Unemployed? What would life be like for 99ers back in the USSR?

[Steeplerot]

We have the largest economy in the world, after being founded a little over 200 years ago.

Germany being a mixed market state has rebuilt itself into damn close if not passing us up sized economy in 20 years.

You cappies really think 200 years is something to show for? Wow, when we havent even been invaded multiple times and bombed to dust repeatedly? USSR was a superpower in 20 years with a big space program in 1/10 the time with a terribly crappy bureaucratic and wasteful economic system. Capitalist Fail.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Well, this is your view of it from the other side. I am assuming you have nothing to add as you were not there besides more of the same cold war era rhetoric?

Well I wasn't at the Holocaust either but I hear it was pretty bad.

Take this for example-

It's not a Nazi camp, it's at the Wall. That's what happened if you weren't very very lucky.

For all our issues (and I don't pretend that we haven't significant problems) we haven't come to the point where we shoot people trying to escape.

 

[Steeplerot]

For all our issues (and I don't pretend that we haven't significant problems) we haven't come to the point where we shoot people trying to escape.

Think so? Take a look at our growing private prison industry. Don't want to be a prison slave? Good luck running! Those towers are FULL of high powered rifles and barbed wire.

For-Profit Prisons in the USA

I do not mean to be alarmist but the reality is 2 million are incarcerated in the USA and growing.

We have the former Gulag population numbers beat awhile ago if you leave out the time periods with POWs during WW2.

I despise the USSR government as much as any other American. But acting like we have always and always will be the pillar of human rights compared is silly.

Why should we be the pillar of human rights anymore..no I mean really, why bother? Who are we trying to look better then? The USSR?

The kid glove days of capitalism are over, its cold hard cash value on human life now as it's always been under the surface in this country. This is why the right is going batshit nuts.


We dressed up the USA in the cold war era with a nice welfare state to keep people from considering the SU way of life, now it is time to loot the "unnecessary window dressing" and get back to the real business of the USA: grinding the bones of the working class into profits for the elites.

The balance of power and our role as the "shining beacon of democracy on the hill" are but trite phrases now replaced with "enhanced interrogations" and the like.

 

[Red Dawn]

You are the one who seems to be quite offended on a regular basis by Capitalism. If you don't like the USA, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Sure the US has it's problems, by is still BY FAR the gratest place on earth.

Oh it doesn't come close to sucking as bad as the USSR and the Iron Curtain nations but is it actually the greatest place on earth? Hell it's not even close to be the greatest USA. That was back in the 90's before the Republicans got ahold of it at the turn of the Millenium and buggered it in the buttocks.

 

[Infohawk]

One thing to wonder is how the soviet economy would have done if they didn't spend so much of their gdp on the military. But in the end when you talk to people from the old communist block they don't really have that great of things to say.

 

[Steeplerot]

One thing to wonder is how the soviet economy would have done if they didn't spend so much of their gdp on the military

That and if they had continued Democratic reforms through Perestroika. It would have been a whole different world. Now Russia is run by a former KGB guy and a bunch of Russian Nationalists. Some "revolution" they brought.

 

[Matt1970]

Think so? Take a look at our growing private prison industry. Don't want to be a prison slave? Good luck running! Those towers are FULL of high powered rifles and barbed wire.

For-Profit Prisons in the USA

I do not mean to be alarmist but the reality is 2 million are incarcerated in the USA and growing.

We have the former Gulag population numbers beat awhile ago if you leave out the time periods with POWs during WW2.

I despise the USSR government as much as any other American. But acting like we have always and always will be the pillar of human rights compared is silly.

Why should we be the pillar of human rights anymore..no I mean really, why bother? Who are we trying to look better then? The USSR?

The kid glove days of capitalism are over, its cold hard cash value on human life now as it's always been under the surface in this country. This is why the right is going batshit nuts.


We dressed up the USA in the cold war era with a nice welfare state to keep people from considering the SU way of life, now it is time to loot the "unnecessary window dressing" and get back to the real business of grinding the bones of the working class into profits for the elites.

Red, you keep trying to show us how bad things are here and how good things are elsewhere. You are going to show us the right way whether we like it or not. Your one party of government will make everything right. That is Fascism.

