Society/Culture The terror of 'socialism' being fed as a moral ideology.

[Total Power]

The only thing wrong is your statement that central planning causes alcoholism..

What exactly is funny about this? work place condition is actually a contribution factory to alcoholism (not the only factor, check my 2 papers below) this is a fact, lack of life goals, monotonous work and lack of rewards, friendship and entertainment helps alcoholism. You know you will get nowhere in life.



Historically (with a few exceptions: prohibition in the early 1900s and Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign in 1985–87), the Russian government has encouraged drinking, as alcohol provided considerable revenue. It also kept the working class in an inebriated state, pre-empting public dissent against inadequate living and working conditions. However, when government control of alcohol production and sales was introduced, a return to former policies was swift, following widespread public discontent (White, 1996 ; Herlihy, 2002 ; Bassik, unpublished work).


https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/45/1/104/122295

and
https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/42/5/500/211380


if you read the papers you will see how works lacked discipline, this eventually led to the collapse of the soviet system, there is no accountability under socialist system. You can turn up drunk at work and no one will bat an eyelid. Try doing that in Australia and see where it gets you.

The workplace conditions are terrible, this lead to more frustration including absenteeism. Are you denying workplace conditions were terrible? if you don't have accountability, you have nothing. You can turn up drunk at work and this led to fights at workplace. Since wages were almost guaranteed, why would anyone work? It wasn't any different in East Germany/Bulgaria or other Eastern Bloc countries. Workplace conditions were terrible period. It wasn't the only contributing factor to alcoholism but certainly one of the major ones.

 

[smokingjacket]

What exactly is funny about this? work place condition is actually a contribution factory to alcoholism (not the only factor, check my 2 papers below) this is a fact, lack of life goals, monotonous work and lack of rewards, friendship and entertainment helps alcoholism. You know you will get nowhere in life.



Historically (with a few exceptions: prohibition in the early 1900s and Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign in 1985–87), the Russian government has encouraged drinking, as alcohol provided considerable revenue. It also kept the working class in an inebriated state, pre-empting public dissent against inadequate living and working conditions. However, when government control of alcohol production and sales was introduced, a return to former policies was swift, following widespread public discontent (White, 1996 ; Herlihy, 2002 ; Bassik, unpublished work).


https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/45/1/104/122295

and
https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/42/5/500/211380


if you read the papers you will see how works lacked discipline, this eventually led to the collapse of the soviet system, there is no accountability under socialist system. You can turn up drunk at work and no one will bat an eyelid. Try doing that in Australia and see where it gets you.

The workplace conditions are terrible, this lead to more frustration including absenteeism. Are you denying workplace conditions were terrible? if you don't have accountability, you have nothing. You can turn up drunk at work and this led to fights at workplace. Since wages were almost guaranteed, why would anyone work? It wasn't any different in East Germany/Bulgaria or other Eastern Bloc countries. Workplace conditions were terrible period. It wasn't the only contributing factor to alcoholism but certainly one of the major ones.

Do even read your own sources?

Both of those articles you linked to said that alcoholism in the Soviet Union was primarily a product of cultural traditions dating back centuries.

Try doing that in Australia and see where it gets you.

Lol, in literally the last decade.

The workplace conditions are terrible, this lead to more frustration including absenteeism. Are you denying workplace conditions were terrible?

Compared to what?! Working in a heavy industry has always been hard and dangerous. Even today, factory work isn't exactly stimulating under capitalism but people will take pride in their role and work.

It wasn't any different in East Germany/Bulgaria or other Eastern Bloc countries.

Yes, it was.

 

[Pessimistic]

It’s not so long ago offices cracked out the beers on a Friday night. In australia

 

[Brunswick Trap King]

It’s not so long ago offices cracked out the beers on a Friday night. In australia

Sounds like another fun tradition I had to miss out on. I'm also bitter on missing fun Christmas parties and smoking in bars.

 

[Total Power]

Do even read your own sources?

