possible reasons for america winning the cold war

sam

right, this is in response to stuff on http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=96920&perpage=20&pagenumber=2

Depends on the type of authoritarianism. The Soviet Union (regardless of whether it was Communist or not) was very authoritarian as was Nazi Germany. Both turned out to be excellent hothouses for innovation, too.

i would say that they would have been even more inventive if they had had a less authoritarian government. remember britain back then had a pretty authoritarian goverment too, what with the british empire still functioning and all.. so its pointless to compare to then-contemporary countries. and america wasnt exactly "the land of the free" back then either, in fact it was probably worse than the uk, "prohibition", womens rights, etc.. as for japan back then, they were probably the worst of the lot.

Actually, the US dollar as an international standard pegging system was based upon gold rather than oil, and it was abandoned in the early 70’s. Western currencies have been free-floating ever since. That it was the currency of trade for oil was immaterial to the Communist block, who traded with the USSR for oil.

from what i heard, the oil producing countries (middle east 'OPEC') used to use gold as the standard to trade in for oil with other countries, this changed in 1971 when they decided to switch to the dollar, and the dollar has been enjoying a free ride since

Countries that were in ruins at the close of World War II, yet recovered economically far better than those with State run economies. Go figure.

recovered better? whats your source on this? last i heard, the soviets lost 20 million people in ww2.. thats more than all the other countries combined. america got through the war relatively unscathed, but russia caught up with it in tech (atomic bombs) within a few years, and eventually surpassed it in the technology and space race.. until the 1970's, which is exactly what i was arguing about, that maybe by that time 1. americas allies had recovered fully from ww2 (they had, and americas allies were bigger than russias allies anyway.. population and economy wise) and 2. OPEC switched to using dollars.. which has led to the current situation where every head of population in the US owes $12,500 to the world bank, but it doesnt matter because the dollars the american govt. print to purchase goods from other countries never get used to buy goods back from america.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by sam
i would say that they would have been even more inventive if they had had a less authoritarian government. remember britain back then had a pretty authoritarian goverment too, what with the british empire still functioning and all.. so its pointless to compare to then-contemporary countries. and america wasnt exactly "the land of the free" back then either, in fact it was probably worse than the uk, "prohibition", womens rights, etc.. as for japan back then, they were probably the worst of the lot.

So your point on a nation being less inventive in an authoritarian government or not is un-provable, because you would consider any comparisons are pointless, yet you would say they would have been even more inventive if they had had a less authoritarian government. Indeed.

from what i heard, the oil producing countries (middle east 'OPEC') used to use gold as the standard to trade in for oil with other countries, this changed in 1971 when they decided to switch to the dollar, and the dollar has been enjoying a free ride since

The US dollar was the gold standard you’re speaking of. The US dollar could be exchanged for gold (I think, affair, it was USD 17 for one ounce of gold, could well be wrong on the exact figure)

recovered better? whats your source on this? last i heard, the soviets lost 20 million people in ww2.. thats more than all the other countries combined. america got through the war relatively unscathed, but russia caught up with it in tech (atomic bombs) within a few years, and eventually surpassed it in the technology and space race.. until the 1970's, which is exactly what i was arguing about, that maybe by that time 1. americas allies had recovered fully from ww2 (they had, and americas allies were bigger than russias allies anyway.. population and economy wise) and 2. OPEC switched to using dollars.. which has led to the current situation where every head of population in the US owes $12,500 to the world bank, but it doesnt matter because the dollars the american govt. print to purchase goods from other countries never get used to buy goods back from america.

It’s actually arguable that Russia lost more than all the other countries combined as most casualty figures, especially for Russian casualties, are estimates at best.

Nonetheless, countries such as France, Italy and, in particular, Germany had their economies completely decimated, yet they all (except for the DDR) bounced back. The USSR may or may not have caught up with the West technologically (mainly as both innovated with help from German scientists at first and later by spying on each other), but this innovation was pointless if it could not be backed up with a functioning infrastructure.

OPEC’s use of the USD is completely immaterial to the Cold War, in so far as the Eastern Block countries did not trade in the same sphere and got their oil almost exclusively from the Soviets.

By the 1970’s, both economies were beginning to strain under decades of heavy military spending, however the US was able to fair better, simply because it had a more efficient economic system to the state-based economies of the Communist countries.

Éomer of Rohan

All I will on this thread is in regard to the 'recovery' of the 'decimated' economies; There was a thing called the Marshall Plan; the Us economy was not hurt in any way - quite the opposite; and thus the US helped rebuild Germany, Britain, France and Italy - not to mention almost completely rebuilt Japan. The Soviet Union recived no such help, lost 30 million people in the Second World War and yet by the early 1960's was surpassing the USA on several levels, one of which was the space race. Go figure that.

