this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2021
7 points (59.5% liked)
Memes
46414 readers
1720 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Last I checked all the people in the party came from the regular population. Let's just take a look at where all the leaders of USSR came from. Khrushchev grew up in a village, Brezhnev came from a metalworker family in a small town in Ukraine, Gorbachev came from a village as well.
Sure, party made some poor decisions, but it's certainly not because the party was some sort of an oligarchy that you seem to be insinuating here. And there's absolutely no reason to think that some sort of an anarchist style federalism would've made better decisions. The fact that anarchists haven't even managed to create a society of any meaningful scale really speaks for itself here.
Being a elite does not mean you come from some sort of aristocracy.
They made this mistake because it (the petro-money) allowed them to comfortably stay in power and pay off all their crownies.
You have yet to explain what made these people elite. They rose to their positions through their work. Meanwhile, USSR didn't allow generational wealth, and max pay was capped at 9x lowest pay. Politicians weren't even the highest paid bracket. There wasn't even much you could do with any wealth in USSR if you somehow could accumulate it. You have this nonsensical view of the country because you're thinking of it as if it was a capitalist state which is the only lived experience you have.
Even in the US, there are limits on the difference in monetary compensation. Because of that, for the most prestigious/lucrative positions, non-monetary compensation is offered. At the lowest rungs, it was health insurance. When you start talking higher, then there are company cars and so forth. And for CEOs, you get equity in the form of stock options, personal assistants, etc.
The Soviets had all of these for the highest positions, just like everywhere else. The only thing different is that they made the pay difference limitation explicit and lower.
No. I think higher in the thread you mentioned how Brezhnev came from a family of metalworkers. When he became General Secretary, it wasn't because he was the best metalworker at the foundry. It wasn't because he was the best manager of metalworkers at the foundry. That wasn't how anyone rose to high positions in the Soviet Union.
Like elsewhere, there is a social game. And people who play it well rise high, those who play it perfectly rise higher still. Those who can't or won't play it, those who are bad at it, or who are visibly bitter about it, don't rise at all.
None of it has to do with anything resembling actual work.
It's completely absurd to argue that inequality in USSR was in any way comparable to that in US. People like Musk or Bezos simply didn't exist.
That's a nonsensical argument. USSR wasn't some guild based society where children simply learned the craft of their parents. Everyone had access to the same kind of education and same opportunity. A son of a metalworker would have roughly the same opportunity as the son of the chairman of the Politburo. That's what allowed people born in far flung regions of USSR to rise to positions of power.
That's a factually incorrect statement. Success in US can literally be determined by your zip code. Those born rich have far more opportunity available to them, and thus are far more likely to rise to positions of power.