And I bet imposing a particular political system on a country tends to make it less prosperous than it would have been had it adopted that political system of its own accord
Counter-example: post-WW2 Japan (and, arguably, Western Germany as well).
Generally speaking, I’d say that “people who have to make it work will resent it” is too crude of an approach. Some people will, but some people will see it as an excellent opportunity to advance. In the case of the Soviet Union itself it’s unclear whether you can say that the political system was “imposed”—it’s not like the population had a free choice...
Yup, I’ll agree that Japan did very well after WW2 despite having democracy imposed on it. Did it do better or worse than it would have had it embraced democracy autonomously, though?
(I doubt that’s answerable with any confidence. Unfortunately we can’t figure out how much evidence the economic difficulties of Eastern Europe are against socialist economic policies without taking some view on how damaging, if at all, it is to have a political system forced on you.)
too crude
Oh yes, but what else can you expect when we’re trying to deal with big knotty political questions in short forum comments?
Unfortunately we can’t figure out how much evidence the economic difficulties of Eastern Europe are against socialist economic policies without taking some view on how damaging, if at all, it is to have a political system forced on you.
Given the rather clean comparison of East and West Germanies (no one asked any Germans what kind of political system would they like), I don’t understand why you are having problems figuring this out.
The DDR was AIUI imposed on much more drastically than the BRD. It was an ally of other countries that were more prosperous and powerful to begin with (most importantly the US, as Viliam’s comment about the Marshall Plan points out) whereas the DDR was their enemy.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do agree that there is very good evidence that Soviet-style communism is a less effective economic system than Western-style democratic lightly-regulated market capitalism. (And yes, the two halves of Germany make a nice comparison.) But from there to “all possible forms of socialism are bad for you” is not, so far as I can see, a step warranted by the evidence.
(The actual issue in this thread seems to have been whether the “First World” has the resources to provide everyone with ‘a “decent” life’ without running out. Lycce didn’t propose any very specific way of trying to do this, but I don’t have the impression he was wanting Soviet-style communism.)
Counter-example: post-WW2 Japan (and, arguably, Western Germany as well).
Generally speaking, I’d say that “people who have to make it work will resent it” is too crude of an approach. Some people will, but some people will see it as an excellent opportunity to advance. In the case of the Soviet Union itself it’s unclear whether you can say that the political system was “imposed”—it’s not like the population had a free choice...
Yup, I’ll agree that Japan did very well after WW2 despite having democracy imposed on it. Did it do better or worse than it would have had it embraced democracy autonomously, though?
(I doubt that’s answerable with any confidence. Unfortunately we can’t figure out how much evidence the economic difficulties of Eastern Europe are against socialist economic policies without taking some view on how damaging, if at all, it is to have a political system forced on you.)
Oh yes, but what else can you expect when we’re trying to deal with big knotty political questions in short forum comments?
Given the rather clean comparison of East and West Germanies (no one asked any Germans what kind of political system would they like), I don’t understand why you are having problems figuring this out.
The DDR was AIUI imposed on much more drastically than the BRD. It was an ally of other countries that were more prosperous and powerful to begin with (most importantly the US, as Viliam’s comment about the Marshall Plan points out) whereas the DDR was their enemy.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do agree that there is very good evidence that Soviet-style communism is a less effective economic system than Western-style democratic lightly-regulated market capitalism. (And yes, the two halves of Germany make a nice comparison.) But from there to “all possible forms of socialism are bad for you” is not, so far as I can see, a step warranted by the evidence.
(The actual issue in this thread seems to have been whether the “First World” has the resources to provide everyone with ‘a “decent” life’ without running out. Lycce didn’t propose any very specific way of trying to do this, but I don’t have the impression he was wanting Soviet-style communism.)
Another huge difference was the Marshall Plan.