United Germany & The Beginning of the End for the Socialist System in Eastern Europe [Archive]

Crazed Rabbit

11-09-2009, 20:10

What an anniversary of freedom! May Communism never return to haunt the human spirit. :shame:

How a system that had to fence it's own people in to keep them from escaping could ever be admired by afar then or now is unfathomable.

The rest is spoilered until this makes it's way to the backroom.
From Alan Charles Kors: (http://reason.com/archives/2002/04/01/rose-colored-glasses)

In fact, it was only the voices of Hayek, Mises, and their few disciples that correctly identified the source of the unspeakable horrors of both Nazism and Bolshevism: the willingness -- indeed, the desire -- to use the force of government to plan other people's economic and moral lives. In terms of those horrors, the authors of The God That Failed objected, above all, to the purge of intellectuals and of communists more honorable than Stalin and his party hacks. To understand truly and with moral clarity the "god" these essayists worshipped, it is better to read The Black Book of Communism by Stéphane Courtois et al., or The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn , which present in scholarship and moral witness, respectively, the largest holocaust of the 20th century, the Red holocaust.

No cause in the history of mankind has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than communism. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. No one honors those dead. No one does penance for them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag: "No, no one would have to answer." Communism was not a "god that failed." Rather, it was an intellectually organized slaughter and slavery that succeeded, but that could not sustain itself against the productivity and resistance of free men and women.

How anyone can praise a system that affords no freedom - no freedom of speech, thought, religion, action -a system that is little more than a human abattoir - a system that oppresses thought, art, literature, civilization - is beyond me.

I pray communism will never again rise to destroy the lives of so many hundreds of millions, and kill so many millions, as it killed over 100,000,000 people in the last century.

A video remembrance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2prVpI7m4tM&feature=player_embedded).

CR

Louis VI the Fat

11-09-2009, 20:10

Backroom!

The fall of the wall was one of the greatest days of Europe. :balloon:

French diplomats on Friday, with more today, released files of correspondence with Britian and Thatcher, showing the bitter opposition to re-unification of Germany. Mitterand and Thatcher were horrified, absolutely frightened. The two most lonely people on the planet in 1989-1990, the only ones not celebrating.

Gorbachev revealed this weekend that he received a telephone call from Margareth Thatcher. Asking him to 'keep those Germans safely tucked away behind that wall'. :laugh4:

Prince Cobra

11-09-2009, 20:13

Utterly ashamed Stephen is running to the Backroom!

:balloon2:

Louis VI the Fat

11-09-2009, 20:19

Recognize him?

It's a young Sarkozy, accompanied by Juppe and Fillon, chipping away at the Berlin Wall in 1989:

https://img17.imageshack.us/img17/1817/berlinsarkozy482.jpg (https://img17.imageshack.us/i/berlinsarkozy482.jpg/)

There is much ado about the actual context of the picture, which is not cleared up yet.

drone

11-09-2009, 20:48

There is much ado about the actual context of the picture, which is not cleared up yet.

There is a women's gym shower on the other side. Sarkozy is just making a peephole.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

11-09-2009, 20:56

Freiheit! How people continue to vote in droves for the successors to one of the most totalitarian parties in German and European history is beyond me.

Crazed Rabbit

11-09-2009, 21:25

More (recent) news of communist oppression:

In Cuba, a blogger was seized by the police, (http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/tech/Cuban-Blogger-Allegedly-Beaten--69466567.html?abc=123) beaten, and then dumped back on the street.

Trail-blazing Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez says she was headed to a peaceable march against violence with friends in Havana Friday when she and fellow writer Orlando Luis Pardo were confronted by three men in plainclothes presumed to be state security, forced into a car, and assaulted.

"No blood," she reported to El Nuevo Herald. "But black and blues, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, kidneys, knee and chest...[after being] thrown head-first inside, they applied judo or karate holds to us and the punches . . . kept raining down."

Sánchez says she and Pardo were driven around for about 20 minutes before being "violently thrown on the street" near where they were first accosted. Their friends reported being taken to a police station in a second car, where they were questioned and released.

The group was en route to an event its organizers, local musicians, termed "a peaceful performance-march -- neither a protest nor a political demand." A previous gathering had included group theatre but was uneventful.

Another communist country that beats people for speaking out and won't let them leave. Cruelly funny how those are the common threads of communist regimes.

CR

Beskar

11-10-2009, 02:03

Also, you missed this other article which is related by the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8347409.stm

"Free market is flawed"

CountArach

11-10-2009, 02:06

Every time someone calls the USSR Communist I die a little inside. They weren't and they didn't even call themselves that.

Crazed Rabbit

11-10-2009, 02:19

Also, you missed this other article which is related by the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8347409.stm

"Free market is flawed"
No, a survey says some people think that.

Every time someone calls the USSR Communist I die a little inside. They weren't and they didn't even call themselves that.

Oh, right, because they take away from the reputation of all those communist states that didn't oppress people, like.....oh, wait, there are none. The USSR was born of Marxism and is a result of putting that oppressive theory into practice. Bah - the plaintive plea that 'real' communism has never been tried is pathetic. It dodges the real issue, which is that every incarnation of a communist state has been oppressive, because the foundation of communism is taking away freedom - it is the state telling people how to live, and punishing those who don't go along.

I hope that stain on the human soul never returns.

CR

Strike For The South

11-10-2009, 02:22

Cold war? Never heard of it.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

11-10-2009, 02:29

Oh, right, because they take away from the reputation of all those communist states that didn't oppress people, like.....oh, wait, there are none. The USSR was born of Marxism and is a result of putting that oppressive theory into practice. Bah - the plaintive plea that 'real' communism has never been tried is pathetic. It dodges the real issue, which is that every incarnation of a communist state has been oppressive, because the foundation of communism is taking away freedom - it is the state telling people how to live, and punishing those who don't go along.

I hope that stain on the human soul never returns.

CR

:bow:

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Centurion1

11-10-2009, 03:38

Viva la capitalism.

ya'll just think the reds are gone. Dont worry ima start up my militia soon nough and we will take care of bizness.

(seriously anyone wanna join my militia)

On a more serious note. This is a gret day because not only was an evil empire tottering on its dying steps but an entire peoples were freed and reunited with their long lost countrymen (German People)

A Very Super Market

11-10-2009, 03:42

An evil bureacracy, to be precise, but that's a bit redundant.

CountArach

11-10-2009, 03:45

Oh, right, because they take away from the reputation of all those communist states that didn't oppress people, like.....oh, wait, there are none. The USSR was born of Marxism and is a result of putting that oppressive theory into practice. Bah - the plaintive plea that 'real' communism has never been tried is pathetic. It dodges the real issue, which is that every incarnation of a communist state has been oppressive, because the foundation of communism is taking away freedom - it is the state telling people how to live, and punishing those who don't go along.
How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?

I hope that stain on the human soul never returns.

CR
I'm not going to disagree with you there.

Strike For The South

11-10-2009, 03:49

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?
.

So you don't agree with Marxism because it needs to employ the mechanism of a state? Or are you just sad your political philosiphy does exactly the oppisite of what it was supposed to?

CountArach

11-10-2009, 03:53

So you don't agree with Marxism because it needs to employ the mechanism of a state? Or are you just sad your political philosiphy does exactly the oppisite of what it was supposed to?
I'm not a Marxist, but that is a long and complicated story that I can't be bothered to relate... And I think you must have misread my post - Marxism is anti-State at its most pure and I have always argued that on this site.

Strike For The South

11-10-2009, 04:00

I'm not a Marxist, but that is a long and complicated story that I can't be bothered to relate... And I think you must have misread my post - Marxism is anti-State at its most pure and I have always argued that on this site.

So what do you beilive?

I just ask because I don't understand.

