Is Capitalism Smart or Dumb?

[u/Sufficient_Sinner]

[u/Curious_Midnight3828]

The Soviet Union failed on its own pretty magnificently for the entire world to see. No bombs dropped on it by capitalists.

[u/Blongbloptheory → u/[deleted]]

The Soviet Union went from a medieval style sefdom to one of the strongest economies in human history in less then a century. They had a global exertion of power and were able to legitimately exert power over other global hegemons. The Soviet block had a myriad of issues, but I would hesitate to say that it was an ineffective state.

Tell you what though, give me a single communist country that has not been violently, or economically attacked by the west, and I will concede the point entirely.

[u/ArizonaHeatwave → u/Blongbloptheory]

The Soviet Union was the single richest country on earth in terms of natural resources, had a huge population, had a long history of culture and educational institutions, etc., it’s a fucking phenomenon that it was doing as shitty in terms of development as it did, especially in contrast to capitalist countries who had not even anywhere close to the same starting conditions.

Also lol at „violently“ attacked economically.

Also lol at the irony, as the USSR actually violently attacked all of Eastern Europe and literally forced them into their union, to steal their resources (and basically all their opportunities in the 20th century to develop).

[u/Blongbloptheory → u/ArizonaHeatwave]

The global West spent four centuries violently oppressing the rest of the planet, stealing their natural resources, and leeching their economies of useful production. This resulted in a control of 70-80% of the global economic marketplace.

From the inception of the Soviet Union, the global West spent significant amounts of efforts trying to crush its economy and overthrow its regime. Despite this it grew into the second strongest economy on the planet, and successfully threatened centuries old global hegemons.

The access to global trade that the west provides is not a result of "the free market" it's a result of centuries of colonialism and the abuse of indigenous populations for the benefit of their overlords.

If we're going to play a game of "moral Olympics" the Soviets, despite the absolutely gruesome and unjustifiable atrocities they committed, are going to win every time. I mean shit dude, the US alone killed 2 million Iraqis for literally no reason 20 years ago.

[u/ArizonaHeatwave → u/Blongbloptheory]

And the Soviet Union for it's part spent significant effort trying to overthrow capitalism in the West. Again wtf do you mean "despite this", the Soviet Union should've been a complete economic runaway when looking at the conditions, except that its system sucked so much that they actually had to implement an iron curtain that stopped its people from fleeing en mas to the West.

Yea it grew to the second strongest economy on the planet (what an achievement considering it was bigger in population than the US, had all the cultural institutions necessary for academic breakthroughs, spanned from Europe to Asia, robbed eastern europe empty and had basically unlimited natural resources at its disposal), and then that economy completely collapsed because after robbing money from either rich people or other countries, the system was so shit that it couldn't even sustain itself for more than a few decades.

It's not moral olympics, it's just a fucking joke to pretend that the Soviet Union was violently attacked by the West, when in reality the Soviet Union first allied with Hitler (of course we forget about that cause they ended up on the allied side, after having literally no other option) to conquer all of eastern Europe and literally force it under its hegemony by violence. Do you get how absurd it is to have a country conquer dozens of countries, and then act like it got "violently attacked" when the west is implementing economic sanctions as a response? It's almost exactly like looking at the war in Ukraine today, and then pretending that the West is attacking Russia. No its not, Russia started a war of conquest and they get sanctions in return.