Thing is, we like it here. We like our 2 party system. Sure we take pop shots at the other side but we always know that we need both sides. Anyone who thinks the other side is complete idiots is an idiot themselves. You constant demoralizing of the Conservative right wing is ignorant on fact. Everyone knows you need taxes in place to pay for the things that makes society bearable. Too liberal and they go too high and the economy suffers. Too conservative and they go too low and we can’t pay to have the roads paved. It’s a checks and balances system.

 

[Steeplerot]

Red, you keep trying to show us how bad things are here and how good things are elsewhere.

Untrue, I am NOT saying anyones system is better. The reality here is what it is. As it is in my examples. Good and bad.

Thing is you never hear the other side of the story, only the worst scenarios. If you look at our own history you see the same shit, along with lots of good points. Why not look deeper? It can only provide a larger perspective if analyzed with a critical eye.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Think so? Take a look at our growing private prison industry. Don't want to be a prison slave? Good luck running! Those towers are FULL of high powered rifles and barbed wire.

For-Profit Prisons in the USA

I do not mean to be alarmist but the reality is 2 million are incarcerated in the USA and growing.

We have the former Gulag population numbers beat awhile ago if you leave out the time periods with POWs during WW2.

I despise the USSR government as much as any other American. But acting like we have always and always will be the pillar of human rights compared is silly.

Why should we be the pillar of human rights anymore..no I mean really, why bother? Who are we trying to look better then? The USSR?

The kid glove days of capitalism are over, its cold hard cash value on human life now as it's always been under the surface in this country. This is why the right is going batshit nuts.


We dressed up the USA in the cold war era with a nice welfare state to keep people from considering the SU way of life, now it is time to loot the "unnecessary window dressing" and get back to the real business of the USA: grinding the bones of the working class into profits for the elites.

The problem with the prison system is that we have stupid drug laws.

Let's look at WIKI on some of this, which is has citations.

According to the declassified Soviet archives, during 1937 and 1938, the NKVD detained 1,548,366 victims, of whom 681,692 were shot - an average of 1,000 executions a day (in comparison, the Tsarists executed 3,932 persons for political crimes from 1825 to 1910 - an average of less than 1 execution per week).[65]
Some experts believe the evidence released from the Soviet archives is understated, incomplete, or unreliable.[65][66][67][68] For example, Robert Conquest suggests that the probable figure for executions during the years of the Great Purge is not 681,692, but some two and a half times as high. He believes that the KGB was covering its tracks by falsifying the dates and causes of death of rehabilitated victims.[69]
Historian Michael Ellman claims the best estimate of deaths brought about by Soviet repression during these two years is the range 950,000 to 1.2 million, which includes deaths in detention and those who died shortly after being released from the Gulag as a result of their treatment in it. He also states that this is the estimate which should be used by historians and teachers of Russian history

Let's look at Stalin's reign. The link-http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm#Stalin

The substance of it:

