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Originally Posted by barrowaj
I think if you want to talk about failure, you have to put it in a relative sense. The Soviet Union failed because it was an authoritarian state that ignored the wants and needs of its people for the sake of the prestige of the nation. However, if you are talking economics, the USSR acheived one of the highest known sustained growth rates until the mid 1970s. It was highly successful at mobilizing and using resources for industrialization, but after it industrialized, it was highly unsuccessful at incorporating innovation and efficiency into the economy. The Soviets transformed their country from an agrarian kingdom into an industrialized superpower in just a short peroid of time. There were many tragedies along that path of development, but the fact that it was very successful in an economic sense cannot be ignored.
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The ammont of economic decisions in an advancing economy is so vast that it is impossible to make timely and accurate decisions on the part of the Government agencies . When the economy reaches a certain point (in size), economic calculations become impossible without a free market price system.
I do not believe that GDP growth or industrial output is a good sign of the progress of a nation's economy. What matters, is the ammount of material wealth that the individuals posses in a society. So you have to look at the specific level of technology of those products, the number of them per household, etc...
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However the great leap forward and the holocine of Ukraine have nothing to do with socialism, and instead are features of authoritarianism. They are what results when mankind throws away all his rights to one leader.
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Authoritarianism is a symptom of Socialism. Every socialist nation has been authoritarian. It's kind of nessecery to have a tyrant(s) in charge when you mean to deliver men into abject slavery.
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Can you show me where you read about heart attack and cancer survival? Everything that I've ever read is to the contrary. I mean, according to the CIA world factbook Sweden has the lowest infant mortality rate aside from Singapore (which shouldn't count because its a city). It also has one of the highest life expectancies. I expect that it would be possible to control for obesity and smoking rates in the respective contries to come out with a better comparison of the relative healthcare systems (that goes back to my previous thesis). I can't say about the standard of living though, it really depends on how you measure it.
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Could you provide some evidence to back up these claims? I think that the current consensus is that the depression was triggered by the stock market crash, and that "socialist" policies helped get the US out of the depression. But, I honestly don't know that much about the Great Depression. I would be interested to hear about your views though.
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To find the growth in wages during the Industrial Revolution:
Morgan Reynolds,
Power and Priviledge: Labor Unions in Amerca (New York: Universe Books, 1984, page 62.
Gary Walton and Hugh Rockoff,
History of the American Economy (New York: Dryden Press, 1998), page 242 and 408.
To find the the GDP growth from 1869-1958:
Historical Statistics of the United States, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
1879-1888 : 6.3%
1889-1898 : 4.9%
1899-1908 : 4.8%
1909-1918 : 4.4%
1919-1928 : 3.9%
1929-1938 : 3.4%
1939-1948 : 3.7%
1949-1958 : 3.6%
1959-1968 : 4.6%
1969-1978 : 3.2%
1979-1988 : 2.7%
Socialism has increased in the United States since 1879, so what should we draw from this information. It certainly isn't that socialism aided GDP growth. I'm sure that if you look at the GDP growth rates of Great Britian, you would find a similar trend.
For Cancer Rate and Cancer Death Rate Look Here:
USA:
http://www.cancer.org/downloads/MED/Page4.pdf
EU:
http://www.hon.ch/News/HSN/514370.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4267513.stm
Total New Cases of Cancer in the United States: 1,368,030
Total Deaths Caused by Cancer per year: 563,700
Total New Cases of Cancer in Europe (EU): 1,534,700
Total Deaths Caused by Cancer per year: 962,600
For Heart Attack Rates Look Here:
USA:
http://www.americanheart.org/present...dentifier=4591
EU:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_...ascular_en.htm
http://www.irishhealth.com/clin/chol...hol_facts.html
Total Heart Attacks in USA: 1,200,000
Total Deaths Caused by Heart Attacks: 479,305 deaths
Death Rate: 39.9% Death Rate
Total Heart Attacks in EU:
Total Deaths: 1.9 Million