authoritarian control which is most important in 2019.

~~~
KozmoNau7
One of the ethno-nationalist governments you're talking about is obviously
nazi Germany. Need I remind you that the nazis systematically privatized the
entire German society? They also supplied prisoners to these companies, as
slave labor.

Most of the corporate empires and fortunes exisiting in Germany today owe
their legacy to the nazi party, a fact which they are obviously keen to hide.

Just one example out of many: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-
nazi-bahlsen-idUS...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-nazi-bahlsen-
idUSKCN1SK1BB)

Calling the nazi party "left wing" or "socialist" is blatant revisionism,
which has become extremely common in conservative and alt-right circles.

Similarly, the USSR was a totalitarian state capitalist dictatorship. The
state (ie. the party) owned everything, there was absolutely no collective
ownership. There was still wage labor and a very clear hierarchy, not to
mention absolutely massive amounts of corruption and grift. In that sense,
nazi Germany and the USSR were surprisingly similar; a strong leader with all
power consolidated at the top, concentrating ownership and power with a small
wealthy elite.

The actual far left is composed primarily of socialism, communism and
anarchism. All are defined by the collective ownership of the means of
production. Not state ownership or party ownership, but _collective_
ownership. Their main difference is whether a state exists (socialism) or has
withered away (communism) or if all forms of hierarchy have been abolished
(anarchism).

~~~
stcredzero
_The actual far left is composed primarily of socialism, communism and
anarchism. All are defined by the collective ownership of the means of
production. Not state ownership or party ownership, but collective ownership._

This either exists only on small scales, or as a fiction. On the scale of
national governments, it's always a fiction disguising state control. Whether
it's a totalitarian state controlling corporations or a totalitarian state
controlling "collectives," it all just amounts to a totalitarian state with
some form of disguise.

The real revisionism is putting a fig leaf of one form or another on all forms
of totalitarian governments with centrally controlled societies and economies,
then saying they're vastly different because of these different fig leafs.
It's more fundamental to observe how they behave historically with regards to
human rights. The most important aspect is the authoritarianism.

~~~
KozmoNau7
I assume you propose capitalism as a better way? Unfortunately the free market
is a utopian myth.

Personally I agree with anarchism that all hierarchies must be abolished,
including monarchy, wage labor and even the concept of the nation state
itself.

Greed and territorialism have only ever brought grief and misery. The people
in power have succeeded in dividing us into easily-manageable tribes and set
us against each other, and while we squabble they reap the rewards of our
work.

You really should look into anarchism (or anarcho-communism). Peter Kropotkin
and Mikhail Bakunin are good places to start. I would also recommend Max
Stirner, for a good introduction to individualist anarchism.

~~~
stcredzero
_I assume you propose capitalism as a better way? Unfortunately the free
market is a utopian myth._

No disagreement there.

 _Personally I agree with anarchism that all hierarchies must be abolished,_

Such societies don't exist. Societies which are highly communal exist until
they reach about 450 people. Even then, they develop hierarchies of personal
power.

 _including monarchy, wage labor and even the concept of the nation state
itself._

Arbitrary and corrupt hierarchies need to be reformed. It's an ongoing
process. That's built into human nature. There are also good hierarchies which
have done much good in human history.

------
igivanov
While recounting anecdotes and making witty observations, let's not forget
that this man was responsible for bringing incredible misery upon the people
of Russia. Not he alone, but he was the main one.

Also a drunkard, a dictator and a darling of the West.

