What? Victor didn't grow up in the Soviet Union.

Also, the book I mentioned has been widely acclaimed by both Russians and non-Russians. The author wrote the book in Russian and she initially published it in Russian. And she won the Nobel Prize for literature. She isn't exactly a hack.

So if I want to learn about life in Russia during that time period I need to go find some random Russian person, interview them and take their word for it?
Books, what a waste of time!!

With exception of certain drug offenses and a few other things, I don't know that the problem is criminalization of things that should be permitted. IMO, one of the main problems with the U.S. criminal justice system (among many) is that punishments for many crimes are far too long, and the prospects for successful reintegration into society after you are released from prison are very poor. The reintegration problem is threefold. First, the longer you are in prison, the more likely you are to be left behind in terms of job skills, especially given the utter lack of job training for prisoners in the U.S. Second, the U.S. economy has done a poor job of generating adequate paying jobs for unskilled or moderately skilled workers. Third, ex-cons are more highly stigmatized in the U.S. than they are in a lot of other countries. And that impacts job prospects, housing, and a million other things.

I assume that Victor would agree with all this.

Yeah, this. I can't say that I expected to get criticized for recommending that people read Svetlana Alexievich.

Also, the book I mentioned is neither a roaring defense of the Soviet system nor a roaring defense of what replaced it.

+1

I don't know about 90%, but this is an interesting report from The Brennan Center for Justice, from 2016: How Many Americans Are Unnecessarily Incarcerated? Their estimate is about 40% of the prison population.

I don't think I have ever met anyone who was born in the Soviet Union who is particularly misty-eyed about it.

Here is an anecdote you might appreciate. I have a friend who had a lot of extended family who grew up in the Soviet Union. Some time relatively soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, my friend's uncle traveled outside the Soviet Union for the first time (to New York). My friend went to pick up his uncle at LGA. If you ever have driven from LGA to the city, you know that there is a section of the drive where you pass a lot of unremarkable, somewhat grim, public housing. But my friend said his uncle didn't find it unremarkable or grim. He spent a fair chunk of the ride making "only in America" comments about how grand it was compared to what he was used to.

On a similar note, I was 8 when my parents brought me to the UK, and the first thing I remember is being surprised at how well stocked the shelves were in all the shops. It was literally the first time I had ever seen a store with full shelves and no queues out of the door, and that was in 1990 (and prior to that I had been in Moscow). So yeah, it was still pretty bad right up until the very end, even in the capital. It saddens me that a lot of people still seem to harbour idealistic illusions about what communism is really like.

La Guardia and that drive are trash so that's pretty sad that it was that much better than what he was used to.

I think it may have been Dennis Prager who once observed that one of the few places where Communism still has ardent defenders are students and faculty at elite United States universities.

I suspect my 90% is probably too high. I'm almost certain that 40% is way too low.

China is pretty ****ing capitalist. You kinda admit that with the part about them owning USA debt.

appealing to the authority of Dennis Prager

It was China's decision to go more capitalist that has lead to more freedom and and a measure of economic improvement for more people in that country.

There is room to argue that communism remains a theoretically viable form of government. I don't think there is room to argue that Soviet Russia or Maoist China should be some sort of aspirational goal. That seems patently absurd to me.

Not really. Just citing the source of the observation. Maybe his observation is wrong. It seems that most supporters of Communism have never actually LIVED under Communism.

Yes I was about to say 90 percent is way too high. Not sure if 40 percent is low but it could be.
Jails are packed with non violent drug crimes which is absurd.
Poor people can get more time for selling drugs than someone with a good lawyer gets for murder. It's outrageous.

Communism is the form of the commune is tried and tested (for example the kibbutz), and works well with the right group. Communism in the form the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is drivel and can only be argued to work well when history is revised CCCP-style.

A lot of modern day movements that call themselves communists are more social democratic movements that reserve the right to be angry at other social democratic movements.

lol if you say so.

I think there's better argument that it will become a viable form of government. Maybe in the form of democratic socialism.

Capitalism undoubtedly had a lot of strengths but maybe it was just a phase of development that humanity has almost gone through. The dark satanic mills are receding fast into history.

I agree capitalism is a phase but not that it naturally evolves into socialism. Once it's coupled with exponential technological growth, I think capital ends up consuming itself due to the inherent deflationary nature of technology, resulting in everything - including the means of production - becoming essentially worthless since nothing requires much if any human effort to produce. So kind of pointless to seize the means if the means aren't scarce.

I don't think communism is inherently evil but it is inherently susceptible to being co-opted by evil.

It's definitely possible that a communist society could spring up that works well to increase the well being of it's people but it's far more likely some nutcase gets control of the reigns at some point and you end up with famines, death camps and endemic corruption that's almost impossible to root out.

At this point I'm just waiting for our General AI dictator and praying it's benevolent.

Lol, the forum seems to get dumber takes every time I look in but Victor comparing US incarceration to the gulags is going to be hard to top. I recommend Gulag by Anne Applebaum if you want to get some idea of what you're talking about.