Have you lived in Russia until the 1970s? If not, you should ask people who have!
I never said that they were very happy people (though I suspect that on average people were reasonably happy), only that the centralized economy worked, judging by the GDP growth [citation needed]
Your original sentence: “There are plenty of examples where socialism and even centralized economy works better than free market, at least for a time (Russia until 1970s, modern China, Germany, etc.)”.
What free market economy are you comparing with USSR? See also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation
for a starting point. My parents (who were young people under Brezhnev) would be extremely amused by a favorable comparison of Brezhnev’s USSR with any large free market economy.
Brezhnev ousted Khrushev in 1964. What method do you use to determine when someone consolidates power? One way to check for power consolidation for X is this: X stages a bloodless coup and removes the head of state/government and places himself in his place.
If you think pre-Brezhnev’s USSR was doing well, compared to free market economies of the time, you would be sorely mistaken (which was part of the reason Khrushev was removed). The best USSR could do was meaningless industrial output metrics (oh, we made just a whole LOT of pig iron). Of course without an integrated economy such output is meaningless. See also: output targets in China during the Great Leap Forward. USSR was an economic basketcase during the best of times.
Unrelated anecdote: I once got in trouble (e.g. parents in the principal’s office) as a young child for laughing on the day Brezhnev died.
I never said that they were very happy people (though I suspect that on average people were reasonably happy), only that the centralized economy worked, judging by the GDP growth [citation needed]
Your original sentence: “There are plenty of examples where socialism and even centralized economy works better than free market, at least for a time (Russia until 1970s, modern China, Germany, etc.)”.
What free market economy are you comparing with USSR? See also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation for a starting point. My parents (who were young people under Brezhnev) would be extremely amused by a favorable comparison of Brezhnev’s USSR with any large free market economy.
I said until 1970s, which is when Brezhnev consolidated his power. Not sure why you keep misreading what I write.
Brezhnev ousted Khrushev in 1964. What method do you use to determine when someone consolidates power? One way to check for power consolidation for X is this: X stages a bloodless coup and removes the head of state/government and places himself in his place.
If you think pre-Brezhnev’s USSR was doing well, compared to free market economies of the time, you would be sorely mistaken (which was part of the reason Khrushev was removed). The best USSR could do was meaningless industrial output metrics (oh, we made just a whole LOT of pig iron). Of course without an integrated economy such output is meaningless. See also: output targets in China during the Great Leap Forward. USSR was an economic basketcase during the best of times.
Unrelated anecdote: I once got in trouble (e.g. parents in the principal’s office) as a young child for laughing on the day Brezhnev died.