CountArach

11-10-2009, 04:03

What I essentially believe is that Marxism at its core is opposed to the Nation State, on the grounds that the Nation State was founded by and for the Bourgeoisie. The best examples of this are the founding of Revolutionary France and America.

Strike For The South

11-10-2009, 04:05

Centurion1

11-10-2009, 04:07

An evil bureacracy, to be precise, but that's a bit redundant.

yeah but which sounds better, i mean luke skywalker didnt destroy the Evil Bureaucracy did he/

(yes i am attempting to turnt his thread into a converstaion comparing the soviets to the Evil Empire in star Wars.)

Evil_Maniac From Mars

11-10-2009, 04:14

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?

It isn't going to become factual regardless of how many times you repeat it. Then again, if you want to argue semantics, Marxism isn't statist but is certainly authoritarian.

CountArach

11-10-2009, 04:16

It isn't going to become factual regardless of how many times you repeat it.
Show me at which point Marx talks about the necessity of a state.

Then again, if you want to argue semantics, Marxism isn't statist but is certainly authoritarian.
How can it be Authoritarian without being statist EMFM?

Strike For The South

11-10-2009, 04:19

Show me at which point Marx talks about the necessity of a state.

How can it be Authoritarian without being statist EMFM?

I would argue without a state the strong dominate the weak and communism therefore becomes impossible.

A vaccum will always be filled with depravity.

CountArach

11-10-2009, 04:24

I would argue without a state the strong dominate the weak and communism therefore becomes impossible. .
With a State the strong dominate the weak anyway, so that would be no different. However, replacing a State with actual Democracy (Meant in the truest direct democracy sense of the word) would allow for this to be rectified to an extent as the local collective can deal with things more effectively.

Anyway, as I said I'm not a Marxist, I just feel that there are parts of it well worth defending. I really do have to study now, so I'm going to go do that. I will undoubtedly return at some later point.

Samurai Waki

11-10-2009, 05:21

Is Germany happy now? You made the Soviets cry...

Oh, and thanks Gorbi... I don't care what they say about the head thing.

Beskar

11-10-2009, 05:30

if people are going to argue that Stalin was a Marxist, I am going to argue some one else is a nationalist and anyone who adovocate nations is just like that.

In short, quit doing the obvious troll arguments, because it is obvious to yourselves you are incorrect or BG might as well lock this topic.

Crazed Rabbit

11-10-2009, 07:17

How many times do I have to repudiate the idea that Marxism is Statist before people will finally accept that it is not?

You can talk forever; but that won't change the facts. Show me the nation I asked for - the un-oppressive communist state. But you can't; you and other communists can only talk, denying the USSR had anything to do with communism. Lots of cheap talk because you've got no proof, no facts.

I'm not going to disagree with you there.

I think you will. I don't mean Stalinism, I don't mean the USSR. I mean communism, Marxism, Engelism, Socialism, whatever and whichever brand of collectivism you care to mention.

They are all stains on the human soul. What other political system has so thoroughly crushed art? Freedom of thought, of speech?

With a State the strong dominate the weak anyway, so that would be no different. However, replacing a State with actual Democracy (Meant in the truest direct democracy sense of the word) would allow for this to be rectified to an extent as the local collective can deal with things more effectively.

Bah! And when a crime is committed in your democracy, who will be sent to arrest the perpetrator? A mob, or a professional chosen by the democracy? Who will investigate crimes? Who will run the transportation systems, the water lines, hand out welfare?

And if a person decides they and others want to work as capitalists outside of your collectivist ownership, what will you do to them? Will you prevent people from working if they don't own the factory? Will you send those who do own factories or build them by themselves to jail?

Have you ever thought that others might not want to be forced into your vision of 'freedom'?

CR

CountArach

11-10-2009, 07:26

You can talk forever; but that won't change the facts. Show me the nation I asked for - the un-oppressive communist state.
Do I really have to point out just how stupid this sentence is?

But you can't; you and other communists can only talk, denying the USSR had anything to do with communism. Lots of cheap talk because you've got no proof, no facts.
I re-iterate. I'm not.

What other political system has so thoroughly crushed art?
So I take it you support the NEA unquestioningly?

Freedom of thought, of speech?
I can't think of a single (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mccarthyism) one (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTEL).

Bah! And when a crime is committed in your democracy, who will be sent to arrest the perpetrator? A mob, or a professional chosen by the democracy? Who will investigate crimes? Who will run the transportation systems, the water lines, hand out welfare?
I don't have the answer to this. I support the existence of a State as a necessary evil until an answer to this can be found.

And if a person decides they and others want to work as capitalists outside of your collectivist ownership, what will you do to them? Will you prevent people from working if they don't own the factory? Will you send those who do own factories or build them by themselves to jail?
What do we do with those who want to live outside of Capitalism now?

EDIT: I just can't be :daisy: any more... I'm leaving until people can at least identify the most basic terms of political ideology.

Sasaki Kojiro

11-10-2009, 07:30

It seems like a stretch to say that the USSR wasn't communist. They certainly had their own brand of communism, and I don't know that anyone can claim any particular philosophy as "true communism".

jabarto

11-10-2009, 07:34

They are all stains on the human soul. What other political system has so thoroughly crushed art?

Liberal socialism has brought success and prosperity to millions and millions of people. I wouldn't call that a blight on the soul. :juggle2:

Crazed Rabbit

11-10-2009, 07:54

Huh, not a single answer from CA. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Do I really have to point out just how stupid this sentence is?

You've never heard of nation and state being synonyms? :inquisitive: :laugh4:

I re-iterate. I'm not.

Whatever. Collectivist then? :juggle2:

I can't think of a single one.

:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

Oh, man, that was good. A classic fallacy, and so poorly played. The USSR destroys all art and throws artists into gulags; one Senator holds some hearings before being brought down by a reporter and the army is supposed to erase that!
:laugh4::laugh4::laugh4:

What do we do with those who want to live outside of Capitalism now?

Here, we let them live as they will. You dodged the question though; I doubt capitalists in your society would enjoy such generosity.

EDIT: I just can't be any more... I'm leaving until people can at least identify the most basic terms of political ideology.

:rolleyes:
Gee, it's because of that and not because you've been unable to provide an answer to any of my criticisms of communism?
:laugh4:

CR

CountArach

11-10-2009, 07:59

:rolleyes:
Gee, it's because of that and not because you've been unable to provide an answer to any of my criticisms of communism?
:laugh4:

CR
It's because I'm not a :daisy: Communist, I have never claimed to be one, and I will never be one. I'm blocking myself from the Backroom for a while because I'm so :daisy: sick of people getting away with completely misusing the names of ideologies to tar their political opponents and not getting called on it. THAT is the reason I've defended Marxism in this thread; not because I believe in it, but because calling your opponent a Communist is the closest thing to an acceptable ad hominem attack without resorting to Godwin's Law, something I also loathe.

So yeah, I won't be back for a little while.

Husar

11-10-2009, 08:58

Bah! And when a crime is committed in your democracy, who will be sent to arrest the perpetrator? A mob, or a professional chosen by the democracy? Who will investigate crimes? Who will run the transportation systems, the water lines, hand out welfare?
Aren't you usually the guy who is in favour of replacing the oh so oppressive police with mobs of guys with guns who can defend themselves? :inquisitive:
Aren't sheriffs in the US professionals chosen by the democracy? Or are they just random nothingainer joycampsitters chosen by a democracy?

quote of inappropriate post deleted

Well Dave, I can't really decide what to be most thankful for, the lend-lease program, the Potsdam treaty or the invasion of Normandy...

