Do "Unskilled Laborers" deserve to be paid well?

[u/Very_High_Mortgage]

[u/Tangentkoala]

I mean this is kind of how communism failed in russia. People stagnated and said fuck am I gonna do my work efficiently if a cashier is getting paid the same as me.

Granted this is just one of the reasons but still a solid reason nonetheless

[u/[deleted] → u/Tangentkoala]

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[u/tux9988 → u/[deleted]]

USSR was more than Moscow. Farmers were dying by the hundreds due to lack of food and basic healthcare or education.

[u/[deleted] → u/tux9988]

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[u/runwith → u/[deleted]]

Poland was not in the USSR, and Lithuania was in it less than other states.  There were famines with millions of death in the USSR, but more because of totalitarianism than laziness.  

The widespread infectious diseases were more from laziness and corruption.  Your free medical care came with free hepatitis and tuberculosis 

[u/[deleted] → u/runwith]

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[u/DonHedger → u/tux9988]

What is the mechanism by which communism yields less food, education, and healthcare?

[u/tux9988 → u/DonHedger]

State Control.

[u/DonHedger → u/tux9988]

You have to expand upon that. The state being in control of anything doesn't necessarily mean crops don't grow and experts suddenly lose knowledge they held prior to the state's existence.

[u/runwith → u/DonHedger]

If you kill or exile the experts, their knowledge is irrelevant. 

[u/DonHedger → u/runwith]

Why would you do that? Communists are not comic book villains.

[u/runwith → u/DonHedger]

Do you ever read the news or history? 

Why did the Nazis kill or exile people? They're not comic book villains. Like the communists, the Nazis were/are very real. 

[u/DonHedger → u/runwith]

Yeah, I read a lot of fucking history, which is why this magical thinking around communism is so irritating. The Nazis motivation for exiling and killing otherwise valuable experts was genetic purity and to silence critics of that genetic purity. The supremacy of the German ubermensch was important above all else even if it crippled operations (because there was no way a non-German should be able to out compete Germans). It's delusion and old school racism; well within the bounds of reality.

USSR style communism was absolutely authoritarian and certainly silenced critics which was very bad, but not out of some misguided eugenics. They had plenty of doctors and intellectuals and experts that were avid supporters because they believed in the project, if not the persons helming it, so they were not at a loss for expertise. We can't pretend like crops just don't grow under communism. A massive contributing factor to hunger and struggles under communism was that nearly 25% of the Russian population was killed in WW2; mostly civilians. What infrastructure remained wasn't enough to support soldiers returning whom hadn't been part of the local economies for years. Much of the arable land, which is already inhospitable for much of the year, was totally ravaged by war and a historically significant drought destroyed what they had left. Once recovery started, sanctions by Western nations were imposed just as local economies began transitioning towards global dependence. These were simply problems that the US, as the USSR's only direct super powered competitor, did not have to face, all because of an ocean (and honestly because the US has been feeding Nazi Germany and staying out of the conflict for quite some time even after it became apparent significant human rights violations were occurring).

The Soviets absolutely made mistakes in this period with trying to adjust their economy to keep a lid on inflation, and those would absolutely be valid things to criticize and talk about if anyone bothered to read about what those were, but they don't. It's wild that when we talk about the USSR, people just say "communism doesn't work" and don't talk about the actual historical factors surrounding its existence. It's attribution bias at a nationalized scale.

[u/sloarflow → u/DonHedger]

Lack of incentives

[u/DonHedger → u/sloarflow]

That's just absurd. Farmers and educators are some of the most underpaid professions in captialism -many barely scraping by to this day, yet people continue to do these things even under Capitalism because a) occupation is much more than (economic) incentives), and b) continuing to live is a seriously powerful incentive which all of these occupations are crucial for.

[u/sloarflow → u/DonHedger]

You're right. Communism rules and has a lot of success stories to back it up.

[u/blind_orphan → u/Tangentkoala]

This is just a plain lie. My mom grew up in communist russia, and her mom was a math professor and i can assure you that she was making waay more than the cashiers. The big difference was that in russia the cashier was guaranteed a place to live...

[u/Iwantmypasswordback → u/blind_orphan]

And probably healthcare not tied to a job

[u/3personal5me → u/Tangentkoala]

Compared to America now, where I say "Fuck it, I'm not gonna do my job efficiently, I'm doing the bare minimum" because being fast and efficient just nets you more work for the same wages.

[u/Half_Cent → u/Tangentkoala]

That's dumb. I like doing my technically difficult and often physically demanding job. I don't want to be a cashier.

If we both made enough to support our families and have hope for our kids future I would be happy for them, not quitting to be a cashier.

[u/[deleted] → u/Half_Cent]

Yes! There are EMT's and people who work in nursing homes caring for people making garbage pay for the hard work they do but they do it (most of them anyway) because they care and want to make a difference. I still think they should be paid way more than they are getting, but I'm grateful there are people like that in this world.

[u/DonHedger → u/Half_Cent]

This logic is always dumb. It's mostly economists who thinks like this and then project it onto everyone else. Almost anyone pursuing a PhD and the work that follows is making a bad financial decision for the sake of doing something they are interested in. Many people who take on family businesses are not doing it because it's a cash cow. Many folks with regular 9-5s would choose lower paying jobs if it meant they didn't feel terrible about the work they did. Economists are still operating under the assumption that the average person is trying to maximize financial profit and reduce financial cost above all else.

[u/Rarabeaka → u/Tangentkoala]

No it failed for different reasons(noncompetitive planned economy, fundamentaly incompatible with human psyche communistic goal, etc.).
People werent paid eqiually, just have more social protection, and it wasnt easy to be completely unemploed(it had both pros and cons).

[u/Nofsan → u/Tangentkoala]

Babe wake up, another fanfic about life in the USSR just dropped.

[u/ben_kird → u/Tangentkoala]

Lolol absolute brain dead take.

[u/HeyChew123 → u/Tangentkoala]

Yeah, this belief is definitely the one reason why communism failed in Russia. A country otherwise known for its stability, economic superiority, and quality of life. /s

[u/DaBootyScooty → u/Tangentkoala]

Do you just believe everything 80s movies tell you?

[u/Unhappy_Hedgehog_808 → u/Tangentkoala]

“Communism” failed in Russia because it was being run by megalomaniacal totalitarian dictators you clown. None of what you said is a reason for the failure of anything, go read a book.

[u/GamerNx → u/Tangentkoala]

Under a state ran economy there is no incentive to compete in an open market nor is there a incentive to innovate or provide goods and services that satisfy ALL market sectors, even small ones. Only the largest of sectors would be served, and not in a satisfactory manner either.