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[SalmonGod]

The U.S. policy of instigating terrorism against any nation which posed the threat of a good example might have something to do with it as well.

[10ebbor10]

They also instigated coups and terrorism against everyone else.

Edit: But speaking about good examples, Cuba's working fairly well, isn't it. And well, QoL was decent in the USSR and many communistic nations, provided you didn't upset the autocratic communist party. In fact, after the fall of the USSR, it had a devastating crash, which still hasn't been recovered from in some nations.

[Helgoland]

QoL was decent in the USSR and many communistic nations

They always talked about the GDR being the showcase of communism or something to that effect - because there was actually quite a bit of cross-border traffic, they had to compete (QoL-wise) with the west. And the people fled like rats from a sinking ship.
QoL in the ex-Warsaw Pact nations may not be abysmal, but it's a far cry from western standards even today. Even when comparing Eastern and Western Germany today, almost a quarter of a century later, you see the differences: The East is poorer, older, more infested with Neo-Nazis, and is still losing people to the west. And the further east you go, the worse it gets: Poland is decent, the Ukraine quite a bit worse, Belarus is still a dictatorship, and the european part of Russia is... european, so not terrible as well. Once you go over the mountains to Asia, though... you don't want to go over the mountains to Asia.
Communism hasn't caused these differences, they were there before (with the notable exception of the two Germanies); but it has done jack shit to make them better. And what's worse: In large parts of the East bloc, communism has gone away, but the authoritarian regimes are still standing tall. Google "Uzbekistan cotton" for a particularly bad story.

Bottom line: Communism (even if it were democratic to a degree) just doesn't provide sufficient incentives to create wealth. Case in point: Grain production in the USSR before, during and after the NEP, and - in a very similar area - the agricultural output of China before and after Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

[Morrigi]

The U.S. policy of instigating terrorism against any nation which posed the threat of a good example might have something to do with it as well.

These days it seems to be a mixture of coups, terrorism, background fuckery, and outright military invasion of anyone who doesn't serve our interests, particularly regarding our currency. Let's look at a couple examples of that last point.

1. Iraq. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/ Just three years after switching their oil money to the Euro, we accidentally their whole country and guess what?

2. Libya. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqZfaj34nc The late Muammar Gaddafi had a functional and fully-supported plan to create a new currency throughout much of the Middle-East and Africa known as the gold dinar. The currency would be entirely backed by and made of gold and all interested countries (which involved most muslim and African nations nearby) were fully supportive of the gold dinar and agreed to only sell resources such as oil under the dinar, effectively making the dollar useless.

Suddenly, there were massive civil protests, swift military responses from Western nations, and Gaddafi mysteriously died after being captured. It should be noted that he was in the closing stages of completing the deal with supporting nations and launching the currency when the U.S. and E.U. intervened militarily.

3. Iran and Syria. http://rt.com/news/iran-gold-currencies-oil-453/ Early last year, Iran announced that it would be willing to accept payments for oil in both gold as well as the national currencies of those importing the oil. Iran had historically accepted payments from other currencies but the gold standard was a new twist. Over the last decade, the United States had been building their case against Iran, pointing to various supposed violations of international nuclear technology regulations. Despite the complete lack of evidence, the U.S. went on to claim that Iran was building nuclear weapons. (Remember the WMDs ten years ago?)

Syria, Iran's closest ally, is now in the midst of a civil war with the U.S. supplying the rebels with war materiél. Recently the United States and Israel accused the Assad regime of using Sarin gas, a deadly chemical weapon. (Is anyone seeing a pattern here?) The United Nations conducted its own research and concluded that the American and Israeli accusations were entirely false and that it was the rebels that had used Sarin. The American backing of rebels in Syria can only be considered a direct provocation to Iran, which has responded by announcing plans to send 4,000 troops to Syria in accordance with their mutual defense agreement.

Furthermore, last year Russia said this. Russia also recently stated that it would not allow a U.S.-lead institution of a no-fly zone over Syria.

This entire thing is a clusterfuck of global proportions just waiting to happen.

...Oh, and the only things the American dollar are supported by these days are oil, U.S. military might, and blind faith. At the moment those selling the oil are considering a switch to alternate currencies if not already having done so which would destroy the artificial demand for the dollar, the military is tied up, and the faith is slowly withering away.