This thread is how Germany, in the eyes of Americans, went from supportable trade partner to devilish barbarians to supportable beacon of capitalism to commie paradise of socialised healthcare and leftist euronannies in less than 100 years, right? :inquisitive:

Fragony

11-10-2009, 09:36

And stay dead :balloon2:

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 10:29

for those of you that appreciate the irony of this momentous event:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100016216/funeral-in-berlin-of-freedom-buried-by-eussr-commissars-posing-as-democrats/

Funeral in Berlin – of freedom, buried by EUSSR commissars posing as democrats

By Gerald Warner Politics Last updated: November 9th, 2009

As farces go, it has Brian Rix beaten to a cocked hat. The spectacle of the leaders of the EUSSR marching solemnly through Berlin to celebrate the “fall” of communism and the restoration of freedom, just a few days after completing their plan for a new Soviet-style empire based on Brussels is one that will be relished by connoisseurs of irony. It will not be appreciated by anybody else.

Twenty years ago Angela Merkel, then a scientist, walked into the West out of the debris of the Marxist slum set up by the Soviet Union as a client state in 1945. She was looking for freedom. She found it, then joined with the rest of the EU nomenklatura in destroying it. After the EU constitution was democratically rejected in referenda by the electorates of France and the Netherlands, it was during Germany’s tenure of the EU Presidency in 2007 that the “period of reflection” was formally ended and the Berlin Declaration resurrected the project under the thin disguise of a “treaty”.

Marching with Merkel were Nicolas Sarkozy, whose government has adhered to the Lisbon Treaty after its repudiation by the French electorate; Gordon Brown, who refused to allow Britain any say at all; and Mikhail Gorbachev, creator of the comedy twins Glasnost and Perestroika, in a vain attempt as First Secretary of the freedom-loving Communist Party of the Soviet Union to shore up his collapsing empire – now hailed as an icon of “democracy”.

He is that, all right, since “democracy” has displaced freedom. It was obvious to all egalitarians, bureaucrats, social engineers, Frankfurt School Marxists and rag-tag big-government socialists of all flavours that the sclerotic Soviet Union was no longer fit for purpose. So it has moved westwards, is now headquartered in Brussels, is sharp-suited and technocratic. But it has also accomplished two much more important transformations.

The first is to have uncoupled Marxism from Leninism. The abject failure of the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, of collectivisation and all the other delusions of the economically illiterate Marx and his followers resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The control freaks are determined not to make that mistake again. Instead, replace the command economy with the “social market” economy: let business create wealth, then bleed it off remorselessly into the coffers of the state.

Marxism, as an economic theory, is dead. But Leninism, which was always more concerned with social control, is very much alive. Through the refinements of Frankfurt School Marxism – also more concerned with society and culture than economics – Political Correctness has been enthroned. That is the EUSSR’s second great achievement.

Survivors of the East German dictatorship have recently testified that the greatest victory of the regime was to have created an atmosphere in which citizens engaged in self-censorship – avoided uttering even some sentiments that might not have concerned the authorities. Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconically free-spoken country on earth. Who needs a Stasi with people censoring themselves?

We should tell our hypocritical leaders, going through the charade of celebrating “freedom” in Berlin, the unvarnished truth. You are not the heirs of John F Kennedy, of Ronald Reagan, of Margaret Thatcher – still less of the brave individuals who lost their lives trying to escape from behind the Iron Curtain into the Free World that you have dismantled.

You are the heirs of Ulbricht, Honecker and every other despised puppet leader that built and maintained the Great Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier – the weasel euphemism for the Berlin Wall that prefigured the Newspeak you are imposing on EU citizens. One day, sooner or later, you will go the same way as your infamous predecessors, into the dustbin of history.

Subotan

11-10-2009, 10:56

I think there's a difference between the likes of the revolutionaries and idealists, such as Marx, Engel and many revolutionaries in their early stages, and the later "Communists" who maintained such a horiffic and malevolent regime. Certainly, the goal of Communism is a noble one (Only a Fascist would disagree that the basic idea of Communism can be appreciated, even if it's recognised to be impossible.), and I would say that the majority of Communist revolutionaries had noble goals, even if they didn't try to achieve them with noble methods. However, once it was realised Communism did not provide the fruits it promised, that's when things started to go wrong, especially when Stalin comes into the picture. It would be fair to say that Communism as an idea is not evil, but it is always corrupted by self interest and paranoia.

However, maybe Communism was a nessecary evil. It's doubtful that Russia could have had the industrial might to resist Fascism in WWII had all the land from the Vistula to Kamchatka bowed it's head to the Tsar.

Pannonian

11-10-2009, 11:38

Survivors of the East German dictatorship have recently testified that the greatest victory of the regime was to have created an atmosphere in which citizens engaged in self-censorship – avoided uttering even some sentiments that might not have concerned the authorities. Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconically free-spoken country on earth. Who needs a Stasi with people censoring themselves?
It's become politically correct to attack political correctness. The easiest way is to exaggerate a target, then attack the self-made strawman with all vigour. Speech was never free in the way that it's portrayed to be. Find the most conservative, most old-school Tories who were brought up way before PC was supposed to have been invented, and you'd find that even they self-censor their speech, depending on whom they're talking to. Except they weren't taught that as political correctness, they were taught it as manners, respecting whom one is talking to for the sake of a cordial society. The main difference would probably be Thatcher's dissolution of society, so people no longer respect the ties that bind society together, and no longer have the self-discipline to temper their actions so they can get what they want without having to stir trouble. Instead, the default is to be outrageous, and ask "I want to do this - what can't I?". They want absolute freedom to do whatever the hell they want, without regard for other people, and the only thing stopping is rules, and enforcement of them.

Go talk to little old ladies. While they may have views which one may see as outdated, they will almost always show regard for the listener. When asked why they do so, they'll answer that it's polite to do so, and to be deliberately oppositional (not put that way of course) is rude. An attitude that post-Thatcher UK has dumped in favour of ego uber alles.

Kralizec

11-10-2009, 11:43

Communism is both an ideology and a (as of yet) purely hypothetical model of society where there's no state hiearchy, just collective ownership at the local level.
In Marxist-Leninism the socialist state is just a transitional form between a capitalist state and the absence of a state, a communist society. There's a reason why it's called the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. In theory, the communist party wich ran the whole thing would just give up all its power and let the state wither away :laugh4:

Also this fad of comparing the EU with the USSR is really quite pathetic. Especially when it comes from the same people who (rightfully) complain when Polish nationalists are compared to nazis.

Meneldil

11-10-2009, 12:17

I'm a bit puzzled by this commemoration. A bunch of people who never had to live in a communist regime or weren't even born by them all go "OMG awesome, freedom won 20 years ago, let's celebrate !"

What a bunch of crap.

May I remind you that after novembre 9th 1989, we've been told repeatedly by thinkers, writers, politicians, leaders and what not that we were on the eve of a new world. A peaceful, democratic, and fair world.
People who dared to disagree with this point of view were dismissed, and called pessimist of communist-apologists.

Now, what do we see? There are just as many dictatorships nowadays than there used to be in 1989, and some of them are indeed bloodier than the communist dictatorship. The US' power goes unchecked, leading to the futile war in Irak. Communism has been replaced by various other ideologies, most of which are much more subtle and threatening. Capitalism goes rampant and doesn't play by the rules anymore, leading to a growing disparity of income between the higher classes and the rest of the population.
And many people from Eastern Europe think life was better back then because at least, they had a job and a dignity.

Liberty and freedom my ass.

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 12:48

Also this fad of comparing the EU with the USSR is really quite pathetic. Especially when it comes from the same people who (rightfully) complain when Polish nationalists are compared to nazis.
i confused by your parallel, there doesn't appear to be any reason to logically link one with the other..............

Ser Clegane

11-10-2009, 12:59

And many people from Eastern Europe think life was better back then because at least, they had a job and a dignity.

Liberty and freedom my ass.

The problem would of course have been that the old system was not sustainable. IIRC, the GDR was already getting into severe financial problems.

