Oddbean new post about login | logout When you find out that taxes were lower in the USSR than in Western democracies you might start to question things. Democracy is just a label, if you think that by putting a piece of paper in a ballot box every 4 years you are free, you have a serious cognitive problem. nostr:note1x6h5m574j8fck5eue96vulkuyfpr4tlmwnhdvt736lrtuv2sz5ds3yadg3
Why did the USSR have any taxes? This seems like a misleading point. Communists will always have lower "taxes" than other forms of gov.
Why do we ("liberal democracies") have any tax? They've demonstrated that they can "quantitatively ease" into existence as much fiat as they want, so why do they need to tax us too? This exposes democracy as a big lie - the government is not drawn from among us by consent. It's just a control grid. While I agree with your stance on democracy (especially western liberal ones) I would not compare USSR economy or in general any communist country’s economy to western countries. This is different animal. In communism economy is fake. People fake work, government (which owns everything) fakes paying them, fakes providing services. Taxes are fake because the wages are so low because government steals this money and then the money is just lost. Military complex is enormous black hole which sucks all the capital from the economy. Military do not pay directly for any good or services it needs. If USSR wanted to move 5 armies 2000km for some propaganda set up exercise they just did that. Railways moved that stuff and never got paid for that. And it was in any case, any investment that went for military or general government stuff was just done and never paid. This whole type of economy is fake from the bottom to the top.
In other words, they have become more cunning.
Yes. It took years of development from Marx’s idea through all those „but it was not real communism” Lenin started bud Stalin had most of the parts in place No property rights, everything nationalized, no private food production, military-industrial complex. If you look at western democracies none of these is in place antybakteryjny scale but is implemented partially. Yep, more smart. I would rather say it is crony capitalism than communism. Differences are to significant for me. Moreover, big money rules the world and those guys know that in communism they cannot thrive but only in crony capitalism. Big money will never allow to go full commie. One note. Those WEF bastards are marxists for sure. There I have no doubt. I might be wrong cos I know shit but I know what communism was. I remember the 80. luckily not in Soviet Union but it was shit anyway. Far from what is now in the West.
Is that really so different from US economy
Significantly different. It does not mean US or any western economy is fine. Just this is completely different level. It was not only economy but the whole package of repression, invigilation, lack or significantly reduces private property rights, closed borders, lack of even basic supply in the shops. Shit it was world from nightmares. Now people tend to forget. Some don’t believe. Some words lost their meaning. Communism meant place when even hope has died. We still have hope. That’s why we are here.