I'm not familiar with this topic at all. I have some familiarity with Soviet economics and such, but predating that I'm not very knowledgeable. I'm curious because I'm debating someone about the merits and benefits of a free market economy as opposed to a centrally planned economy who suggests that central planning (as opposed to free market) was beneficial to these countries in terms of industrialization.
As well, hasn't Russia made substantial improvement in their GDP and industry in recent years by way of conversion to a market economy after the fall of the Soviet Union? And China is also a growing market economy at the present, is it not?
Forgive my ignorance on these matters :( I'm not much of a historian outside of US history.
Any source material I might study would be much appreciated.
Cabal:I'm curious because I'm debating someone about the merits and benefits of a free market economy as opposed to a centrally planned economy who suggests that central planning (as opposed to free market) was beneficial to these countries in terms of industrialization.
It's a losing discussion. First of all, correlation is not the same as causation. Second of all, you have to deal with the problem of the seen and the unseen. It is easy to point out what the government did. It is impossible to determine what did not happen because of what the government did. Lastly, you are dealing with apples and oranges. You cannot really take what happened a hundred years ago and tie it to today. Regardless, pre-Communist Russia was one of the most backward places on earth. They had very violent dictators, for the most part.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
I'm now studying chinese history in college out of an old 1960s (but apparently magisterial) book by a guy named jacques genet. What I learned is that every time china enters a period of prosperity one can make a plausible, but still ambigous, case for free markets being the reason. So in the warring states period, which one can suppose was decentralized, the economy took off then the han and qin rode that prosperity out for a few centuries. Then in the song period of the middle ages the southern dynasty (and many of the preceeding southern dynasties) were (probably) very deregulated and later the mongols and ming used that market prosperity to fund their wars of conquest and empire.
The evidence for decentralization was that those dynasties that I cited were generally in a state of constant revolution and turmoil and it happens that in those periods it sometimes comes about that gov. weakens. The same thing perhaps happened to late middle-ages europe.
In my experience if a country is prosperous under central planning it must be because there was past free markets. It is apriori history but I think that it is one of the only really good and well established patterns in history.
Before becoming socialist, both Russia and China were feudalistic societies. They weren't capitalist at all.
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Before the Communists China was a feudal society. The Kuomintang was in economic terms Socialists as well, but they were not strong enough to impose their system.Russia was feudal until 1861. After this its economy was basicaly corporatist and it was experiencing solid growth. One of the causes of the WWI was that Germany wanted to fight and defeat Russia before Russia economicaly eclipsed Germany.
Cabal: As well, hasn't Russia made substantial improvement in their GDP and industry in recent years by way of conversion to a market economy after the fall of the Soviet Union?
As well, hasn't Russia made substantial improvement in their GDP and industry in recent years by way of conversion to a market economy after the fall of the Soviet Union?
Since the fall of the USSR Russia has had a corporatist economy. The difference is that in the 1990s it was a gangster state with private interests plundering the economy like a pinata, and now it is an impersonal state, with a strong buerocracy slapping the economy with interventionism. So far the buerocrats have proven better caretakers than the gangsters. It is probably a timeframe thing. The position of the burocrats is more assured so they are in a less of a hurry.
Marko: Before the Communists China was a feudal society. The Kuomintang was in economic terms Socialists as well, but they were not strong enough to impose their system.Russia was feudal until 1861. After this its economy was basicaly corporatist and it was experiencing solid growth. One of the causes of the WWI was that Germany wanted to fight and defeat Russia before Russia economicaly eclipsed Germany.
The German government actually signed a treaty with Russia to split up Eastern Europe.
In 1914 Germany bordered Russia. There was nothing to split up.
krazy kaju:Before becoming socialist, both Russia and China were feudalistic societies. They weren't capitalist at all.
What do you mean by feudal since china (i don't know about russia) developed at least to the renaissance period in terms of technology and business organization before europe did. Namely they had large workshops with hundreds of staff and produced more iron in absolute terms than britain did circa 1770. They also had the printing press in the 1000s.
He means serfdom. The Renaissance period was stil one marked by serfdom. France for example was in this sense feudal until 1789.
Marko:The Kuomintang was in economic terms Socialists as well, but they were not strong enough to impose their system.
I wouldn't say they were socialists. More like democratic progressives. Sun Yet-sun was more of a moderate then Chiang Kai-shek
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Thanks for the replies so far. I'm still relatively new to economic thought in general, as well as Austrian economics, but I do the best I can when engaging in this kind of discourse; there seems to be a lot of loathing for free-market economics (if not also libertarianism) out there for some reason. I understand that people tend to be passionate about their philosophical, economic and political beliefs--as I am--but for the most part, it seems like much of the opposition I run into leads to direct insults upon my intelligence (as opposed to productive debate) if only because of the values and schools of thought I ascribe to, regardless of what arguments, points or evidence I present to the contrary in such discourse.
Is this commonplace in your experience as well?
Cabal: Thanks for the replies so far. I'm still relatively new to economic thought in general, as well as Austrian economics, but I do the best I can when engaging in this kind of discourse; there seems to be a lot of loathing for free-market economics (if not also libertarianism) out there for some reason. I understand that people tend to be passionate about their philosophical, economic and political beliefs--as I am--but for the most part, it seems like much of the opposition I run into leads to direct insults upon my intelligence (as opposed to productive debate) if only because of the values and schools of thought I ascribe to, regardless of what arguments, points or evidence I present to the contrary in such discourse. Is this commonplace in your experience as well?
Yes. But I have found the Socratic method is really useful. Check out Jan Helfeld's channel on youtube for some good examples of how it works.
I'm no expert on this, but as far as I know a better description would be that they contained elements of both feudalism and capitalism.
Spideynw: The German government actually signed a treaty with Russia to split up Eastern Europe.
It was in 1939 before WWII, not WWI.