• There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum, and they often accuse each other of being blinded by prejudice, stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, and maybe even having a hidden agenda. Also, both sides claim that recent access to former Soviet archives has proven that their side is right.
• Here are a few illustrative estimates from the Big Numbers school:
  • Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993 cites these:
    • Chistyakovoy, V. (Neva, no.10): 20 million killed during the 1930s.
    • Dyadkin, I.G. (Demograficheskaya statistika neyestestvennoy smertnosti v SSSR 1918-1956 ): 56 to 62 million "unnatural deaths" for the USSR overall, with 34 to 49 million under Stalin.
    • Gold, John.: 50-60 million.
  • Davies, Norman (Europe A History, 1998): c. 50 million killed 1924-53, excluding WW2 war losses. This would divide (more or less) into 33M pre-war and 17M after 1939.
  • Solzhenitsyn, Gulag Archipelago,
    • Intro to Perennial Classics Edition by Edward Ericson: Solzhenitsyn publicized an estimate of 60 million. Aleksandr Yakovlev estimates perhaps 35 million.
    • Page 178: citing Kurganov, 66 million lives lost between 1917 and 1959
  • Rummel, 1990: 61,911,000 democides in the USSR 1917-87, of which 51,755,000 occurred during the Stalin years. This divides up into:
    • 1923-29: 2,200,000 (plus 1M non-democidal famine deaths)
    • 1929-39: 15,785,000 (plus 2M non-democidal famine)
    • 1939-45: 18,157,000
    • 1946-54: 15,613,000 (plus 333,000 non-democidal famine)
    • TOTAL: 51,755,000 democides and 3,333,000 non-demo. famine
  • William Cockerham, Health and Social Change in Russia and Eastern Europe: 50M+
  • Wallechinsky: 13M (1930-32) + 7M (1934-38)
    • Cited by Wallechinsky:
      • Medvedev, Roy (Let History Judge): 40 million.
      • Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: 60 million.
  • MEDIAN: 51 million for the entire Stalin Era; 20M during the 1930s.
• And from the Lower Numbers school:
  • Nove, Alec ("Victims of Stalinism: How Many?" in J. Arch Getty (ed.) Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives, 1993): 9,500,000 "surplus deaths" during the 1930s.
  • Cited in Nove:
    • Maksudov, S. (Poteri naseleniya SSSR, 1989): 9.8 million abnormal deaths between 1926 and 1937.
    • Tsaplin, V.V. ("Statistika zherty naseleniya v 30e gody" 1989): 6,600,000 deaths (hunger, camps and prisons) between the 1926 and 1937 censuses.
    • Dugin, A. ("Stalinizm: legendy i fakty" 1989): 642,980 counterrevolutionaries shot 1921-53.
    • Muskovsky Novosti (4 March 1990): 786,098 state prisoners shot, 1931-53.
  • Gordon, A. (What Happened in That Time?, 1989, cited in Adler, N., Victims of Soviet Terror, 1993): 8-9 million during the 1930s.
  • Ponton, G. (The Soviet Era, 1994): cites an 1990 article by Milne, et al., that excess deaths 1926-39 were likely 3.5 million and at most 8 million.
  • MEDIAN: 8.5 Million during the 1930s.
• As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion.
• Although it's too early to be taking sides with absolute certainty, a consensus seems to be forming around a death toll of 20 million. This would adequately account for all documented nastiness without straining credulity:
  • In The Great Terror (1969), Robert Conquest suggested that the overall death toll was 20 million at minimum -- and very likely 50% higher, or 30 million. This would divide roughly as follows: 7M in 1930-36; 3M in 1937-38; 10M in 1939-53. By the time he wrote The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (1992), Conquest was much more confident that 20 million was the likeliest death toll.
  • Britannica, "Stalinism": 20M died in camps, of famine, executions, etc., citing Medvedev
  • Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
  • Daniel Chirot:
    • "Lowest credible" estimate: 20M
    • "Highest": 40M
    • Citing:
      • Conquest: 20M
      • Antonov-Ovseyenko: 30M
      • Medvedev: 40M
  • Courtois, Stephane, Black Book of Communism (Le Livre Noir du Communism): 20M for the whole history of Soviet Union, 1917-91.
    • Essay by Nicolas Werth: 15M
    • [[SIZE=-1]Ironic observation: The Black Book of Communism seems to vote for Hitler as the answer to the question of who's worse, Hitler (25M) or Stalin (20M).[/SIZE]]
  • John Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen (2001): 20M, incl.
    • Kulaks: 7M
    • Gulag: 12M
    • Purge: 1.2M (minus 50,000 survivors)
  • Adam Hochschild, The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin: directly responsible for 20 million deaths.
  • Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europes Ghosts After Communism (1995): upwards of 25M
  • Time Magazine (13 April 1998): 15-20 million.
• AVERAGE: Of the 17 estimates of the total number of victims of Stalin, the median is 30 million.
• Individual Gulags etc.
  • Kolyma
  • Kuropaty
  • Vorkuta
  • Bykivnia
• Comments received: Letter #1 Letter #2 Letter #3
• Famine of 1926-38, including the Holodomor: [make link]
  • Richard Overy, Russia's War (1997): 4.2M in Ukraine + 1.7M in Kazakhstan
  • Green, Barbara ("Stalinist Terror and the Question of Genocide: the Great Famine" in Rosenbaum, Is the Holocaust Unique?) cites these sources for the number who died in the famine:
    • Nove: 3.1-3.2M in Ukraine, 1933
    • Maksudov: 4.4M in Ukraine, 1927-38
    • Mace: 5-7M in Ukraine
    • Osokin: 3.35M in USSR, 1933
    • Wheatcraft: 4-5M in USSR, 1932-33
    • Conquest:
      • Total, USSR, 1926-37: 11M
      • 1932-33: 7M
      • Ukraine: 5M

Note this does not include the Civil War which is another 9 million. That figure includes what was done to the Ukraine.


