Human Rights Or Civil Rights?
Joseph Massad wrote an interesting column on The 'Arab Spring' and other American seasons.Besides its relevance for the current U.S. revolutionary enterprise in the Middle East it includes an interesting historic view of distinguishing human rights from civil rights:
The Soviet/US struggle over defining human rights is now the stuff of Cold War history given the US victory in the Cold War, but a brief review is necessary. While the US insisted that having the right to work, to free or universally affordable healthcare, free education, daycare and housing (which the Soviet system granted in the USSR and across Eastern Europe as substantive and not merely as formal rights) are not human rights at all, the Soviets, in the tradition of socialism, insisted they were essential for human life and dignity and that the western enumerating of the rights to free speech, free association, free movement, freedom to form political parties, etc., were "political" and "civil" and not "human" rights, and that in reality in the West, they were at any rate only formal and not substantive rights except for the upper echelons of society and those who owned the media and could access it and who could fund election campaigns, etc.What the Soviets, according to Massad, viewed as basic human rights was at a time also propagandized in the United States. In his 1941 message to congress U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of the four freedoms:Moreover the Soviets argued that it was essential for humans to have human rights in order to be able to access civil and political rights in a substantive manner and that granting formal civil and political rights while denying substantive human rights amounted to granting no rights at all.
The four freedoms he outlined were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.Roosevelt's last two "freedoms" can be seen as those the Soviets considered as real "human rights" while Roosevelt's first two "freedoms" are political and thereby "civil rights".
Personally I agree with the Soviet nomenclature.
What is the meaning of the right to vote or to free speech when one is dying of hunger or for lack of medicine? The best is of course to have it all but if, in dire times, you would have to choose which two "freedoms" would you then prefer?
As Massad writes the U.S. is propagandizing its lacking version of "human rights", which only means some civil rights, to prevent people from demanding their real human rights, social justice and economic rights.
The rather genuine revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were largely carried by people in want of their basic economic human rights, their daily bread. The U.S. democracy propaganda is just a means to paper over those demands and to arrange for regimes that will continue to deny them. In Libya and Syrian, where the basic economic rights were widely, though uneven fulfilled, external instigation and military support was needed to bring those countries in line with U.S. demands: Give them civil rights, Roosevelt's first two "freedoms", but not those other rights that are counter to the neo-liberal ideology and infringe on our profits.
Posted by b on August 30, 2012 at 17:00 UTC | Permalink
I doubt this analysis. If the Tunisian revolution had been about bread and health care demonstrators would have said so. They did not. They said they want the downfall of the regime.
This here is the economic data of Tunisia. It is not bad at all and development was going upward not downward (it went down now because of the revolution). Problem is people do feel only in comparison. That applies to hot or cold and it applies to being happy and well being (most ecstatic happiness is felt after the pain stops)
If you take Maslow's hierarchy of needs the reasons given for the revolutions probably would be somewhere between esteem and self actualization. If you look at it from the outcome - a conservative Islamist government - not from the - stupid - Western narrative, then a highly organized professional and merchant class took over politically that already had most of the power economically and huge social influence via charities.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2012 18:39 utc | 2
Somebody--Tunisians said it was about their daily bread (employment). After all, it was Mohamed Bouazizi who sparked the uprising. He immolated himself in response to the authorities denying him his means of support, selling vegetables. The uprising that ensued was in sympathy to Bouazizi's plight.
The daily bread issue was not one the Western media found acceptable. So the uprising got framed as being about freedom, democracy, and Ben Ali's kleptomania.
Roosevelt's first two freedoms are those most valued by the wealthy few. Freedom of speech, as currently defined, allows them to buy governments. Freedom of religion allows them to develop and exploit issues that resonate with socially conservative majorities (abortion, sexual identity, etc.) and get them to vote against their economic self interest.
