>>2828718>between the 1950s and 1960s, afterwards growth began to slow down in the east so after revisionists started to fuck with the planned economy, something that would only get worse. There certainly was a part of mismanagement, and a part of spending too much on weapons (but then again, they did have good reason for wanting the weapons). But none of this was catastrophic, and the main problem compared to the west were the limits on trade because pretty much all of most the developed states were in the west (which obviously favor the west bloc economy, although it didnt favor the west colonies and client states populations), preventing the access to the most advanced tech and to big capital investments
>most communist governments borrowed foreign currency en masse I dont think you can say most, although a few of the eastern bloc did but Im not sure how important that was. I dont know that much about it, but that certainly seems more of specific mismanagement than an inherent problem
>Austria and much of Scandinavia also exceeded the eastern bloc despite lacking an empireaustria was an industrial powerhouse and scandinavia had both developed industry and a large amount of resources even before ww2. As with much of the west/east difference, the big one is the starting point
>Inb4 Marshall plan, the USSR also aided the development of the eastern bloc just as much the USA did absolutely not, ussr was far from being as rich and developed as the USA, and was fucking wrecked in the war while the US helped to be able to actually have customers for its massive intact industrial capacity
>doesn’t mean that the eastern bloc was not genuinely poorpoorer for sure, but the poor were also living a lot better than the poor of the west, and no, the USSR, czechs or GDR were not "poor". And the poorer countries started as such, it was not the fault of the economic management.
>then east Germany would have continued bleeding skilled labor to west Germany the main reason for the berlin wall was both sabotage and the fact your didnt want the skilled people who had a free education and a heavily subsidized housing to go work on the other side
>seriously think the an engineer, an AI startup, a CEO, a janitor, a coal miner, a Twitch streamer, a lawyer, a politician, a farmer, etc… should all have the same income?no, and its not what I have said. A coal miner for example, should have a pay comparable to an engineer, because while less educated, their job is a lot worse. A twitch streamer, who have neither education nor hard work, should have a way lower pay. "Politician" isnt really a job, but bureaucrats (like a CEO) typically should be between a farmer and an engineer. Pay should be a function of both education and work arduousness
>The inefficiency of the central planners, the flaws of a command economy as applied to large countrieswhich is just wrong. It worked very well for a significant time (even better than capitalist economies even), proving the core of the problem is not "command economy"
>rigidity of the economy now that was a problem, but its mismanagement, not an inherent problem to command economy
>There’s a reason the term “shortage economy” to describe those states exists in the first place.yes, because of cold war propaganda. You know using price to limit consumption is a rationing mechanism, just more unequal than the ones practiced in socialist countries. People had way more social services and lower prices for food or housing, despite the countries being less developed
>The heavy emphasis on heavy industry at the expense of other sectors combined with inability to keep up with contemporary technological progress plenty of places in europe, africa and america were wrecked (and still are being wrecked today) by industry, its inherent to it no matter the tech, you cant have advanced economies without it, and the east wasnt especially worse in this regard, the west just had a lot of polluting resource extraction outsourced to colonies.
>triangle of deathdidnt know about it, googling the term bring me to various places, including italy…
>Mayak disaster and Chernobyl meltdownthree miles island was pretty close, they released a bunch of radioactive material in the air to avoid a meltdown. And those are accidents involving the dangerous new tech, yes industrial accidents happen, but I dont see how this is related, if anything theres less incentive to hide pollution in a command economy (although it can still be a problem if the people in charge dont care), and ussr had plenty of very interesting ecological initiative very early.
cockshott make interesting analysis of planned vs market economies both in TANS and how the world works, you can take a look at an excerpt
https://monthlyreview.org/articles/crisis-of-socialism-and-effects-of-capitalist-restoration/