ussrpol
Saw a translation from this quote (John Maynard Keynes' "A Short View on Russia") and decided to check if it's real or not, and apparently it is.
ussrpol
@devurandom state capitalism at its best
ussrpol
@charlag reminds me of when someone posted a comparison of the soviet and american economies, which entirely used the official exchange rate between the ruble and the dollar, which was 1. already manipulated to make the ruble seem more powerful, 2. strictly controlled: if you brought foreign currency to the ussr, you had to give part of it to the government and either spend the rest at a special store, or have it put on an account which you would only be able to use on following trips abroad.
( source for the latter part: https://ru.rbth.com/read/1210-dollaryi-sssr-us -- a russian govt-owned publication, it's worth saying. )
like, under these conditions (and also limitations on who can go abroad and how much), you can literally draw whichever exchange rate you want with almost no consequences to your economy.
ussrpol
@charlag like, i'm not gonna be a total ussr-hater, since it probably did do some things well -- after all, my parents lived through it (tho iirc one of my grandfathers was labeled an enemy of the state?), but still -- if someone wants to argue about how great living in the soviet union was, at least use data that actually makes economic sense?
ussrpol
@devurandom whatever you read about USSR, Russia or, these days, China you have to be aware of all the footnotes. And people are not and that's how propaganda is working