I agree with you that it would be good if everybody would have a job that would allow them to take care of themselves and their family - unfortunately, a system in which this works properly still seems to be a utopia.
Should not mean however, that because one thing failed, the complete opposite is the way to go...

As for the reason to celebrate - I was born (and lived until I was 26) in a city very close to the border to the GDR. I have been on on a school trip to the GDR in 1986, and I can tell you that it was a very surreal experience.

After the border opened in 1989, thousands of people came over from the other side of the border to enjoy to celebrate and visit their "neighbors". These people were genuinely happy - not because of promises that came from politicians - we did not reach that stage at that time yet - they were indeed simply happy to be free to get into their car and just drive beyond the border.

It is hard to describe the weeks directly after the border opened with people from both sides going back and forth - but I wouldn't want to have missed it - and it is a good time to remember after 20 years.

Subotan

11-10-2009, 13:08

Co
Also this fad of comparing the EU with the USSR is really quite pathetic. Especially when it comes from the same people who (rightfully) complain when Polish nationalists are compared to nazis.
It's pathetic when British people do it; but it's disgusting and repulsive when people who lived under that system do the same. (Vaclav Klaus :stare:)

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 13:42

gaelic cowboy

11-10-2009, 14:30

Everyone seems to be ragging on CountArach for stating the truth here

Just coppied this from Wiki

"Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of

This means of course that the soviet Union was not communist in the true sense but actually a perversion of the idea in reality. I believe I read somewhere that the road to revolution was supposed to be a movement from capitalism then socialism and finally communism.

Hence we can see that the Soviets straight away called themselves Socialists in order that they could continue to rule by ensuring that true comunism would never happen.

Course this is all semantics but it is true in a litteral sense of the word.

Twenty years on and Europe is all the better for landing those fellas on the scrapheap hopefully the last few holdouts will follow them soon too.

Pannonian

11-10-2009, 15:36

quite the opposite; it is precisely because Vaclav Klaus lived under communism that he is a position to understand the loose parallels with the the EU.

did you live behind the iron curtain?

i find it equally ridiculous when western people pronounce on the limited value of freedom, when they have never lived in a dictatorship in order to have a useful comparison you can assess merit against.
I've talked to people who can remember a world before the Iron Curtain. They had a very different view of freedom than that which anti-PC polemists moan about having been lost. The freedom they had has not been lost, and in many ways is more widespread than ever. The freedom which has been lost is the freedom to be as pointedly obnoxious as one chooses to be, to impose oneself on others at the expense of others. That freedom they never had, and would never choose to have.

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 15:42

wow, that post had nothing to do with PC.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

how does Euroslavia sit with the objectors to the EUSSR?

Pannonian

11-10-2009, 15:56

wow, that post had nothing to do with PC.

Survivors of the East German dictatorship have recently testified that the greatest victory of the regime was to have created an atmosphere in which citizens engaged in self-censorship – avoided uttering even some sentiments that might not have concerned the authorities. Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconically free-spoken country on earth. Who needs a Stasi with people censoring themselves?
Really?

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 16:11

Really?
yes.

my post addressed Subotan's statement about Vaclav Klaus.

Philippus Flavius Homovallumus

11-10-2009, 16:13

Beskar

11-10-2009, 16:29

You can talk forever; but that won't change the facts. Show me the nation I asked for - the un-oppressive communist state. But you can't; you and other communists can only talk, denying the USSR had anything to do with communism. Lots of cheap talk because you've got no proof, no facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz :juggle2: Did I just win the Internets?

Ser Clegane

11-10-2009, 16:36

Not really a nation ~;)

It shows though that communism as a concept can work - rather on a small scalle though, where the very individual component of "each give according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs" can actually be put into practice.

Communism fails on a large nation scale when the necessary feeling of the individual to be responsible for the success of the whole disappear.

Kralizec

11-10-2009, 16:41

I'm a bit puzzled by this commemoration. A bunch of people who never had to live in a communist regime or weren't even born by them all go "OMG awesome, freedom won 20 years ago, let's celebrate !"

What a bunch of crap.

If you're referring to the politicians, Merkel is an east-German. The others were at leat old enough to remember the Cold War.

May I remind you that after novembre 9th 1989, we've been told repeatedly by thinkers, writers, politicians, leaders and what not that we were on the eve of a new world. A peaceful, democratic, and fair world.

Uh, you're 23 according to your profile. Wich means you were an infant when they supposedly made all those promises. Just thought I'd point out the irony compared to the first part of your statement.

Now, what do we see? There are just as many dictatorships nowadays than there used to be in 1989, and some of them are indeed bloodier than the communist dictatorship. The US' power goes unchecked, leading to the futile war in Irak. Communism has been replaced by various other ideologies, most of which are much more subtle and threatening. Capitalism goes rampant and doesn't play by the rules anymore, leading to a growing disparity of income between the higher classes and the rest of the population.

How gloomy.

Do you mean income disparity in western countries, or the former east bloc? If you mean the first I'll need some sources.

And many people from Eastern Europe think life was better back then because at least, they had a job and a dignity.

Liberty and freedom my ass.

Yeah, that always slightly puzzled me- it seems most east-Germans were extatic when the wall fell and nowadays a majority of them think it was actually a great place to live (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,634122,00.html).

I think that the older generations simply were to optimisitc - the DDR was on the verge of ruin, and abruptly switching to a capitalist system at the last moment wasn't going to make all problems away.

I'm curious how many people of those who left the GDR in 1989/90 returned at a later point...

Beskar

11-10-2009, 16:44

Communism fails on a large nation scale when the necessary feeling of the individual to be responsible for the success of the whole disappear.

Not really, I believe there are ways around that.

The biggest problems with real communist nations is that they get invaded or crushed by governments early on. It was Franco who won the Spanish Civil War, but what would have happened if the Anarchists won? What about if the Paris Commune took over the bank and survived till today?

Then you have the diggers in 1649. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers

You have back in pre-history, you have indian tribes, you have all sorts of living examples around the world.

There is the other problem that communism is pretty pacifist ideology. As a whole, they don't have standing armies, so when big military machines come along, they are at a disadvantage. By producing a state army, and producing state control and all these other measures, they stop becoming communist.

Communism isn't a new idea, it is a very old one. However, communists aren't Empire builders. Hence, in theory, you would need the World-Wide Revolution to overthrow all the possible enemies and threats.

This also goes into this fact, how did the "mainstream communism" examples such as the USSR survive? They had the largest military force on Earth, they used totalitarian practises. This things are not what communism is, they are people hijacking the bandwagon.

Kralizec

11-10-2009, 16:46

i confused by your parallel, there doesn't appear to be any reason to logically link one with the other..............

I think the comparison is obvious?....

Yeah, the EU is a bureacratic mess that is only accountable to voters in a very indirect way. I think that the comparison with a country wich habitually executed political dissidents, used inmates for slave labor and generally opressed its populace in almost every way possible is a bit off though.

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 17:22

Louis VI the Fat

11-10-2009, 17:33

agreed, but to quote ed west - "when we compare the EU with the Soviet Union we’re not talking about the era of Stalin, Beria, the gulags, and the mass murder of middle-class peasants, Balts, Kazakhs and Tartars – no, we think of the EU as being more like Andropov or Chernenko-era Russia, a decrepit, corrupt, bankrupt superstate run by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats with negative charisma."The problem with this sort of puerile rhetoric - which unfortunately passes for insightful political debate within half the British Conservative Party - is not that it insults the EU.

The problem is that it trivialises the nastiness, the crimes and repression of a system that held half a continent in its grip for half a century. And which end we celebrate as we speak.

Furunculus

11-10-2009, 17:37

sure, sure, i sympathise with the view and agree to some degree.

how do you feel about Euroslavia?