Some of those 2 million are in jail for what may be trivial offenses and some may be innocent due to an imperfect system, but the facts are that the majority of people in prison have been placed there by a legal system which affords a jury. We haven't shot more than 600k for political reasons.

That brings up something you are missing. The only organization in the US who can take life or liberty in the US is the state. The USSR is a perfect example of what happens when the state take all control. That hardly recommends it.

Again note that I don't claim that there aren't serious problems, but food, sanitation, medicine and just about everything else was in short supply because of the onerous and omnipotent bureaucracy established in the Soviet Union.

If you want to contrast our society it's better done with places like Sweden. If you want to convince us that 20 million or more dead because the state could kill with impunity is inconsequential or even comparable to any action taken by the US against its citizens, well you are going to have a hard row to hoe.

 

[Steeplerot]

Let's look at the Stalin era

Sigh, lets ask the Native American's opinions then.

I did not make this thread to play whos the bigger genocidal killers.

The USA and European 19th Century Colonialism FAR overreach numbers of Stalinism, and the whole history of the Gulag system. -hell, lets even throw in Hitlers camps in WW2.

The Post-WW1 Ukrainian stuff in all fairness cannot be attributed to the Bolsheviks. Ukraine was under occupation by white armies pf Austria and Germany who were rounding up jewish farmers in pogroms and slaughtering them.

Mahkno's Free Libertarian Brigades and Trotsky's new Red Army were in the process of liberating the Ukrainians from battle-hardened WW1 veteran German and Austrian troops, not exactly easy to handle food distribution with problems like these really. -And besides Ukraine was NOT the Soviet Union at the time. It was it's own independent state.

_Maybe_ you can blame Trotsky if you consider the concessions he gave Germany in WW1 in the Brest-Litosvik treaty? But really it was the Austrians who said screw that and invaded. Germans/Austrians REALLY liked killing Jews back then. (just a taste of what was to come in 20 years when the Nazis came on the picture)

I am not one to defend Trotsky or Bolsheviks though, they are authoritarian traitors to the revolution in my opinion. I wish Mahkno would have moved on to liberate Moscow next from the Bolsheviks in 1918 with Lenin out of the picture Russians would have probably hung that crook Stalin from the nearest tree.

 

[shiner]

In the 80s they had shortage problems, but it was nothing like long breadlines crap people said, most of those images are from the war era.

Bullshit! I had a history professor in college who had defected to the U.S. in 1987 and he had pictures and home movies of those very things taking place up to the time he and he family were finally able to get out.

 

[shiner]

In the 80s they had shortage problems, but it was nothing like long breadlines crap people said, most of those images are from the war era.

Bullshit! I had a history professor in college who had defected to the U.S. in 1987 and he had pictures and home movies of those very things, long bread and toilet paper lines, taking place up to the time he and he family were finally able to get out. I have seen them with my own eyes and know you are 100% wrong.

 

[shiner]

and those weren't the only lines, just two examples I used since you specifically mentioned bread.

 

[Matt1970]

I brought up the bread, but that is what they focused on at the time on the news.

 

[Steeplerot]

Bullshit! I had a history professor in college who had defected to the U.S. in 1987 and he had pictures and home movies of those very things, long bread and toilet paper lines, taking place up to the time he and he family were finally able to get out.

In 1987 the Soviet Union was in full decline thanks to reform. People were utterly fed up with the lies about Afghanistan casualties which were hidden and the lies about Chernobyl being safe. As I said, the breadlines and stuff started again the the 80s. You confirm my findings.

From what I have found people seem to agree that the late 60s-1970s were the Soviet Golden age for what its worth. (the de stalinization/pre-free market corruption reform era)

The concencious seems to be the Afghanistan War (1979-89) was the turning point of their decline as the Soviet People had no support for the war that drained the coffers. (it was their Vietnam)

 

[werepossum]

Sigh, lets ask the Native American's opinions then.

