I cannot wrap my head around a communist country having wages and paying for things. I asked one of my friends who grew up in the USSR and I just don’t get it. Please help.
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On paper, it’s exactly the same as we have here in a capitalist country, except it being some sleezbag private citizen who owns the place you work and writes your paycheck, it’s the always-trustworthy government who always has your best interest at heart.
In reality, it just doesn’t. Like at all.
On paper, it’s exactly the same as we have here in a capitalist country, except it being some sleezbag private citizen who owns the place you work and writes your paycheck, it’s the always-trustworthy government who always has your best interest at heart.
In reality, it just doesn’t. Like at all.
On paper, it’s exactly the same as we have here in a capitalist country, except it being some sleezbag private citizen who owns the place you work and writes your paycheck, it’s the always-trustworthy government who always has your best interest at heart.
In reality, it just doesn’t. Like at all.
Basically, they had wages and pay for things just like we do in capitalist countries. But the wages and prices were set by the central government. There were no private companies completing on wages (driving them up, ideally) nor competing on prices (driving them down, again, ideally. You might notice basically neither of those are really happening right now in capitalist countries).
So like if you were say…a cashier you would just make like 100 rubles a month (I’m making up all these numbers after this btw) doesn’t matter what company you work for that’s just the amount that cashiers get paid. You can’t quit your job and work for a different company that pays cashiers more money. If you were an engineer you might make 200 rubles a month. And yes that’s one of the features of the USSR and communism more broadly. Everyone is supposed to make a living wage but that also meant that the disparity between a skilled worker and a non-skilled worker is nowhere near as massive as it is in capitalist countries.
At the same time, you can’t really shop around to “save money” on something. Like if you wanted a loaf of bread well that was 1 ruble. Everywhere and there was just…bread. There wouldn’t be a ton of different brands either.
In addition to that housing was generally really *really* cheap. Like people in the USSR would spend sometimes less than 10% of their wages on housing. But in turn, just about everything else was more much expensive than in the west. And stuff like even owning a phone or TV was really quite rare well into the 80s.
Whether this is because communism sucks or because Russia was literally a peasant country that hadn’t even really industrialized and where less than 20% of the population could read when the communists took over in the *1920s* in a more open question than people in the west want it to be.
Basically, they had wages and pay for things just like we do in capitalist countries. But the wages and prices were set by the central government. There were no private companies completing on wages (driving them up, ideally) nor competing on prices (driving them down, again, ideally. You might notice basically neither of those are really happening right now in capitalist countries).
So like if you were say…a cashier you would just make like 100 rubles a month (I’m making up all these numbers after this btw) doesn’t matter what company you work for that’s just the amount that cashiers get paid. You can’t quit your job and work for a different company that pays cashiers more money. If you were an engineer you might make 200 rubles a month. And yes that’s one of the features of the USSR and communism more broadly. Everyone is supposed to make a living wage but that also meant that the disparity between a skilled worker and a non-skilled worker is nowhere near as massive as it is in capitalist countries.
At the same time, you can’t really shop around to “save money” on something. Like if you wanted a loaf of bread well that was 1 ruble. Everywhere and there was just…bread. There wouldn’t be a ton of different brands either.
In addition to that housing was generally really *really* cheap. Like people in the USSR would spend sometimes less than 10% of their wages on housing. But in turn, just about everything else was more much expensive than in the west. And stuff like even owning a phone or TV was really quite rare well into the 80s.
Whether this is because communism sucks or because Russia was literally a peasant country that hadn’t even really industrialized and where less than 20% of the population could read when the communists took over in the *1920s* in a more open question than people in the west want it to be.
Basically, they had wages and pay for things just like we do in capitalist countries. But the wages and prices were set by the central government. There were no private companies completing on wages (driving them up, ideally) nor competing on prices (driving them down, again, ideally. You might notice basically neither of those are really happening right now in capitalist countries).
So like if you were say…a cashier you would just make like 100 rubles a month (I’m making up all these numbers after this btw) doesn’t matter what company you work for that’s just the amount that cashiers get paid. You can’t quit your job and work for a different company that pays cashiers more money. If you were an engineer you might make 200 rubles a month. And yes that’s one of the features of the USSR and communism more broadly. Everyone is supposed to make a living wage but that also meant that the disparity between a skilled worker and a non-skilled worker is nowhere near as massive as it is in capitalist countries.
At the same time, you can’t really shop around to “save money” on something. Like if you wanted a loaf of bread well that was 1 ruble. Everywhere and there was just…bread. There wouldn’t be a ton of different brands either.
In addition to that housing was generally really *really* cheap. Like people in the USSR would spend sometimes less than 10% of their wages on housing. But in turn, just about everything else was more much expensive than in the west. And stuff like even owning a phone or TV was really quite rare well into the 80s.
Whether this is because communism sucks or because Russia was literally a peasant country that hadn’t even really industrialized and where less than 20% of the population could read when the communists took over in the *1920s* in a more open question than people in the west want it to be.
Communism is one of those things that sounds idyllic and rational on paper, but fails miserably in practice. Like really badly fails.
Instead of market forces determining what is manufactured, how many are manufactured, and the price, this is all determined by the Govt.
Governments are inherently inefficient and slow on policy. It leads to even more powerful special interests as you could just pay someone to guarantee your operation would continue even though it wasn’t needed.
Capitalism takes into account that overall, humans are opportunistic bastards and uses that to the advantage of everyone by making them accountable to market demand.
When thinking about governments, always keep in mind they are inherently inefficient and to some degree evil.
I’m not trying to say Capitalism is great. I’m saying it’s the least worst so far.
Communism is one of those things that sounds idyllic and rational on paper, but fails miserably in practice. Like really badly fails.
Instead of market forces determining what is manufactured, how many are manufactured, and the price, this is all determined by the Govt.
Governments are inherently inefficient and slow on policy. It leads to even more powerful special interests as you could just pay someone to guarantee your operation would continue even though it wasn’t needed.
Capitalism takes into account that overall, humans are opportunistic bastards and uses that to the advantage of everyone by making them accountable to market demand.
When thinking about governments, always keep in mind they are inherently inefficient and to some degree evil.
I’m not trying to say Capitalism is great. I’m saying it’s the least worst so far.
Communism is one of those things that sounds idyllic and rational on paper, but fails miserably in practice. Like really badly fails.
Instead of market forces determining what is manufactured, how many are manufactured, and the price, this is all determined by the Govt.
Governments are inherently inefficient and slow on policy. It leads to even more powerful special interests as you could just pay someone to guarantee your operation would continue even though it wasn’t needed.
Capitalism takes into account that overall, humans are opportunistic bastards and uses that to the advantage of everyone by making them accountable to market demand.
When thinking about governments, always keep in mind they are inherently inefficient and to some degree evil.
I’m not trying to say Capitalism is great. I’m saying it’s the least worst so far.
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