Louis VI the Fat

11-10-2009, 17:41

'Euroslavia'

Yugoslavia was a federal state. Me, I'd be happy if within my lifetime I see the EU move ahead to a confederacy. Euswitzerland then, a shiny example of how a confederacy of very democratic states with vastly different languages, religions and customs can team up to become the envy of the world.

Rhyfelwyr

11-10-2009, 18:04

I'm not a commie myself, but I think people are far too harsh against 'teh evil Marxists' of today. A lot of the stereotypes about communism are wrong. As CA said, Marxism is against the idea of a strong, centralised state. The problem is you have to go through the big-government socialist stage before you get to that, where the old social constructs are destroyed etc. Another stereotype is that Marx was against the idea of private property, but this isn't really true. He was against Bourgeoisie property, which he saw as being ill-gained. Funny point, but he was really just carrying on from Locke (yeah the guy that heavily influenced the US Constitution) in this respect, with his ideas on property being acquired through labour etc, since Marx thought that capitalism allowed the elites to steal the fruits of others labour (a point with some truth in it).

Of course, in the end Marx got things wrong. His prophecies for 1848 never happened, in the end when the workers did really show their strength as a class it was just as often in favour as fascism as anything else. I guess the opium of the people was stronger stuff than he realised. And so the only countries to become 'communist' were the ones he said were never supposed to, and that lacked all the basic requirements for the workers revolution. If you look at Russia and China, the most brutal aspects of these regimes was the attempt to create an industrialised society. According to Marx, these should have been there before the revolution in the first place.

And so I don't think it's fair to call all Marxists evil. Their main man was a bit off in his predictions, but that doesn't mean that their ideology itself is something to be frowned upon.

However, I think Marxism has had its time. The old class structures seem to be disappearing with various other social/economic changes, and there will never be a workers revolution in the Marxist sense. He was a product of his time, and predicted an almost apocalytic scenario that never happened. We have never seen Marxism in practice, and we probably never will. And so to bring this back to the OP, the fall of the Berlin wall is probably symbolic of the end of the idea of class struggle, and national struggles for that matter. It is the symbol of the end of an era - the era of populism and totalitarianism, whether in the form of communism, fascism, or whatever.

Sasaki Kojiro

11-10-2009, 18:25

I'm not a commie myself, but I think people are far too harsh against 'teh evil Marxists' of today. A lot of the stereotypes about communism are wrong. As CA said, Marxism is against the idea of a strong, centralised state.

I think most people would say that's like being in favor of students reporting their own test scores, but being against cheating. You have to show that the two aren't intrinsically tied together before you can excuse marx.

I've never studied marxism so :shrug:

Crazed Rabbit

11-10-2009, 18:53

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz :juggle2: Did I just win the Internets?

I wonder how an Arab or Muslim would have fared in there. Also,

In the last decades, most Kibbutzim have privatized and no longer practice communal living.

You have back in pre-history, you have indian tribes, you have all sorts of living examples around the world.

In America, they constantly warred with each other*. :inquisitive:

Not really, I believe there are ways around that.

Hence the state police and the gulag.

Capitalism goes rampant and doesn't play by the rules anymore, leading to a growing disparity of income between the higher classes and the rest of the population.

Income disparity has rose as the number of 'progressive' taxes and restrictions on business has risen, because those 'progressive' measures simply work to keep people in their place, which I suppose is politically advantageous for leftists.

Aren't you usually the guy who is in favour of replacing the oh so oppressive police with mobs of guys with guns who can defend themselves?
Aren't sheriffs in the US professionals chosen by the democracy? Or are they just random nothingainer joycampsitters chosen by a democracy?

Have you even read my posts on that subject in the Police Abuses thread?

CR
*A generalization, but as is generally the case I don't care.

Beskar

11-10-2009, 18:58

Hence the state police and the gulag.

Erm... no... :inquisitive:

That is a totalitarian government.

*A generalization, but as is generally the case I don't care.

Americans are all overweight with no education who constantly eat fast-food who are warmongering imperialists. who live in a socially backwards society build on oppression and social stigma of others.

I can do that too.

Crazed Rabbit

11-10-2009, 19:00

Well how, then?
~;p
CR

Rhyfelwyr

11-10-2009, 19:28

I think most people would say that's like being in favor of students reporting their own test scores, but being against cheating. You have to show that the two aren't intrinsically tied together before you can excuse marx.

I've never studied marxism so :shrug:

I would tend to agree with you here, this is (one) of the fundamental flaws of Marxism. He has to rely on a single class to break the class structure, and hope the workers do not simply serve their own interests as the nobility and then the bourgeoisie did.

Although I suppose it could be argued in return that the workers would have formed the overwhelming majority of the people, and so their own good is synonymous with that of the state. I think the real issue is that socialist states have never emerged from the sort of revolution that Marx envisaged. They ended up with a small number of elites and a very top-down system. Even in Russia, the Bolsheviks came to establish this ruling elite due to their own nature as a small, elite organisation (the Mensheviks were more in line with Marx IMO, the Bolsheviks were too impatient and didn't represent the workers, since Russia lacker a strong proletariat anyway).

If Marx really got his workers revolution, and the socialist government was structured from the bottom-up, then I suppose it could work.

But in the end class struggle didn't matter that much to the workers, they were more concerned with how superior their own race was to everyone else's, and ensured a fun 20th century for us all. :shrug:

Beskar

11-10-2009, 21:59

I think most people would say that's like being in favor of students reporting their own test scores, but being against cheating. You have to show that the two aren't intrinsically tied together before you can excuse marx.

No, the difference would be a facilitator instead of a teacher. Which arguably happens at University+ level anyway. (or in private schools/similar) The students still don't report their test scores at all and instead submitted to those who can validate the work.

The whole regime and ideology is different, but it isn't absurd as you claim.

Also, do you know that in communism, it isn't mean it is a state-planned economy either? There are still market forces of supply and demand? Amazing.

Also, do you know that in a true communist society, it would be very pro-liberty, pro-rights and free-speech? There would actually be far-less laws (arguably, more regulation though)

Also, businesses would be public owned, ran and operated by all those involved? Akin to Workers Councils/Soviets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_council)

Marxists and some anarchists believe that workers' councils (communes) embody the fundamental principles of socialism, such as workers' control over production and distribution. Indeed, some have described this as "socialism from below," which they counterpose against what they see as "socialism from above" endorsed by Stalinism or (in the anarchist view) Leninism. According to this view, socialism from above is carried out by a centralized state run by an elite bureaucratic apparatus, whereas socialism from below represents the self-administration and self-rule of the working class.

Sasaki Kojiro

11-10-2009, 22:20

Yes, and in a "true classroom society" no one would cheat. The point is that "working great in theory" does not make a good system of government.

And well, I don't think we can argue past this point, since I've never read about political systems and can't parse what "less laws but more regulation" means for example.

Beskar

11-10-2009, 22:36

Yes, and in a "true classroom society" no one would cheat. The point is that "working great in theory" does not make a good system of government.

But how can some one get away with cheating in what I said? Even then, if they do succeed, what makes it any different to other classroom society?

And well, I don't think we can argue past this point, since I've never read about political systems and can't parse what "less laws but more regulation" means for example.

Basically, there will be less laws in regards to personal liberties. However, there would be more regulation in practises in industry. While there might be a safety law, such a law is a generality, in practise each workplace has a set of regulations on how to operate according to that law. In this example, there would argubly more regulation on business practise, however, you could happily smoke cannabis in your living room.

That is what I am meaning.