I did not make this thread to play whos the bigger genocidal killers.

The USA and European 19th Century Colonialism FAR overreach numbers of Stalinism, and the whole history of the Gulag system. -hell, lets even throw in Hitlers camps in WW2.

The Post-WW1 Ukrainian stuff in all fairness cannot be attributed to the Bolsheviks. Ukraine was under occupation by white armies pf Austria and Germany who were rounding up jewish farmers in pogroms and slaughtering them.

Mahkno's Libertarian Armies and Trotsky's new Red Army were in the process of liberating the Ukrainians from battle-hardened WW1 veteran German and Austrian troops, not exactly easy to handle food distribution with problems like these really. -And besides Ukraine was NOT the Soviet Union at the time. It was it's own independent state.

_Maybe_ you can blame Trotsky if you consider the concessions he gave Germany in WW1 in the Brest-Litosvik treaty? But really it was the Austrians who said screw that and invaded. Germans/Austrians REALLY liked killing Jews back then. (just a taste of what was to come in 20 years when the Nazis came on the picture)

The National Socialists were girl scouts compared to the Soviets. Ask the folks of the Balkans, who suffered under both. As soon as the Soviets took over, mass deportations began, deporting up to 15% of the population to Siberian death camps from which few returned. After three years of Nazi occupation, several hundred thousand Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians went to live in the woods rather than remain in their homes under Soviet occupation.

There are not many regimes which could make the Nazis look better to those who had lived under both, but the Soviets did so without breaking a sweat. As for American colonialism, perhaps 10 to 12 million Native Americans were reduced to less than half a million over the course of four centuries, and most of those who died did so from disease usually (though not always) spread unintentionally. The Soviets killed 20 to 30 million over the course of half a century, mostly intentionally and often by a combination of starvation, hard labor and exposure. There are simply no mass murderers in the history of mankind who can compete with the enlightened Soviets.

 

[Steeplerot]

There are not many regimes which could make the Nazis look better to those who had lived under both, but the Soviets did so without breaking a sweat.

Pretty easy actually, take a look at Colonialism sometime. The British and Dutch have both of them beat handily by factors of multiplication. USA has native American situation that is almost as bad as what the Dutch pulled in the Congo.

Assigning an ideology to genocide is a depressing way to find out all countries are full of evil to their own people when you get into real history.

One thing is a constant, power thinks of us as disposable when it suits their agenda, that is true of all the big ISMs.

Now can we continue with the unemployment discussion? I really didn't want to get into depressing stuff.

 

[shiner]

In 1987 the Soviet Union was in full decline thanks to reform. People were utterly fed up with the lies about Afghanistan casualties which were hidden and the lies about Chernobyl being safe. As I said, the breadlines and stuff started again the the 80s. You confirm my findings.

From what I have found people seem to agree that the late 60s-1970s were the Soviet Golden age for what its worth. (the de stalinization/pre-free market corruption reform era)

The concencious seems to be the Afghanistan War (1979-89) was the turning point of their decline as the Soviet People had no support for the war that drained the coffers. (it was their Vietnam)

The pictures and etc....were not just taken in 1987, they were from many different times dating back to his childhood, he was in his early to mid 40's when I was in college in the 90's so I'm guessing he was born in 1950 or so.

He was the son of someone "well placed", as he liked to put it, in the party and as such had a fairly comfortable childhoold/life, but said he always saw the other, less fortunate people, and thought it was wrong how they were treated and had to do without. In fact that's why even at an early age when he first learned how to use a camera he began documenting the way of life for the common people. He said his father always thought it was humorous how he cared for the people and told him that one day, when he was older he would stop caring about them and realize they were nothing but laborers who could "be replaced by dogs"

As he grew older that feeling of the common being "used" by the party grew stronger and led to him having several run ins with authority that he only got out of because of his father's connections. Finally it led to his finding a way out of what he referred to as a "disgusting, pathetic excuse of a country" for himself and his wife and children once he realized he could not make a difference and would end up dead or imprisoned along with his family due to his beliefs.

