posted
It's worth pointing out that we have no context for those quotes; we do not know whether it is referring to the standard of living or the amount of armaments. When Stalin spoke of catching up, in the 1930s, he was referring to guns, tanks, and heavy industry, and given the later history it's hard to blame him on that point, at least. As far as living standards went he was prone to saying that the Russians never had it so good under the Czars, and you can find statistics that support that and ones that contradict it. (Talking about the 1930s now, not the Cold War period.)
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Blayne Bradley
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The NEP under Lenin brought the Soviet economy back to within 70 to 90% of 1914 levels including standard of living, the 5 year plans brought it back down but on the other hand reduced private consumption of GDP to 52% freeing up everything else for economic growth (Nazi germany couldn't even dare to get it this low in their wildest dreams), its a mixed bag on one hand living standards were lower, on the other education was a hell of alot better/more widespread then under the Czars (literacy something approaching 95% by 39)
However I am nearly 100% that at the very least Khrushchev (my original point so no goalposts were cleverly shifted here) was in fact focused on catching up/surpasing the west in living standards and indeed Rise&Fall points out that living standards in the Soviet Union "didn't catch up back to their NEP level until the Khrushchev era".
But now that I recall there is definately at least some reasoning/thought towards catching up to the West in living standards even in China as well just prior to the GLF as part of the mass intoxication by Chinese leftist intellectuals just after the Soviet launching of sputnik into space.
Specifically I read this in "Mao:A Life".
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quote:private consumption of GDP to 52% freeing up everything else for economic growth
War production, including the building of tank factories, is not economic growth.
quote:The NEP under Lenin brought the Soviet economy back to within 70 to 90% of 1914 levels including standard of living
Could be, although personally I would take any statistic published about Russia in those years with a spoonful of salt. Practically everyone has an axe to grind on the subject, and even if someone didn't, how are they going to get reliable numbers out of the civil-war and Holodomor chaos? (Point to note: Dead kulaks do not pull down any standard-of-living averages. In fact they can pull it up, since their stuff can be given to previously poor peasants.)
But even taking that statistic at face value, Russia in 1914 was the poorest country in Europe, and other countries recovered their 1914 outputs in one or two years, not five or seven.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote: War production, including the building of tank factories, is not economic growth.
A tank factory is still a factory, still consums cement, still stimulates secondary industries, still provides an output, by the metric in which economic might in hard power terms is measured they are still a correct metric, ie, electricity consumption and production, wheat production, steel production, coal production, etc.
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Yes, it consumes cement, which can then not be used for anything else! It consumes electricity, which is unavailable for other uses! When the output is not an investment but a consumption, then the factory is a net drain on the economy. It may of course be a necessary drain, but it is not economic growth no matter what the GDP statistics might say. If you want to measure national power and not the economy, you should say so.
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Blayne Bradley
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Prior to 1991 all economic measurements are inherently a measurement of national hard/soft power.
And consumption is very much a good metric of economic strength, for example if the USA consumes more energy combined then the entirety of Europe then you have a good indicator of economic strength that then needs more information to provide context.
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quote:The most important reason for the recent DPRK currency reform, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX, is to uncover political opposition, particularly against Kim Jong-il's younger son. Controlling inflation, leveling the wealth gap, controlling domestic currency and access to foreign currency, are all part of this strategy. XXXXXXXXXXXX believes that the third son, Kim Jong-un, favored the currency revaluation, and that going forward Kim Jong-un leans toward a Vietnamese-style of economic reform. Opposition to the currency exchange, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX, might reveal who opposes the ascension of Kim Jong-un to leadership. According to XXXXXXXXXXXX, Kim Jong-il's support of the currency reform points to his favoring the third son; those opposing the revaluation, also oppose the third son. XXXXXXXXXXXX drew parallels to the 2009 nuclear tests, which he said were also influenced by succession plans. XXXXXXXXXXXX said that the first son, Kim Jong-nam, opposes his younger brother's reform plans and favors a Chinese-style of economic opening.
Kim Jong-un appears to have "won" so Vietnamese reforms, eh?
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Blayne Bradley
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Either on the surface are alright paths really, the Vietnamese also seem to have the onpaper advantage of not appearing in the news.
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