LOL refer to stalin.


Stalin argued in 1925 that socialism could not be built with white gloves on, and on this occasion, he was referring to support for State production of vodka. One result was that between 1924 and 1927, the number of annual arrests for drunkenness in Leningrad rose from 11,000 to 113,000. Full-strength vodka sales had resumed in 1925.

Distribution of State produced vodka appears to have been patchy in a country as vast as Russia recovering from a Civil War but the political point was clear. It could begin to undercut home brewers, particularly those who brewed for profit beyond personal consumption. It could also address the vital issue of grain supplies and direct them to the production of basic food rather than drink. The link between a healthy workforce, a basic diet and alcohol could not have been clearer.


https://www.culturematters.org.uk/i...he-bolsheviks-and-alcohol-policy-and-practice


I know i know, not real socialism right?? LOL..

Engels, in 'The Condition of the Working Class in England' writes that:

Drink is the only thing which makes the Irishman's life worth having, drink and his cheery care-free temperament; so he revels in drink to the point of the most bestial drunkenness. The southern facile character of the Irishman, his crudity, which places him but little above the savage, his contempt for all humane enjoyments, in which his very crudeness makes him incapable of sharing, his filth and poverty, all favour drunkenness. The temptation is great, he cannot resist it, and so when he has money he gets rid of it down his throat. What else should he do? How can society blame him when it places him in a position in which he almost of necessity becomes a drunkard; when it leaves him to himself, to his savagery?​

​

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In other words socialist/communist SJW's at it again. Injustice this, injustice that. Go to Kerala. You think its a ******* coincidence that Kerala has the highest per capita alcohol consumption in india? just a friggen coincidence?

Yes i did read my sources, you missed out that part where it said it's used as a "tool to stop public dessent against terrible work conditions". In other words government encouraged alcoholism, instead of stopping it.

Lol, in literally the last decade.

Nonsense, any normal country without a socialist regime was way below the mark.

In Russia alcohol also plays an important role in work, business and exchange [8,46,47]. Research from the 1990s shows that the workplace was a more important drinking context in Russia than in other countries [48], with 20% of Russians reporting drinking at work, compared to only 2% of Finns [48]. Ethnographic studies showed how vodka drinking in all-male work brigades (known in the Soviet period as ‘kollektivs’) strengthened bonds among workers [11,49]

Drinking culture was particularly encouraged for a reason under socialism.

Yes, it was.

LOL east germany was number 1 in europe. You don't say

https://www.dw.com/en/research-reveals-widespread-alcoholism-in-communist-east-germany/a-15033014

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how addiction works. People who become addicts do so because of a fundamental lack in their own lives. When they lack is filled, they usually have little trouble dropping their addiction, even in the case of drugs which are supposed to be nearly impossible to quit such as heroin. Conversely, as long as that lack exists in their lives, the urge to go back to their addiction will simply be too strong to resist, regardless of their personal willpower. Socialism is the breeding ground for alcoholism for this reason. It's a dead end wherever you go. You will get nowhere in life or career regardless of your education and work. And when you go back home, its propaganda news channels and censorship. Why do you think in the soviet union tourists needed permission to go outside of Moscow? Soviet's didn't want to see the actual condition the people were living in. When i go to small Russian towns, the communal toilets still make me cringe. 1 toilet for 3 families. That even outside the house in a yard..in winter it's not fun.

In bulgaria old socialists still have a saying, which roughly translates to "if you are not drinking you are not working". LOL! i still chuckle hearing that.

Anything else is just wishful thinking, pretty much like the socialists bubble world. It's not just the heavy industries, it goes for women as well! The eastern bloc countries still haven't recovered from that nightmare. They still drink way way way more than any western european country, don't believe me, believe in data and research as below:

https://www.kent.ac.uk/news/culture...-heavy-drinking-in-eastern-european-countries

But this got nothing to do with socialism/communism, i am sure. Nek minit you will argue drinking is good for health too LOL.

