Reddit mentions of How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed

According to this book, it was widespread to Soviet satellite such as Romania. She talks about how they were able to go from one choice in toilet paper to 2, and it was a huge deal in her town. Everybody was talking about it.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Survived-Communism-Even-Laughed/dp/0060975407

Check out How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, by Slavenka Drakulic

With respect to the Haredi community, you're probably right; however, the question arises: Is it possible to evoke pressure from the inside? Put differently, is the Haredi community so well isolated that it will be essentially unresponsive to any outside influence whatsoever? On the other hand, are there ways to effectively appeal to change?

I'm thinking of some parallel to Slavenka Drakulic's description of the true Iron Curtain during the Soviet era being made up of "glossy pictures of beautiful women in amazing clothes," i.e. representing a winsome boundary with the West marked by appeal and not just partition. (Can't remember if this was in Cafe Europa or How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.)

> no, no the resources of capitalism aren't there to help people, how naive do you have to be to believe that? They're hard at work making a profit, if they help people it's purely incidental.

Not that I agree with your contention but even if their "helping people" is only incidental does that not still count as "helping people?" Aside from that even what you may consider to be "useless trinkets," like say 22" chrome wheels with spinners or frivolous single-use items, still provide some value in helping to alleviate societies ills. Demand for those products often directly lead tools and processes that directly help people, or aid the development/production of those things by creating economies of scale that reduce the input costs of other things.

You also seem to hit on this profit motive in a way that reminds me of that old Warrant album from the 80s. There are plenty of companies, and people, these days that incorporate social causes into their business plan, and for that they are rewarded with regular, repeat business. Starbucks paying over market price for their coffee comes to mind. As do Patagonia, Costco, Cliff Bars etc. Those companies all have business practices that result in voluntarily paying higher costs to deliver the same goods "because it is the right thing to do." Thus, I simply disagree with your implied contention that its all "just for the profit." There is certainly a lot of that, but its far too broad a brush to paint everyone that way, and much to cynical.

> Also what's your proof that even the social democracy of marxist-leninist states wasn't capable of solving these problems better than your free market countries?

Well a search of marxist-leninist societies doesn't turn up much. Not that a lack of them means it isn't as good or better, but it doesn't give us much to work with. The only example I can think to point to would be the USSR, but even some academics seem to think Stalin just used that label to justify his methods. So, if you assume it was an example of marxist-leninist capability then I direct you to this book. As she notes, that government was unable to provide even basic life necessities like feminine care products that were commonplace elsewhere in the world.

Further, the fundamental tenet of free-market systems being better at allocating resources is based on the idea that a self-organizing system of individual transactions is better able to provide what people need (or think they need) than a centrally planned system run by a group of "enlightened" individuals. Since that would basically require omniscience to execute with perfect effect it isn't the slightest bit unreasonable to think that the actual output would be substantially less than perfect. I am not saying a free-market system is perfect, by any means, but it does appear that crowd sourcing your economic planning, if you will, provides a greater level of omniscience than whatever single party ruling could do. This makes the structural level of output much higher in my view.
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> Anyway your last paragraph is a straight up lie so we're done here.

Well, whether its a lie depends on my subjective belief as to its veracity. Since I believed it when I typed it, it isn't a lie. I suspect you meant that its incorrect. If it is, tell me how it is that a lack of food in famine areas is a result of people being too freely able to grow and sell food there? How is the existence of people made homeless because they can't afford a place to live a result of too much development or too many units for rent/sale?

Getting back to the original topic of discussion about socialism's tendency to result in totalitarianism, you have all the evidence you need for that in your own words.

>Or make people want a good or service. Both work and making people want a service they don't need is easier as we already have everything we actually need, or at least the people with lots of money do.

When read together with your other statements it seems quite obvious that you would view many of the free-market's pursuits as frivolous and needless in the face of the suffering of others. How can socialism actually prevent that "waste" in your eyes without, in fact, regulating the minutiae of daily life and people's decisions? The simple fact that you and I differ on this is evidence of the natural variability in thought. Since people who think differently value different things how can you possibly divert all that effort to alleviate suffering without, to some extent, limiting the pursuits of those with different values? If your answer to that is to somehow make their values align, how is that not totalitarianism in every conceivable way?

Libertarians these days are becoming increasingly known for rather high marks on systemizing and exceptionally low marks for empathy. If that is true, then I wonder if for socialists it is the reverse. It would explain a lot.