OfflerCrocGod

Both the USSR and the US had no space tech at the end of WW2.The only reason the USSR went ahead in the space race was because they got most, not all, of the major German sciencetists and enginers from Penemunde after the War.

The US instead got the nuclear German sciencetists , which explains why they had the A-Bomb before the russians and why the russians had a more developed space program until the 60's.One German who did not run to the russians , thankfully was Werner Von Brown who was the mastermind behind the Mercury , Gemini and , most important of all , the Apollo missions.

In closing the Germans could have been the first to the Moon , if it weren't for WW2 , how about that?!

Éomer of Rohan

What the Soviets did wrong was lock up all their brightest minds in laboratories in Siberia so that they couldn't tell anyone in the West what was going on; THIS - rather than the fact that it was a centrally planned government sapped initiative and productivity.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
What the Soviets did wrong was lock up all their brightest minds in laboratories in Siberia so that they couldn't tell anyone in the West what was going on; THIS - rather than the fact that it was a centrally planned government sapped initiative and productivity.

That's kind of grasping at straws for excuses really. Wouldn't you admit that the more likely explanation (that even the Soviets were eventually forced to admit) was that a centrally planned economy was disastrously inefficient?

Éomer of Rohan

No, I'd say that a bureaucracy choked morass such as the Soviets ran is inefficient. And that is my very last contrubution to this thread. My philosophy with regard to the cold war is '**** happens, the soviets lost 'cos they were increasingly restrictive on civil and political liberties and, when we have a communist country we can trust, so begins round 2'

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
No, I'd say that a bureaucracy choked morass such as the Soviets ran is inefficient.

A centrally planned economy with an efficient bureaucracy or none at all? How would said centrally planned policy be executed? Would everyone just feel the need to work according to their abilities and take from Society only according to their needs? If so how would you reconcile this with the observable incompatibility that is human nature? Then how would this nature be reshaped, voluntarily, in us to allow for such an open, free and equitable system as you are implying?

Or would Ocham’s razor apply here? i.e. It didn’t work.

And that is my very last contrubution to this thread.

Ah go on, you know you want to post back, Éomer

Lennoxschips

You can't say that the USSR failed because of socialism, because while the USSR may have claimed to have been founded on socialist ideals, it really was an authoritarian dictatorship.

Socialism is not a failed idea. If you want an example of successful socialism then look no further than the 15 member European Union, whose structural funds are based on socialist ideals. These funds have been instrumental in addressing the gulf that existed between Western Europe and nations such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland. And to this day, it has been a roaring success.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Lennoxschips
You can't say that the USSR failed because of socialism

No one said that. The only accusation was that it had a centrally planned economy, and this was one of the principle reasons for it's economic failure.

OfflerCrocGod

Communism is FOREVER doomed to failure because it requires the destruction of the Ego , in other words the impossible , man is a notoriously Ego-driven creature.That is the reason why the greddy Capitalist method is the most succesfull , because that is what we are; add in a little Social Democracy Euro style and you have the best Man has.

That is also the reason Eomer will never be proven wrong on his Commie ideals because the impossibility of the destruction of the Ego means there will never BE a "proper" Communist country therefore never be a 2nd round , meaning Eomer will be able to moan about Democracy and Capitalism forever......Great!:mad:

sam

So your point on a nation being less inventive in an authoritarian government or not is un-provable, because you would consider any comparisons are pointless, yet you would say they would have been even more inventive if they had had a less authoritarian government. Indeed.

how is it un-provable? i just said its pointless to compare to 1940's britain, or america, or japan.. because they were ALL authoritarian goverments anyway.

but this innovation was pointless if it could not be backed up with a functioning infrastructure

in fact, infrastructure in the soviet union in the 1960's was at least as good as in the usa, even now if you take a trip across russia, you will notice that every single village has electricity, water, etc infrastructure still functioning from the old soviet era.. its collapsing now, but it was there to begin with.

OPEC’s use of the USD is completely immaterial to the Cold War, in so far as the Eastern Block countries did not trade in the same sphere and got their oil almost exclusively from the Soviets.

actually its not immaterial, as it meant that all the "not really alligned" countries, like most of the asian continent, needed dollars for oil. population of the old soviet union was only slightly more than the population of america, but the populations(hence markets) alone of the american allies was FAR bigger than the soviet bloc.. japans population alone is almost half of america's.

as for communism.. look at china now (compared to say.. india), in the 1950's both countries were at similar levels of tech. and similar infrastructure.. china had a slightly larger population and was slightly bigger. currently, china(a communist state, becoming less and less authoritarian) is expected to overtake the US in economy and eventually technology sometime during this century, while india (a democracy) isnt even near competing with the US.

the best sustained growth over a long period of time has always been in countries like sweden, which are almost socialist in the way that their goverment subsidises everything(even internet access), and guarantees things like social welfare, while still being not authoritarian. norway/sweden are at the forefront of technology in many areas, despite having basically no real natural resources (compared to countries like ireland or UK) and tiny populations (around 9 million for sweden, 5 million for norway.. compared to around 270 million for the USA and 60 million for UK)

Sparks

Communism is FOREVER doomed to failure because it requires the destruction of the Ego , in other words the impossible , man is a notoriously Ego-driven creature.That is the reason why the greddy Capitalist method is the most succesfull , because that is what we are; add in a little Social Democracy Euro style and you have the best Man has.

