Why the Soviet Union failed - my hypothesis

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I haven't and the forum member who references his work the most happens to be a conservative forum moderator. I don't really agree with the whole "policy technocrats are bad 'cause the analyze details" thesis. I think the great economist John Keneith Gabrieth made a rather elegant point that a new industrial economy requires educated technocrats.

Hey, I'm just calling them like I see them; every post of yours either attacks America or personally insults another poster and this latest is no exception. Plus, you seem to think that most if not all Americans are actively plotting to destroy or take over the world via our insipid yet irresistible culture if not our overwhelming military might, and since I'm a people pleasing sort of guy I hate to disappoint. So simmer away in your backwater country crying into whatever the hell you people drink over your failed ideology and utter lack of relevance to the world at large; I don't even need to hurl insults at the likes of you.

I haven't and the forum member who references his work the most happens to be a conservative forum moderator. I don't really agree with the whole "policy technocrats are bad 'cause the analyze details" thesis. I think the great economist John Keneith Gabrieth made a rather elegant point that a new industrial economy requires educated technocrats.

I dunno, I've read two major intellectuals challenging technocrats.
1) Jacques Ellul, who thinks that the over-use of rational methods of organizing society can crush moral freedom by making it into another bit of data and division of labor, rather than individual choice.
2) Friedrich Hayek, who believes that the data of reality is too complex for technocrats to handle everything. Instead, we need to recognize that a lot of people have tacit knowledge on how things work, and that relying on this is essential.

You are an ignorant man and obviously know nothing about my country.

Oh, of course, anyone who disagrees with you could only do so because they are "indoctrinated" or "brainwashed." Typical claim made by every fringe idiot.


Also typical among loons in here is to demand that I agree with anything they say on the basis of my calling myself "Orwell."


Seriously? "Algorithm" and "combinatorics" are beyond your vocabulary? Look, that "jargon" exists for a reason. Mathematicians have devised the most efficient and precise system of communicating ideas that has ever existed in human history. It would appear that you are the one attempting to stifle any thought that depends on complex thoughts that can't be expressed properly in monosyllabisms.

You are wrong on the math. It is as simple as that. Poincaré and Lorentz demonstrated that years ago. Nonlinear systems can't even be predicted, much less controlled, and the economy is highly nonlinear. Now, it is a separate argument whether the USSR was truly a centralized command economy. Lenin implemented market reforms, and there was a thriving black market for much of the USSR's history. At no point was everything in the USSR fully socialized. I haven't ever argued that economics were the sole cause of the USSR's collapse (just look at some of my earlier posts in this thread) but when you go so far as to reject the statement "Command economies will fail" you're just plain wrong.

Systems fail because of humans and their failings, every failing that occurred in the soviet economy is present in modern capitalist economies, this is because of human failings, human weaknesses and just because one experiment fails I ask again shall we cease to try more?

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Systems fail because of humans and their failings, every failing that occurred in the soviet economy is present in modern capitalist economies, this is because of human failings, human weaknesses and just because one experiment fails I ask again shall we cease to try more?

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Socialism fails because it demands from each of us they we subordinate our own personal and family interests to the "greater good" of society.

Let me make it plain to you. I will look after the good of my children and grandchildren long before I attend to the good of strangers. That is a wired in genetic impulse shared by most, if not all, human beings. It is a survival characteristic that has been wired in by the process of natural selection. Born altruists tend to die off before they go upstream to spawn which is why there are so few of them.

ruveyn

It is good that those were 'I' statements and they may be entirely true for you and those with similar cultural mores to yourself.
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Indeed. There are more people who think and act as I do, which is why the human race has survived for over 200,000 years. Natural Born altruists tend to die off before they reproduce and if they do reproduce they tend to subordinate the interests of their children to the interests of other peoples children. Either way the genes do not get propagated as efficiently.

Let the facts be your guide. Mixed economies succeed. Pure socialist experiments fail. That is a historical fact. All of the idealistic socialist communities formed in the 19th century came to a sad and unsuccessful end.

Owning property (or possessing it) and getting annoyed with people who crowd your territory and touch your sh*t is instinctive in humans and that disposition can be overcome only rarely and with great difficulty.

Socialists are rowing against the genetic current.

ruveyn

Blah blah, stuff and nonsense, opinion again you need more data moron.

I ask you is capitalism such a success, your own economy is effectively in collapse, over 20% of US citizens are below the poverty line and your society is at war with itself - good luck with that...

We are all indoctrinated into something or other, it's just some 'things' leave cracks for you to seek the light through

Complex words are within my reach and I love being a FREE thinking loon, it sure beats being a cynical schmuck.

All your statements regarding technocratic language and mathematics are mere opinion.

shall we cease to endeavor and experiment with solutions?

Thank you for the tip I have read neither writer, however I would agree generally with both statements and they are now on my interest list, cheers