Brenus

11-11-2009, 00:19

“May I remind you that after November 9th 1989, we've been told repeatedly by thinkers, writers, politicians, leaders and what not that we were on the eve of a new world. A peaceful, democratic, and fair world.
People who dared to disagree with this point of view were dismissed, and called pessimist of communist-apologists.”:
I do remember. I do remember being fully armed and deployed with real ammunition when Jarulezki (sp?) (Polish Leader at the time) cracked down Solidarnosc (sp).
I do remember being prepared to fight against a potential Red Army invasion, when my hope of life in combat was around one day and half, with big chances to be burned alive in my APC.
Times are better now.
But, yeap, the golden Age didn’t came.:shame:

Nationalism came instead, with looting, rapes and destruction. Yugoslavia, destroyed, rising of ethnic and economical violence, deportation and ethnic cleansing, famines, exile, etc. Fracturation of countries, fences erected, egism and me-society (thanks Thatcher and Reagan), Confessional dictatureship and all these good thinds like the Talibans in Afghanistan who were so much better thanthe Communist Dictatureship. Rejoice.:beam:

Communism is synonym of death, torture and all these horrible things say some. Indeed it is. Same for Capitalism.
I don’t want to choose to be tortured by the GEPEOU or the Gestapo, or to be “lost” is the sea by the Pinochet’s henchmen or jailed under the Apartheid Regime.

To reject the blame of a dictatorship on some XIX century thinkers is quite odd. Marx just analyse a situation based on Germany and UK (mainly) then described some process, then told people that it will be trouble. Well, he was proved right.
To blame Marx or Engel for Stalin is as to blame Jesus for the St Inquisition or the slaughter/genocide of all South America and various Religious wars all around the world.
I can tell you here that if somebody wants to write the black book of Christianity it will have more than 100 millions victims… Especially with authors who just add figures without any kind of source. It is still surprise me…

“The problem is that it trivialises the nastiness, the crimes and repression of a system that held half a continent in its grip for half a century.” Yeap. Like when some policemen are/were compared with SS. Or war crimes genocide, etc.

“when the workers did really show their strength” In 1914, Germans and French workers choosing nationalism/patriotism happily went to war for Krupp (sp?) and Schneider (who is French). And Jaures was killed.

“You have to show that the two aren't intrinsically tied together before you can excuse marx.” Well, if I remember what I read from Marx, it will explain why people have the need to cheat.
“He has to rely on a single class to break the class structure, and hope the workers do not simply serve their own interests as the nobility and then the bourgeoisie did”
Err, funny that because it is not how I remember it. Ok, it is a long time ago. However, for what I remember, the fight for power is described as perpetual. When a class takes power it becomes the oppressors in order to keep its new privileges (which is by the way exactly what did happened in USSR. The first rebels against the Bolsheviks and Lenin were the Sailors of Kronschtadt when they realised what Lenin was doing), hence the idea of a society without classes…
:book:

Rhyfelwyr

11-11-2009, 00:33

Basically, there will be less laws in regards to personal liberties. However, there would be more regulation in practises in industry. .

I always understood that the state will wither away in both the social and economic spheres. If there was any regulation, I would think it would come at the lowest possible level.

Although I like this idea very much, I'm dubious about how it would work in practice. Not because it could create a powerful state as people tend to argue (I don't think it would), but because even at the grassroots level, people are going to have their ideas of how society should be, and want to use power to keep it that way. Marx might have argued that religion, nationhood, sexism etc are social constructs, but this is wishful thinking... they seem to be a very integral part of human nature. We developed as a species on a tribal basis, and so we still see this mentality in the 'my race is better than yours' attitudes that I think we all still have a little bit of, even if we won't admit it. Same goes for the gender divisions - the fact is men and woman are different, may as well deal with it and not pretend we're all the same.

And so if the big, centralised state did disappear as Marx hoped for, I think things could get pretty chaotic if all the power goes to the ordinary people. For some reason, we have this notion today that throughout history all the trouble and brutality is caused by dictators etc using social hierarchies and oppression to keep the ordinary person in line, when they just want to live and let live. But this just isn't the case, the populist movements are always the most crazy. What's the first thing the ordinary people of Europe do when the old colonial and monarchical regimes collapse after WWI? - they give us Franco, Hitler, and Mussoloni. You take away the oppressive monarchs of France, you get Robesppiere and the terror. You take away the absolutist Charles I with his Bishops, you get Cromwell and fanatic Puritans rampaging around the country fighting because they think Jesus is about to come again.

And that is why I am dubious that giving power to the people will lead to a more tolerant society.

Sasaki Kojiro

11-11-2009, 00:44

Although I like this idea very much, I'm dubious about how it would work in practice. Not because it could create a powerful state as people tend to argue (I don't think it would), but because even at the grassroots level, people are going to have their ideas of how society should be, and want to use power to keep it that way. Marx might have argued that religion, nationhood, sexism etc are social constructs, but this is wishful thinking... they seem to be a very integral part of human nature. We developed as a species on a tribal basis, and so we still see this mentality in the 'my race is better than yours' attitudes that I think we all still have a little bit of, even if we won't admit it. Same goes for the gender divisions - the fact is men and woman are different, may as well deal with it and not pretend we're all the same.

Right. We had a thread about the how poorly the attempt to turn afghanistan democratic is going. If the people aren't ready for it, it can't work.

So I guess the idea of the communists is that one day people will be ready for communism (based on what?). Whereas the system we have now is more aimed at accepting parts of human nature and trying to work with them.

Rhyfelwyr

11-11-2009, 01:02

Right. We had a thread about the how poorly the attempt to turn afghanistan democratic is going. If the people aren't ready for it, it can't work.

So I guess the idea of the communists is that one day people will be ready for communism (based on what?). Whereas the system we have now is more aimed at accepting parts of human nature and trying to work with them.

Exactly. There's no point trying to haul countries into the western way of doing things, you have to let the historic forces do their work, otherwise you won't have any solid foundations to build upon. It's the same with communism. Marx had a very set vision of the development of society from tribalism -> quasi/agrarian-communism -> feudalism -> capitalism -> socialism/transition to communism. You can't skip any of the stages, as each comes with it's own revolution that is necessary for the next. Although in one of his nastier moments, Marx does advocate genociding peripheral peoples in any given state which might be backward and anti-revolutionary, giving the Gaels in Scotland and the Slavs in the Hapsburg Empire as examples (keep that in mind you leftists when you go on one of those rants about how Democratic Kampuchea wasn't acting in a Marxist spirit with it's ethnic cleansing!).

As for the bit about being what I'm basing things on when I speak of being "ready" for communism, I mean simply ideas in the above paragraph. A state would have to had gone through the capitalist stage, developed a strong proletariat, industrialised etc. But as I mentioned earlier, I'm uncertain as to whether communism could ever work given human nature, since I disagree with Marx that nationalism, religion etc are purely social constructs. If Marx got his revolution when he wanted, I reckon it *could* have worked. But he got it wrong, and I don't think Marxism is relevant any more, at least without adapting quite a bit.

HoreTore

11-11-2009, 05:01

The beginning of the end for socialism in Europe? What??

Last time I checked, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the UK, France, United Germany and Spain were all social democratic countries, ie. socialists.

Heck, a couple of months ago the majority rule of the socialist bloc was re-elected here.

Authoritarianism and socialism are two very different things, my friends.

Samurai Waki

11-11-2009, 05:13

Ironside

11-11-2009, 11:57

Income disparity has rose as the number of 'progressive' taxes and restrictions on business has risen, because those 'progressive' measures simply work to keep people in their place, which I suppose is politically advantageous for leftists.

That's why it has a nice "only in America" stamp on it? :inquisitive: And the only time it decreased(very minor) in the US was during the Clinton era? Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries (http://www.oecd.org/document/53/0,3343,en_2649_33933_41460917_1_1_1_1,00.html#DATA)

The Gapminder Graphs are a statistical gold mine. Shame that it only goes to 2004-2005.

In general the gap between the rich and poor has increased slightly on average since 1985, with some exceptions in both directions. International banking on the other hand increased rapidly (the bane to the current crisis with its disregard for safety meassures), look at the GDP of Luxemburg.