 

[Pessimistic]

The state of Russias social ills pre dates communism, and the revolution asssited by Reagan has done very little for them.
You’ll find that socialism often came in because people were so screwed over by the regime that preceded it they saw it as an answer.
Which is why you probably won’t see it here. It’s the most centred country on earth (or one of them)

( even though we have a party called liberals who are a million miles from the essence of liberalism)

I’d like our keyboard historians to give a little appraisal of the Spanish Inquisition. I don’t see any socialist or godless regime lasting much beyond a century.
This little chapter lasted about five centuries.
If you really want to screw people over, you need religion in the mix. The links between alcohol and religion are even stronger.

 

[Total Power]

If you really want to screw people over, you need religion in the mix .The links between alcohol and religion are even stronger.

True but socialism/communism did just fine in that respect.

Are you suggesting alcohol consumption in religious countries are higher than Eastern bloc/Socialist countries, per capita? I have produced evidence above tht communist countries or ex communist nations drink even more than any western european nation. Do you have data which suggests that religious countries consume more alchol?

 

[Pessimistic]

True but socialism/communism did just fine in that respect.

Are you suggesting alcohol consumption in religious countries are higher than Eastern bloc/Socialist countries, per capita? I have produced evidence above tht communist countries or ex communist nations drink even more than any western european nation. Do you have data which suggests that religious countries consume more alchol?

My main data which you chose not to quote is the Spanish thing lasted five centuries and the longest communist/ socialist about 100.
It appears that socialism designed to bring out the best in people actually enabled despots to commit some of the worst atrocities.
I’m just saying you are over rating these regimes in the annals of history. They also took hold when other regimes failed spectacularly, so to pin all the general social ills on them is selective. Those ills usually pre existed

 

[Total Power]

It appears that socialism designed to bring out the best in people actually enabled despots to commit some of the worst atrocities.
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this is what i argued time and time again, here! communism is great on paper, but fails due to human nature and it assumes its a perfect world and greed doesn't exist. I was arguing more about alcholism though and less about socialism in general

 

[Pessimistic]

Powerful people in a position so long they convince themselves no one can do the job as well as them.

Or like is the case with Putin, fear for their lives if they lose power.


It’s not limited to communism socialism, but there appears to be some of the worst cases there.
I suspect western media and narrative also looked to gild the lily where dictatorships have challenged the clear flaws with capitalism. The complicit ones not so much

 

[Pessimistic]

I also recall one of the things Eastern Europeans were being liberated from the oppressiveness of the state, the interference in daily lives.

Yet, a couple of decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there’s more cctv, mobile phone everywhere etc. the Stasi folk would have had orgasms with what they could achieve today

 

[Carringbush2010]

If I may simplify and broaden this discussion:

Seems the op is referring to an extreme model of "socialism" probably to a point of communism.............. which is the opposite of individualism and by extension that takes away opportunities that individualism in a capitalist society allows you.

Sure our current model of capitalism has been corrupted to the point of we have a widening of the gap from the abhorrently wealthy to the working impoverished.

If we were to have an "ideal" communist model (which is impossible because it removes the individual element) then would not that model be in danger of corruption because you know human nature and all that? And then we end up with a world where the op can turn around and say "I told you so"?

The point is that throughout history extreme or far removed ideology never really survives and eats itself in the end. Things like "me too" "woke" "inclusive" (love that one lol - just the impossibility brings a laugh to my belly) "speech control" (hello Canadian government) never have any lengthy life spans because they have elements that are contradictory to practical and logic.

So why and where do these radical utopian intended ideologies come from?

Seems they come from a noisy few that are unhappy with their lot (usually through the fault of no one else) and come up with idealogues that suit them and others. What they don't realize ( I'm talking from a Western capitalist society model) is the flaws in their view of "utopia"

For example; communism at its endth degree is great because it ensures a safety net for everyone (until corrupted) but the trade off is opportunity from an individuals point of view - that cannot exist in the definition of "communism".