What happens when the oil runs out as it inevitably will due to international pressure? We can't print more money, we've already done that and made the dollar even flimsier.

What can we do to keep it afloat, you may ask?

Maintain the dollar's dominance over oil at any cost. Without a constant supply of oil being sold in U.S. Dollars, there would be literally nothing giving it value, thus causing the American economy to collapse entirely.

[10ebbor10]

You forgot Afghanistan. Where the US* is blatantly stealing the oil.

*And maybe some allies

[scrdest]

On the other hand, one of the reasons everything east of West Germany had lower QoL is that USSR did not allow its satellites to accept aid from Marshal Plan, so while Western Europe had the funds to bandage the war wounds, Central and Eastern had to rely on the whims of Comecon and the USSR overlords.

Then there was the fact that USSR was sucking out the production of the client states, so while western USSR was so-so, it relied on worsening the productivity of other states.

Since we're out of hands, on another leg, Second World suffered from awful, awful pointless projects, with effects such as causing a massive ecological disaster in Uzbekistan (nigh-annihilation of Aral Sea), Chernobyl (USSR being cheap on safety, rushing the project, staffing a nuclear reactor without having a single, you know, person who knew a thing about nuclear power aside from 'press this button and power comes out' during a dangerous experiment)...

[10ebbor10]

Another reason for the lowered Quality of live is that the USSR, and many allies, where predominantly agrarian states, rather than the Industrial states the plan was designed for. In order to catch up to the military power of the West, the USSR forced it's economy to switch to Heavy industry, causing severe shortages in person goods. They went from 20% heavy industry to over 50% in a few decades. This worked well for the first few years, but later caused them lots of trouble. Most of the USSR's failures derive from trying to show of against the West.

But yeah, inefficiency in production is a inherent problem of a centrally planned economy. This can however be solved by modern technology, for example by installing a cyberocracy. Ie, plugging the entirety of the economy into 1 giant computer system, allowing much faster response to problems, unlike the normal 5 year plans.

[scriver]

Edit: Speaking of which, Communist is a ridiculously flawed system, inheriant in it's basic philosophy that an individual has absolutely no self-ownership.

No, this is wrong. The communist idea is that of absolute self-ownership, that we are all brothers and no man can own another. Hence why the communist "golden state" is governmentless. Since this is obviously not what happened in the attempted Communist states, this is part of why people are saying they were not "real" communist states.

The amount of effort put into a communist system has zero correlation to what one received from that system. A 'from each to their ability and to each their needs' creates a system where the least productive and most needy benefit the most and the most productive and resilient people lose. So instead of offering incentive for effort, it punishes it and instead of punishing irresponsibility, it rewards it.

This is a common thought, but it is wrong. Firstly, it assumes one who is productive in one area, say intellectually, can't be unproductive in another - being paraplegic, for example. Hence a great inventor and engineer may still use his skills for the good of society and society takes care of his needs through nurses and other services.

Secondly, it fails to acknowledge that the "least productive and most needy" isn't so because they are lazy, but because they are disabled in either a mental or physical way - or both. That, however, does not mean they are worthless, and it is our moral duty to make sure they do not starve and die or languish in extreme poverty.

Thirdly, it does not recognise that even for the small amount of "lazy coasters", the amount of money they actually get from just drifting along will always be a lot less than if they put in an effort. So no, "the productive" (which, I repeat, are not a group without needs and thus not separate from the "needy") do not lose. They always keep more than they give.

It also doesn't mention how many of the rich and successful supposedly "productive" people are also the biggest leeches on society. Those are the people who wants to enjoy all the benefits of a socialist society - from things such as social services, infrastructure and communications or schools, to safety and health - but doesn't want to pay for it. In my mind - it's the same problem as the "lazy" people, except it's worse since these people have the resources to share to begin with. And that's not even going into the problem of big businesses and fompanies gladly accept millions and millions in grants, which they then call "profit" and store overseas instead of reinvesting into society.

So, it's no wonder why every 'communist' or 'socialist' society have been miserable, oppressive hell holes.