Posted by: JohnH | Aug 30 2012 19:07 utc | 3
I guess it is a Rorschach test, you see in it what you are inclined to :-)) Presumably that is the problem with joining a movement when all that is agreed is the toppling of the dictator.
this article here e.g. thinks the revolution was about everybody's chance to do legal business
Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2012 19:26 utc | 4
Slightly off topic, but here we go:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/08/28/us-preparing-for-a-post-israel-middle-east/
Posted by: m_s | Aug 30 2012 19:57 utc | 5
Obama seldom mentions FDR and his achievements (other than to use SocSec as both a threat to his base that he will be forced to curtail it or as an election prod to get the base out to vote for him to defend SocSec).
FDR's Four Freedoms may be one of the reasons Obama tries to downplan FDR and his heritage. It's not the Corporatist way.
Posted by: jawbone | Aug 30 2012 20:05 utc | 6
actually, the UN Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 has the full list. I cannot name a single country where all inhabitants enjoy all of it.
"Article 22.
Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality."
Posted by: somebody | Aug 30 2012 20:33 utc | 7
"FDR's Four Freedoms may be one of the reasons Obama tries to downplan FDR and his heritage. It's not the Corporatist way."
Couldn't agree more @ 6. The biggest parts of the globalist agenda are the "want" and the "fear" aspects. Keeping the working class unemployed and fearful makes them very obedient.
b's right, having the first two freedoms,( speech & religion) are worthless without the last two( freedom from want & fear).
Posted by: ben | Aug 30 2012 20:44 utc | 8
And, by the way, in the corporate world, workers have no rights. There is only their "right" to make money. Only Government regulation, and Union contracts stand between them and their "rights" to treat workers as they please.
Posted by: ben | Aug 30 2012 20:53 utc | 9
@Ben: Amen. If we do not organize ourself, we will be lost.
Posted by: Peter Hofmann | Aug 30 2012 21:51 utc | 10
I find it a dark sick joke that anyone can, with a straight face, talk about the Soviets rescuing people from 'fear' and 'want'. you have might have heard the joke about the man who is sick of queueing and finally yells about how shitty and vile his country is before a man approached him asking to please restrain himself and remember what had happened in the old days, making his fingers into a gun and making the sound of it going off. When he returns to his wife empty handed she asks him if they had run out of (x). worse than that he says they run out of bullets. Soviet Russia, Maoist China and Nazi Germany, all went on deliberate killng sprees, something the elites in the West, in spite of their own monstrous psychopathic mania has never quite managed (yet - in their own nations. I'm well aware of what when on in the colonies).
@peter and ben, who do you think controls the governments and unions? the elite. the Unions push for higher wages which big business accepts because it puts pressure on smaller, more innovative firms. If I lifted your wallet you would be fully justified in recovering it by delivering a bit of a kicking but if I got a government to do the stealing would you feel better having the UN declaration of human rights quoted at you?
Posted by: heathroi | Aug 31 2012 2:59 utc | 11
Western media is trying hard to spin Morsi's visit to Iran as negative for Iran. All major western media are now reporting that "Morsi slams syrian regime", they do not report that Morsi also slammed Israel regime.
Posted by: Nikon | Aug 31 2012 4:50 utc | 12
After a long period of abstaining from posting comments on the comments section of any weblog, I write this comment.
Partly the reason that I stopped writing was the fact that I was busy. But also it was the fact that I really never came across a post which would stimulate me enough to get me to write.
Well... This comment by "b" just did that! :)
I think the time has long passed that we acknowledge the very basic maxim that in order to have an "idea" so that you may want to express it, you must first be alive! And not just that, in order to have an "idea" rather than gibberish in your mind, you must have "education", and let's not forget that "ideas" are produced in healthy brains and healthy brains require "healthcare". I will never forget when I saw the news about a 'gay parade' in India (actually it was a demonstration to demand rights for gays) and noticed that not one of the participants had any shabby clothes or dirty looks similar to what you would expect from a lower cast in India. Why was it? Was it because there are no gays among the poor Indians? Or was it because poor Indians (gay or straight) had far more vital rights to pursue than "gay rights"?