Now there's a depressing dystopian viewpoint for you.
So if Communisim is a complete no-go idea, why has it shown such success in smaller communities such as monestaries and kibbutz communities and other such endeavours?

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Sparks
Now there's a depressing dystopian viewpoint for you.
So if Communisim is a complete no-go idea, why has it shown such success in smaller communities such as monestaries and kibbutz communities and other such endeavours?

One of the foremost arguments for Communism working is such small communities is that they are populated by volunteers already committed to the ideal they represent. In larger populations, one cannot assume such a homogeneous population - even in the small communities things will not be as harmonious as they appear, for example many kibbutz offspring, not having chosen said lifestyle, leave.

Of course, the solution to this is indoctrination (not education, as you are trying to condition, not teach) of the population into accepting these ideals. Unfortunately/fortunately, the human Ego appears quite resilient to such attempts at remoulding.

Sparks

TC,
Such an argument requires that humans be static creatures, whose psychology never changes. Which is a patently false assertion. We're a loooooong way from being in a state where communism can work as envisioned (in large communities), there is no denying that - but the fact remains that who we are now is not who we were even a hundred years ago, let alone a few hundred years ago - so there is no real reason to say that we will never be better than we are now.

Éomer of Rohan

Amen to that

Meh

Originally posted by Sparks
TC,
Such an argument requires that humans be static creatures, whose psychology never changes. Which is a patently false assertion.

But is it? You read Shakespeare's plays, or Sophocles' tragedies, or Herodotus' histories and you will find the motivations and behaviour of the characters in those works to be very familiar. Humans today have pretty much the same psychology as they did a thousand years ago. Otherwise nobody would bother to study history and classical literature -- the motivations of Charlemagne or Julius Caesar would simply be alien and incomprehensible to us.

Sparks

Meh,
Recall that hellenic society had to cope with the Dark Ages which set us back a long way, so the last thousand years have had about 800 years without a lot of progress.
And if you look further back than that - since we evolved we've developed communities, language, argriculture, technology - I'd say that was definite proof that we have evolved, if slowly compared to the cultural values we hold in this country today.

And I note that all the examples you gave were hellenic - there are other cultures than ours in this world! Bhuddism shouldn't exist if humans are as bad as you say - and yet not only do they, but recent scientific study of bhuddist neurochemistry has shown that bhuddist practises actually induce measurable changes in the activity levels of different centres in the brain, with corresponding positive behavioural changes. Which sounds unrelated, but I'm citing it as proof that we can change who we are deliberately if we choose - which proves the more general statement that humans can change.

Meh

Originally posted by Sparks
Bhuddism shouldn't exist if humans are as bad as you say

You missed my point. I wasn't saying that humans are inherently bad, just that we're psychologically pretty much the same as we were a few thousand years ago. Note that Buddhism has been around for a very long time too.

The Corinthian

Originally posted by Sparks
Such an argument requires that humans be static creatures, whose psychology never changes. Which is a patently false assertion.

I absolutely agree, however, it is as equally a false assertion to assume that such change can take place within a few months, years, centuries or perhaps even millennia. All the evidence, as Meh has pointed out, would indicate that perhaps it takes even longer than that.

So perhaps, in the end, evolution will ultimately be served, rough hue it as we will

Clintons Cat

[/quote]monestaries and kibbutz communities and other such endeavours[/quote]

Both require extensive subsidies from external sources,Monestaries draw a levy from the faithful whilst Kibbutzim are virtually all state subsidised by the Israeli Government,Niether are a self sufficent model that could be successfully applied at governmental level.

bonkey

Originally posted by Sparks
Bhuddism shouldn't exist if humans are as bad as you say - and yet not only do they, but recent scientific study of bhuddist neurochemistry has shown that bhuddist practises actually induce measurable changes in the activity levels of different centres in the brain, with corresponding positive behavioural changes. Which sounds unrelated, but I'm citing it as proof that we can change who we are deliberately if we choose - which proves the more general statement that humans can change.

Well, actually, it kinda undoes your point, unless we can show that Buddhists acquire this trait genetically after generations of Buddhism, as opposed to it being a trait which everyone possesses, but may not have the ability to "unlock".

If - as I suspect the studies you quote show - the trait is not a genetic evolution, but rather a natural process which can be triggered through conscious behaviour (as you said - we can do it deliberately if we choose), then Buddhism may be more of an indication that such societies which differ so radically from the norm require some form of "indoctrination" - be that voluntary indoctrination or otherwise.

