How do we know? A scientific theory of knowledge

[heusdens]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Heh. The Soviet Union most certainly did NOT work. It survived on its natural resources alone and had no functioning economy. It was a complete and utter failure which will take Russia DECADES to recover from.

It did work and it worked at least much better then it works now.
The oil industry and all other major sectors have been running down since. The spaceprogram has had to be partly abandoned.
The current capitalist economy is only still working because of the infrastructure developed under communism. But the econonomy now will further fall apart, until it falls apart completely.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by heusdens
It did work and it worked at least much better then it works now.
The oil industry and all other major sectors have been running down since. The spaceprogram has had to be partly abandoned.
The current capitalist economy is only still working because of the infrastructure developed under communism. But the econonomy now will further fall apart, until it falls apart completely.

The Soviet economy DID fall apart completely. Thats why the USSR dissolved - they were bankrupt. The economy is now growing again. Check some GDP numbers.

 

[Alexander]

Originally posted by russ_watters
Heh. The Soviet Union most certainly did NOT work. It survived on its natural resources alone and had no functioning economy. It was a complete and utter failure which will take Russia DECADES to recover from.

Did not work? Are you absolutely sure? Who sent first Sputnik into space? Firts man into space? Rover to Moon and Venera? Who built space first space station (which was designed for 5 years, but lasted three times longer, by the way)? Who took Berlin and liberated Europe from Hitler (and Manchjuria from Japs)? Who consistently took plenty of gold and silver in Olympics? Who are most frequent chess champions? Where is largest plane? How about supersonic passenger jet? Bullet train? Most powerful nuke bombs? Rocket which lifts largest and heaviest cargo in space? Deepest submarines? How about education? Literacy of population? How about free housing, free medicine and free college education? How about science?

While indeed army-style economy of Soviet Union was not as efficient and as flexible as market economy, in many other areas SU conistently beaten US and other countries.

Of course, owners and censors of CNN, MSN, etc who control information flow, hate to credit "reds" anything. Anything, except bad news like accidents or protesting demonstrations. And naive average Joe buys that "salad" and then makes stupid statements similar to the above one. Pity that in US too propaganda does not represent balanced view.

 

[heusdens]

Originally posted by russ_watters
The Soviet economy DID fall apart completely. Thats why the USSR dissolved - they were bankrupt. The economy is now growing again. Check some GDP numbers.

On the contrary. The economy went downwards soon after the Soviet-Union collapsed. Millions of workers got unemployed, millions of people got absolutely poor, cause the prices were growing up, and not their incomes. Also healthcare and education have gone downwards.
Millions of children are homeless, and are living on the streets. Criminality and gangs now have freedom under capitalism, and control parts of the economy. Rich people and enterprises don't even have to pay taxes, etc. etc.
The space program was aborted, without finance by the US, they can not even launch their space vehicles for the international space station (the SU used to have their own space station, and kept it running for decades!).

And apart from this, look at the international crisis. The UN is practicaly degrades as if it did not even exist. They have to carry out the US interests, or else the US is sabotaging the UN (not paying contributions, etc).

Independend and sovereign countries like Cuba and DPRK are now under attack and in the line of fire. Also any other nation that is not willing to accept the IMF or Worldbank policy, is likely to be overthrown by the US.