Once again. Look at western Europe, all successful social democracies. Look at Scandinavia, all successful socialist countries.

[ChairmanPoo]

It¡s worth noting as well the pains the western block takes at smashing out any elected goverment that is even somewhat leftist (ref: Chile, Nicaragua, etc...)

Also: the joint anarchist-POUM revolution during the SCW. Which oddly enough ended up in the communist party's shitlist, of all things. 

[GlyphGryph]

And wasn't this branched off to another thread for a reason?

[SalmonGod]

Did it?  I looked and didn't see it migrate anywhere.  It's not like this forum hasn't gone over this many times before.  If DWC or PatriotSaint aren't interested in our massive infodumps, then there's not much point in bothering with another thread, anyway.

[Sergarr]

On the other hand, one of the reasons everything east of West Germany had lower QoL is that USSR did not allow its satellites to accept aid from Marshal Plan, so while Western Europe had the funds to bandage the war wounds, Central and Eastern had to rely on the whims of Comecon and the USSR overlords.

Then there was the fact that USSR was sucking out the production of the client states, so while western USSR was so-so, it relied on worsening the productivity of other states.

Since we're out of hands, on another leg, Second World suffered from awful, awful pointless projects, with effects such as causing a massive ecological disaster in Uzbekistan (nigh-annihilation of Aral Sea), Chernobyl (USSR being cheap on safety, rushing the project, staffing a nuclear reactor without having a single, you know, person who knew a thing about nuclear power aside from 'press this button and power comes out' during a dangerous experiment)...

Well Chernobyl was stuffed with incompetent people only in 1984, when the control over the station was delegated to regional electricians. Before that it was under Minsredmash control, and those guys had proper trained engineers.

EDIT: Or maybe that was 1970. I'm not sure.

[XXSockXX]

QoL was decent in the USSR and many communistic nations

They always talked about the GDR being the showcase of communism or something to that effect - because there was actually quite a bit of cross-border traffic, they had to compete (QoL-wise) with the west. And the people fled like rats from a sinking ship.

I had relatives in the GDR and I have been there once when it was still the GDR, after the fall of the SED regime but before reunification. It was a rather bizarre experience. QoL was not horrible, people were not starving or living in ghettos or something. But it was like time travel, in terms of how everything (and everyone) looked. Architecture was either old and decaying or new, cheap and dystopian. On the inside, appartments looked like something out of the 60s. The clothing was...weird, cheap-looking and wouldn't have passed for fashionable in the 60s. The food choices were very limited. Stores were half-empty, and what they offered was of very limited choice. And the cars... In a Trabant you feel like you're sitting on the street itself while driving because the thing is basically just plastic (but you had to pre-order a decade early if you wanted one). So yeah, QoL was not terrible, but compared to the West it was pretty depressing.

[Sergarr]

QoL was decent in the USSR and many communistic nations

They always talked about the GDR being the showcase of communism or something to that effect - because there was actually quite a bit of cross-border traffic, they had to compete (QoL-wise) with the west. And the people fled like rats from a sinking ship.

I had relatives in the GDR and I have been there once when it was still the GDR, after the fall of the SED regime but before reunification. It was a rather bizarre experience. QoL was not horrible, people were not starving or living in ghettos or something. But it was like time travel, in terms of how everything (and everyone) looked. Architecture was either old and decaying or new, cheap and dystopian. On the inside, appartments looked like something out of the 60s. The clothing was...weird, cheap-looking and wouldn't have passed for fashionable in the 60s. The food choices were very limited. Stores were half-empty, and what they offered was of very limited choice. And the cars... In a Trabant you feel like you're sitting on the street itself while driving because the thing is basically just plastic (but you had to pre-order a decade early if you wanted one). So yeah, QoL was not terrible, but compared to the West it was pretty depressing.

It depends on which place in the West you look. I'd bet Detroit has worse QoL.

[XXSockXX]

It depends on which place in the West you look. I'd bet Detroit has worse QoL.

I meant West Germany. In terms of pure QoL there might be places in the US where it's worse, but that is a result of poverty without the lack of choice the former GDR offered.
It wasn't like people had no money, quite the contrary sometimes, there was just nothing they could buy.