Even if it is an "acquired" trait, and not just accessing a natural ability we all possess, then this is still an indication that you must be indoctrinated into the Buddhist ways - or some such ways - in order to attain this next stage.

I'm not convinced yet that humans can or cannot change quickly, so I'm not knocking your base argument. I'm just not entirely sure that Buddhism is a good example or illustration as it seems to imply that indoctrination is needed....that we must choose, or be forced, to change our attitudes and ways.

jc

Sparks

I'm a little uneasy at the use of the word indoctination when it comes to bhuddism bonkey, given the connotations of that word... but then, that's just a personal prejudice.
The studies, incidentally, indicated that it wasn't a genetic trait that was being displayed. However - even though it's a cultural process and not a biological one, it must be said that pretty much all of our society is enforced by cultural processes and biases, whose selection is mostly arbitary. For the blatent examples, we have taboos on cannibalism and incest (at least amongst immediate family members) - but there are (or have been) societies which did not have those taboos and which survived quite easily regardless. All of education, ethics, civics and modern politics are, by definition, learned behaviours. So why should it not be a legitimate practise to raise your children with the values of a society which practises communism on a large scale, any more than it should be to raise them with the values we currently do?
(I can hear some people positively frothing at the mouth thinking of a stalinist version of the hitler youth here, so please allow me to point out that I'm speaking of the marxist philosophy rather than the authoritarian dictatorships that have been held up as examples in other threads.)
Just because it's not a process of physical evolution doesn't mean that it's invalid. In fact, on that point I'm only aware of one instance of the human physiology actually evolving in the last 60,000 years, and those exhibiting the new trait (their eyes have four types of colour cells, not the "normal" three) haven't exhibited any different mental processes past those directly relating to their eyesight (mothers being able to discern the health of their children more readily because they perceive changes in skin tone more readily) and even those changes are minor. So I'm not sure if physical evolution will change our thoughts on politics.

Cat,
Monestaries were wholly self-sustaining throughout most of their history, which dates back a little under a thousand years.

bonkey

Originally posted by Sparks
I'm a little uneasy at the use of the word indoctination when it comes to bhuddism bonkey, given the connotations of that word... but then, that's just a personal prejudice.

Please dont get me wrong. I mean the term in the most neutral sense possible. It can be good, bad or indifferent, depending on the situation.

For a religion like Buddhism, I would be inclined to say "good thing", but I would still use the term.


jc

Lennoxschips

No, a modern kibbutz is not self-sufficient, but neither is the Western lifestyle. We require cheap labour and the flow of oil from 3rd world nations in order to "subsidise" our way of life.

Victor

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
THIS - rather than the fact that it was a centrally planned government sapped initiative and productivity.

Actually, I would consider central planning to have been one of the causes of the successes that the USSR reaped. By gaining critical mass, especially in manufacturing, it was able to deliver goods and projects decades before the Tsarists would have. By central planning they were able to decide to engage in projects on a vast scale

However where they failed spectacularly was in the delivery of individual reward (while maintaining basic incomes and services) and the management of responsibility, which just let much of the system rot from the inside out.

As regards the cold war, it was the prospect of dealing with hundreds of Chernobyls, that made the huge shift to Peristroika, etc.

Originally posted by sam
norway/sweden are at the forefront of technology in many areas, despite having basically no real natural resources (compared to countries like ireland or UK) and tiny populations

Can I mention Statoil?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/no.html

Economy - overview: The Norwegian economy is a prosperous bastion of welfare capitalism, featuring a combination of free market activity and government intervention. The government controls key areas, such as the vital petroleum sector (through large-scale state enterprises). The country is richly endowed with natural resources - petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals - and is highly dependent on its oil production and international oil prices; in 1999, oil and gas accounted for 35% of exports. Only Saudi Arabia and Russia export more oil than Norway. Oslo opted to stay out of the EU during a referendum in November 1994. Growth picked up in 2000 to 2.7%, compared with the meager 0.8% of 1999, but fell back to 1.3% in 2001. High oil prices helped the economy in 2002 in face of the sluggish world economy. The government has moved ahead with privatization. With arguably the highest quality of life worldwide, Norwegians still worry about that time in the next two decades when the oil and gas begin to run out. Accordingly, Norway has been saving its oil-boosted budget surpluses in a Government Petroleum Fund, which is invested abroad and now is valued at more than $43 billion.

Originally posted by The Corinthian
Of course, the solution to this is indoctrination (not education, as you are trying to condition, not teach) of the population into accepting these ideals.

Where is the line between indoctrination and education? Am I indoctrinated and educated to wear a seat belt? – I’ a “religious” user of them. Or do we indoctrinate adults, but teach children?