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Comment by Rinzler89

1 year ago

Communism sucks at building cutting edge devices, but good at basic low-tech items that are easily user repairable and made to last.

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Rinzler89

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skyyler  1 year ago

How does communism suck at building cutting edge devices? Didn't the soviets make it to space before the capitalists?

  • aguaviva  1 year ago

    They did indeed. But the reason they were so good at things like their space program was, in the end, an indication of why their system failed.

    Basically, they were really good at building big devices/projects requiring state-orchestration of capital, like their space program, and many military projects like the T-34 and MiG-19. And turning rivers around in their tracks to build gigantic hydroelectric dams and so on.

    But apparently that model does work so well when applied to consumer devices. That, and plus the fact that their population was generally too poor to buy them, is what kept them falling ever behind. The Soviets and their client states did make valiant efforts, but they tended to cost huge amounts of state capital, and for that and other reasons they never panned out.

    For example the GDR once thought it could reverse its fortunes by devoting its capital and brainpower into the development of ground-breaking microchip (the U61000) that it hoped would take the Western market by storm. A brilliant achievement it was, but the production economics were never viable (from WP):

      From 1977 the attempt to achieve a competitive edge in microchips against the research and development resources of the entire western world – in a state of just 16 million people – was perhaps always doomed to failure, but swallowed increasing amounts of internal resources and hard currency. GDR was some five to eight years behind the leading producers of USA and Japan. To produce one 64kb chip cost 40 marks, while in the West it cost 4.50 marks. To produce one 256kb chip cost 534 marks, while in the West it cost 5.00 to 7.00 marks.[2]

    That, and plus the fact that even if they could built something (a car, say) that could compete with stuff built in the West, their population was generally too poor to buy it, is what kept them falling ever behind.

    Thinking about this makes me nostalgic for the day when this was how competing empires once sought to attain supremacy over the other, and leave them in the dust.