Go ahead and believe your "comrades" and continue to lap up the propaganda from their trough of lies as it makes you happy. Maybe someday though you will realize how misguided you truly are. I doubt it though, your kind rarely does. I've known a version of you all my life and he wallows in mediocrity and blames the government for his fate and inability to better himself when in fact it is his own lazy fault. Nobody forced him to fuck up so much he got booted out of college and then decided to steal and deal for a so called living.

 

[Steeplerot]

I've known a version of you all my life.

Except none of that even remotely sounds like me, but, knowing you conservatives it is just more projection. So sorry to hear this. Stay out of trouble, ok Comrade Whiner? Cheer up kid.

 

[Doppel]

Very interesting concept, making employers compete for the workers labor instead of capitalists competing to pay workers the least.

Employers in the US don't compete for labor? If my employer could pay me $8/hour they would. But they can't because I'd leave so they compete with other employers for me and pay me an amount I consider acceptable.

Dunno, hows that capitalist rat-race to the bottom working out for us workers here?

Not as well as it was for soviet era workers in Stalin's paradise.

Are you for real?

Put it out there for the lols: Do you think the US would be better served if it moved toward a 70's style communism approach like the soviet union had? It reads like that in this thread.

Ever heard the term throwing the baby out with the bathwater? The US has a lot of issues but stop being ridiculous.

 

[PeshakJang]

I think Red needs to read "We The Living".

 

[Atreus21]

Living in the USA it is hard sometimes to imagine anything besides a capitalist system where bad news like unemployment can mean bankruptcy of all you toiled for your life or even worse homelessness/starvation of your family.


How did this work in other completely unrelated systems to the USA?

This is no cheering on another way, but it is a interesting question!

Hi comrades!

Was it at all possible to quit your job in the USSR if you didn't like it?

And also, was it possible that you could get fired from your job? And if so, what happened then? Was there some form of severance pay, would the state find you another job...?



And low and behold, we got a real answer!

Well, as you might know, by law every citizen was entitled to a job. By the same token, every citizen who was employable, apart from women with young children, theoretically had to hold a job or else face prosecution as a 'parasite'. Practically of course, there were exceptions. For example, some women stayed out of the workforce and remained housekeepers, without consequences.

You could quit your job if you didn't like it, but would be legally instructed to look for work after being idle without good cause after four consecutive months. Once you had been instructed, you would have a month to find a position, and after that would be liable to arrest if you did not.

A relatively comfortable existence was possible for those living with permissive spouses or parents -because living expenses were already cheap and most basic goods were heavily subsidized.

So in direct answer to your question: Yes you could of course quit your job if you didn't like it. Because of the guarantee of a job, many workplaces had difficulty retaining their workers, and turnover was high in a lot of places. Some workplace managers dealt with this by installing a lot of conveniences -such as day care, hair salons, spas, amateur theatre companies, special stores with hard to find goods, etc. to try to keep their workers happy and wanting to stay with the company. Unfortunately workplaces of this kind were still relatively rare when the country began collapsing.

If you were fired, you would have to find another job based on the regulations above. I have no information about severance pay.


What do you guys think of this? Very interesting concept, making employers compete for the workers labor instead of capitalists competing to pay workers the least.
Unpossible!

...uh, employers do compete for labor, if that labor is in high demand...?

 

[Atreus21]

Pretty easy actually, take a look at Colonialism sometime. The British and Dutch have both of them beat handily by factors of multiplication. USA has native American situation that is almost as bad as what the Dutch pulled in the Congo.

Assigning an ideology to genocide is a depressing way to find out all countries are full of evil to their own people when you get into real history.

One thing is a constant, power thinks of us as disposable when it suits their agenda, that is true of all the big ISMs.

Now can we continue with the unemployment discussion? I really didn't want to get into depressing stuff.

I seriously doubt the British, Dutch, and Americans combined amounted to anywhere near the number of people killed by Soviet repression, and you don't even have to include those who died in the famine.

 

[Atreus21]

The irony in these posts is that speaking against the status quo in the USSR would get you...oh I don't know...imprisoned, relocated, beaten, killed?

The capitalist rat race is infinitely preferable to whatever horrors communism has wrought over its wretched history.

 

[Atreus21]

Nevermind.