More on topic, I'll put it short. May that dark past never repeat itself and that wall and what it represented willl always stay teared down. :bow:

Meneldil

11-11-2009, 14:07

The problem would of course have been that the old system was not sustainable. IIRC, the GDR was already getting into severe financial problems.

Oh, I'm really glad that Germans celebrate their reunification. They have every right to. What I find despicable is the whole "Yeah, we celebrate the victory of freedom over tyranny" thingy, which I find retard, especially given what have happened since 1989 (ie. not much, despite what we've been told).
And I do not support in any way communism, nor do I think life was decent in the eastern bloc. I'm glad the wall fell, and I even went to the local celebration (my city built a wall replica, that people had to tore down) to take pictures.

If you're referring to the politicians, Merkel is an east-German. The others were at leat old enough to remember the Cold War.
I know Merkel is an east-German. And obviously, since most politicians are old sobs, they remember the Cold War. What I found hilarious (in a sad way) were all the pompous, self-satisfied speeches, made by people who promised us a golden age and who are now telling us we're going to have a rough time.

Uh, you're 23 according to your profile. Wich means you were an infant when they supposedly made all those promises. Just thought I'd point out the irony compared to the first part of your statement.
I see no irony here. Would you care to enlighten me as to how remembering promises made back then is irony? :inquisitive:

Do you mean income disparity in western countries, or the former east bloc? If you mean the first I'll need some sources.

Income disparity has rose as the number of 'progressive' taxes and restrictions on business has risen, because those 'progressive' measures simply work to keep people in their place, which I suppose is politically advantageous for leftists.
Yeah, right. Or not.
http://www.inegalites.fr/spip.php?article632
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10Section2b.t-8.html?_r=2&oref=slogin
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/DistributionofIncome.html

It seems that we're heading toward a concentration of wealth in the hand of the richest similar to what happened in the late 20's. Inequalities never were as low as during the 60's and 70's, when capitalism was successfully kept in check by western governements. Since the mid-70's, they keep growing.

As for democracy and dictatorships, here's a survey from The Economist : http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20081021185552/graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf
Their conclusion ? The spread of democracy has come to a halt (it even made a few steps backward). And the global financial crisis might threaten democracy where it's already having a hard time surviving.

Yeah, that always slightly puzzled me- it seems most east-Germans were extatic when the wall fell and nowadays a majority of them think it was actually a great place to live.
Don't be puzzled anymore. One of my former classmate's mother was an university professor in East-Germany. After 1989, she became a cleaner. Her dad was also working at the university, and couldn't find a job for years after the fall of the wall.
No doubts, those are probably extreme cases, but I think I can understand why some people feel nostalgic.

Beskar

11-11-2009, 14:55

Don't be puzzled anymore. One of my former classmate's mother was an university professor in East-Germany. After 1989, she became a cleaner. Her dad was also working at the university, and couldn't find a job for years after the fall of the wall.
No doubts, those are probably extreme cases, but I think I can understand why some people feel nostalgic.

Why didn't the University remain open and they stay in their old jobs?

Furunculus

11-11-2009, 15:25

because the real world demanded that they be able to pay for what they spend........?

gaelic cowboy

11-11-2009, 15:33

Its possible they were Professors of Communist theory which I suspect there was not a lot of need for after 1989

Beskar

11-11-2009, 15:39

because the real world demanded that they be able to pay for what they spend........?

You mean they used pixie dust as a currency beforehand? :beam::beam::beam: Awesome.

Rhyfelwyr

11-11-2009, 17:27

You mean they used pixie dust as a currency beforehand? :beam::beam::beam: Awesome.

What?

Furunculus

11-11-2009, 17:42

You mean they used pixie dust as a currency beforehand? :beam::beam::beam: Awesome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_East_Germany

External debt crisis

Although in the end political circumstances led to the collapse of the SED regime, the GDR's growing hard currency debts would have led to an international debt crisis by 1991 at the latest. Debts continued to grow in the course of the 1980s to over 40 billion Deutsche Marks owed to western institutions, a sum not astronomical in absolute terms (the GDR's GDP was perhaps 250 billion DM) but large in relation to the GDR's capacity to export sufficient goods to the west to provide the hard currency to service these debts. An October 1989, a paper prepared for the Politbüro (the Schürer-Papier, after its principal author) projected a need to increase export surplus from around 2 billion DM in 1990 to over 11 billion DM in 1995 to stabilize debt levels. It is doubtful whether such a Herculean effort could have succeeded without political turmoil, or indeed at all.
Much of the debt originated from attempts by the GDR to export its way out of its international debt problems, which required imports of components, technologies and raw materials; as well as attempts to maintain living standards through imports of consumer goods. The GDR was internationally competitive in some sectors such as mechanical engineering and printing technology. However the attempt to achieve a competitive edge in microchips against the research and development resources of the entire western world - in a state of just 16 million people - was perhaps always doomed to failure, but swallowed increasing amounts of internal resources and hard currency.[citation needed] A significant factor was also the elimination of a ready source of hard currency through re-export of Soviet oil, which until 1981 was provided below world market prices; the resulting loss of hard currency income produced a noticeable dip in the otherwise steady improvement of living standards. (It was precisely this continuous improvement which was at risk due to the impending debt crisis; the Schürer-Papier's remedial plans spoke of a 25–30% reduction.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc_economies

Developmental stagnation

Communist Europe effectively missed the information and electronics revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, though its development gap in this area compared to Western Europe was smaller than that of other developing countries.[74] By the 1980s, nearly all the economies of the region had stagnated, falling behind the technological advances of the West.[38] The systems, which required party-state planning at all levels, ended up collapsing under the weight of accumulated economic inefficiencies, with various attempts at reform merely contributing to the acceleration of crisis-generating tendencies.[75]

While official statistics painted a relatively rosy picture, the East German economy had eroded because of increased central planning, economic autarky, the use of coal over oil, investment concentration in a few selected technology-intensive areas and labor market regulation.[97] As a result, a large productivity gap of nearly 50% per worker existed between East and West Germany.[97][98] However, that gap does not measure the quality of design of goods or service such that the actual per capita rate may be as low as 14 to 20 per cent.[98] Average gross monthly wages in East Germany were around 30% of those in West Germany, though after accounting for taxation, the figures approached 60%.[99] Moreover, the purchasing power of wages grossly differed, with only about half of East German households owning either a car or a color television set as late as 1990, both of which had been standard possessions in West German households.[99] The Ostmark was only valid for transactions inside East Germany, could not be legally exported or imported[99]

Once installed, the economic system was difficult to change given the importance of politically reliable management and the prestige value placed on large enterprises.[51] Performance declined during the 1970s and 1980s due to inefficiency when industrial input costs, such as energy prices, increased.[51] Though growth lagged behind the west, it did occur.[38] Consumer goods started to become more available by the 1960s.[38] Before the Eastern Bloc's dissolution, some major sectors of industry were operating at such a loss that they exported products to the West at prices below the real value of the raw materials.[63] Hungarian steel costs doubled those of western Europe.[63] In 1985, a quarter of Hungary's state budget was spent on supporting inefficient enterprises.[63] Tight planning in Bulgaria industry meant continuing shortages in other parts of its economy.[63]
their insulated currency fixed as it was due to its isolation ensured that two decades hidden devaluation due to innefficiency came as a shock when they were eventually integrated into the world system.

Evil_Maniac From Mars

11-11-2009, 19:47

Oh, I'm really glad that Germans celebrate their reunification. They have every right to. What I find despicable is the whole "Yeah, we celebrate the victory of freedom over tyranny" thingy, which I find retard, especially given what have happened since 1989 (ie. not much, despite what we've been told).

