When I was growing up I was told capitalism was great because we all get a high standard of living and had lots of inexpensive stuff to buy. Look at how poor Russians were during the Soviet era!
Now I’m being told that to sustain capitalism I need to live like a Soviet era Russian.
A soviet era russian also had access to free healthcare, free childcare, free higher education, cheap (sometimes free) housing, excellent (for the time) public transit, and a safety net for unemployment or old age. Oh and there was ample opportunities to build community ties so that if something did go horribly wrong and you needed that help. Capitalism in decline will give you none of that.
It didn’t last. Surely there’s something in the middle that can both lift up the potential floor for standard of living through social safety net and also be sustained long term.
It didn’t last because the will of bureaucracy was placed before the will of the people, it was a long decline of democratic rights of the working class started under Stalin and continued by all following leaders. It was not due to socialism per se, more due to the specifics of CPSU politics. China seems to have figured out a better way to do democratic dictatorship of proletariat and is successfully combining aspects of capitalism and socialism, to both make the country appealing to capitalist investors and also build up a socialist economy to bring the living standards up. It’s not perfect (and is definitely not “the end of history” by any means), but it is doing fine as an interim solution.
Tbf you need to live like a Soviet era Russian to break free of the shackles of capitalism (as much as you can as a salaried person, anyway - we’ll never be completely free). If you want to sustain capitalism, buy as much as you can, and the capitalists are being sustained lol
When I was growing up I was told capitalism was great because we all get a high standard of living and had lots of inexpensive stuff to buy. Look at how poor Russians were during the Soviet era!
Now I’m being told that to sustain capitalism I need to live like a Soviet era Russian.
A soviet era russian also had access to free healthcare, free childcare, free higher education, cheap (sometimes free) housing, excellent (for the time) public transit, and a safety net for unemployment or old age. Oh and there was ample opportunities to build community ties so that if something did go horribly wrong and you needed that help. Capitalism in decline will give you none of that.
It didn’t last. Surely there’s something in the middle that can both lift up the potential floor for standard of living through social safety net and also be sustained long term.
It didn’t last because the will of bureaucracy was placed before the will of the people, it was a long decline of democratic rights of the working class started under Stalin and continued by all following leaders. It was not due to socialism per se, more due to the specifics of CPSU politics. China seems to have figured out a better way to do democratic dictatorship of proletariat and is successfully combining aspects of capitalism and socialism, to both make the country appealing to capitalist investors and also build up a socialist economy to bring the living standards up. It’s not perfect (and is definitely not “the end of history” by any means), but it is doing fine as an interim solution.
Tbf you need to live like a Soviet era Russian to break free of the shackles of capitalism (as much as you can as a salaried person, anyway - we’ll never be completely free). If you want to sustain capitalism, buy as much as you can, and the capitalists are being sustained lol