I'm certainly a harsh critic of the state of democracy in modern Germany, but we are much more free now than we ever were under the East German government. So yes, in this way it was most certainly a victory of freedom over tyranny.

HoreTore

11-12-2009, 01:09

their insulated currency fixed as it was due to its isolation ensured that two decades hidden devaluation due to innefficiency came as a shock when they were eventually integrated into the world system.

Kinda like 2008/2009, eh? :smash:

Strike For The South

11-12-2009, 05:41

because the real world demanded that they be able to pay for what they spend........?

Not according to America!

Furunculus

11-12-2009, 09:45

Kinda like 2008/2009, eh? :smash:

kind of, yeah.

Banquo's Ghost

11-12-2009, 13:20

“May I remind you that after November 9th 1989, we've been told repeatedly by thinkers, writers, politicians, leaders and what not that we were on the eve of a new world. A peaceful, democratic, and fair world.
People who dared to disagree with this point of view were dismissed, and called pessimist of communist-apologists.”:
I do remember. I do remember being fully armed and deployed with real ammunition when Jarulezki (sp?) (Polish Leader at the time) cracked down Solidarnosc (sp).
I do remember being prepared to fight against a potential Red Army invasion, when my hope of life in combat was around one day and half, with big chances to be burned alive in my APC.
Times are better now.
But, yeap, the golden Age didn’t came.:shame:

Indeed. I think one of the things that gets little coverage is just how close we felt to Armageddon in those dying days of the Soviet Empire.

I remember watching the events in Berlin with some colleagues in the mess - and we reflected on the immensity of the change in our world view. These were men with whom I had sat in draughty self-propelled guns in the same Germany now freeing itself from division, awaiting the inevitable rumbling of tanks at Andropov's command. Barely recalled now, this was a man who championed extreme punishments for the Prague Spring, had driven the invasion of Afghanistan, sat at the head of the KGB and now, as General Secretary, was expected to react to the growing implosion of the Soviet economy by giving into the generals and launching an attack on the West. Whilst Brezhnev had fossilised, this man would have killed us all. Like Brenus, we knew in those days and months that we had a short time to live.

He died, thank God and after some further anxieties occasioned by the dying Chernenko, we got Mikhail Gorbachev. This immensely courageous man was, alongside Pope John Paul II and President Reagan - but ahead of both - the real reason we sit here remembering the fall of the wall and the new horizons rather than scratching notes in soot in a ruined world. A man who refused to do what Andropov would have done, and send in the tanks. A man with barely any respect in his own land, despite what he gifted them, and us.

The peaceable fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War was by no means inevitable. And before anyone accuses me of being an old man over-emphasing the history of his youth, that's as maybe - but we lived through it, and the wall did indeed seem immutable. We have conflict now to be sure, but nothing that approximates the universal destruction that was so imminent in the early 1980s.

In other words, you young'uns don't know you're born. *shakes stick* :wink:

One of the great missed ironies of history was that the main rival to Gorbachev's election to office was a chap called Grigory Romanov. Very much of the Andropov mould, had he been General Secretary, things may have ended in tears in 1989. Thus a Romanov would have been in charge at the end of the Soviet Empire too.

gaelic cowboy

11-12-2009, 13:33

Indeed. I think one of the things that gets little coverage is just how close we felt to Armageddon in those dying days of the Soviet Empire.

I remember watching the events in Berlin with some colleagues in the mess - and we reflected on the immensity of the change in our world view. These were men with whom I had sat in draughty self-propelled guns in the same Germany now freeing itself from division, awaiting the inevitable rumbling of tanks at Andropov's command. Barely recalled now, this was a man who championed extreme punishments for the Prague Spring, had driven the invasion of Afghanistan, sat at the head of the KGB and now, as General Secretary, was expected to react to the growing implosion of the Soviet economy by giving into the generals and launching an attack on the West. Whilst Brezhnev had fossilised, this man would have killed us all. Like Brenus, we knew in those days and months that we had a short time to live.

He died, thank God and after some further anxieties occasioned by the dying Chernenko, we got Mikhail Gorbachev. This immensely courageous man was, alongside Pope John Paul II and President Reagan - but ahead of both - the real reason we sit here remembering the fall of the wall and the new horizons rather than scratching notes in soot in a ruined world. A man who refused to do what Andropov would have done, and send in the tanks. A man with barely any respect in his own land, despite what he gifted them, and us.

The peaceable fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War was by no means inevitable. And before anyone accuses me of being an old man over-emphasing the history of his youth, that's as maybe - but we lived through it, and the wall did indeed seem immutable. We have conflict now to be sure, but nothing that approximates the universal destruction that was so imminent in the early 1980s.

In other words, you young'uns don't know you're born. *shakes stick* :wink:

One of the great missed ironies of history was that the main rival to Gorbachev's election to office was a chap called Grigory Romanov. Very much of the Andropov mould, had he been General Secretary, things may have ended in tears in 1989. Thus a Romanov would have been in charge at the end of the Soviet Empire too.

Not to disagree with you all but Gorbachev was obviously a party man after all nobody rose to prominence in Russia by being a maverick.

We have all seen the documentaries that tell us how his plan was not freedom but to safeguard communism in Russia the fall of the wall was just the natural consequence of the chaos.

Course its hard for anyone to give back the plaudits they recieve for being a statesman which is why he stays stumm about the reality same with FW De Klerk he never intended for a black majority goverment it just happened.

Banquo's Ghost

11-12-2009, 13:46

Not to disagree with you all but Gorbachev was obviously a party man after all nobody rose to prominence in Russia by being a maverick.

Of course he was. That's why it was so much more courageous to step beyond his programming of a lifetime and do the right thing. He had no idea where that might take him and his country, but he decided against finding out via walking over a carpet of corpses.

Louis VI the Fat

11-12-2009, 14:36

Gorbachev is one of my heroes. Yes he was a party man, and he believed he could reform communism / socialism (or whatever the proper term is) into a workable system.

But, two things.
In words and in deeds, he reformed communism. Opened it up. This was important from a moral point and from a practical point. A famous observation is that revolutions don't come about at the very depth of repression, they start once the repression is loosened.

And the second thing: Gorby decided not to send in the tanks. While some would argue that this is akin to that German general who decided to disregard Hitler's order to raze to the ground Paris in 1944, that is, that one should not appreciate the criminal for the crimes he did not commit, I think this is unfair. In light of Gorby's policies as a whole, the decision to set Poland free, to let the wall fall, was a sign of enlightenment and human values. Momentous and brave.

Banquo's Ghost

11-12-2009, 14:43

Pannonian

11-12-2009, 15:15

SwordsMaster

11-17-2009, 09:34

I apologise about resurrecting this moribund thread, but I bumped heads today with this thought which is tangentially relevant to this debate:

Why do borders still matter for economic activity? The reunification of Germany in 1990 provides a unique natural experiment for examining the effect of political borders on trade both in the cross-section and over time. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rapid formation of a political and economic union, strong and strictly enforced administrative barriers to trade between East Germany and West Germany were eliminated completely within a very short period of time. The evolution of intra-German trade flows after reunification then provides new insights for both the globalization and border effects literatures. Our estimation results show a remarkable persistence in intra-German trade patterns along the former East-West border; political integration is not rapidly followed by economic integration. Instead, we estimate that it takes at least one generation (between 33 and 40 years or more) to remove the impact of political borders on trade. This finding strongly suggests that border effects are neither statistical artefacts nor mainly driven by administrative or “red tape” barriers to trade, but arise from economic fundamentals.

Basically, economically East-West Germany was the perfect sandbox to play out what would become Globalisation(tm).

Those who have been to the Gothic homelands in the near past will still remember the differences between East and West, and how both could still, conceivably function as separate economies. Aside from the population changes, does anyone have any data on how did the fall of the wall change the purchasing power of germans and the output of the economy?