I also remember "human rights activists" were so excited by the fact that Mr. Karoubi promised to make wearing Hijab free of compulsion in Iran while Ahmadinejad gave insurance to some 3 million female carpet weavers (and the reformist camp kept calling him "populist" and his policies as "pro-panhandling"). Whom do you think the lower class Iranian women voted for? The "emancipating" Mousavi/Karoubi or the insurance giving Ahmadinejad?? But then again, what am I saying? Of course Ahmadinejad stole the elections!! :)
It is time for everyone to see once and for all that liberal democracy is noting but a hollow sham. The "human rights" they support is only the right of the capitalist class, and their democracy is for the bourgeoisie. Those who must work part of the work day to create profit for their employers, must NOT have the choice on how the fruit of their labour is divided!
By the way, please don't misunderstand me, I don't mean to say that Mr. Ahmadinejad actually tried to follow policies to benefit people (he is actually a very devoted neo-liberal), BUT:
1) At least he was decent enough to pretend to be concerned about the fate of the working class.
2) He was intelligent enough (unlike his moronic opponents) to realize that Iran was no Sweden with a chunky middle class well-fed as a consequence of the post WWII high rates of profit/accumulation of capital and the imperialist policies. So he could see that the right to insurance BY FAR took precedence over the right to "mini skirt"!!
Posted by: Pirouz_2 | Aug 31 2012 5:18 utc | 13
Working in Saudi Arabia with women from all over the world, this is to say living and working here includes a multitude of eclipsed freedoms from what you wear to what you say etc...
The usual comment is: Financial Freedom is real!
Posted by: Kim Sky | Aug 31 2012 6:12 utc | 14
heathroi no11, I agree the economy of the Soviet Union brought almost everybody down to the lowest common denominator as they favoured equality (and solidarity) in the French revolution triangle plus they needed a bloody dictatorship to push industrialization through and to fight existential wars.
In their economies more money went around than goods and prices were fixed, so having more money was not much use, you had to find a way to get the goods. So a lot of the economy was in the shadow. It is the great strength of free markets that they regulate distribution "automatically & anonymously", it is the great weakness of free markets when that means that some people have all of it and some people starve. So there has to be regulation and that has to be fought politically and people have to organize for that.
It is not true that trade unions are run by "the elite", trade unions had a great role in educating people and running their own think tanks i.e. producing their own elite. I have never heard of a trade union leader recruited from outside the movement.
It is also not true that trade union agreements with employers hinder small innovative businesses, these agreements only apply for businesses they are negotiated with, otherwise a government would have to make them law for a whole industry. If "small innovative businesses" cannot compete for competent workforce I would suggest their future is doubtful anyway. Most jobs, at least in this country, Germany, are offered by small to medium firms (or the government).
Posted by: somebody | Aug 31 2012 8:16 utc | 15
I don't see that rights have to be either/or. In Pirouz_2's example above, one should stand up for the carpet weavers AND those women who do not wish to wear a hijab.
If a govt. wishes to build hospitals, schools, sanitation, create full employment, act towards environmental amelioration, etc. (i.e. the human rights as stated by b) - in what way does the wearing or not wearing of an item of clothing, or the expression of one's sexual preference, or any other personal behaviour that does not limit the behaviour of others, limit a govt's ability to carry out such programmes?
Posted by: ahji | Aug 31 2012 11:05 utc | 16
@somebody - I agree the economy of the Soviet Union brought almost everybody down to the lowest common denominator
You seem to have no idea of how the majority of Russians lived before the communists took over. For them the Soviet Union brought quite an uplift.
That is not denying the Stalin campaigns and the war that was terrible for all of them.
b, it cannot get worse than this
Stalin's policy of politically motivated ethnic resettlement which basically resettled people into the middle of nowhere also did not help ...
Posted by: somebody | Aug 31 2012 14:40 utc | 18
This is the link for the USSR population transfers which is much more than the Czars ever sent to Siberia. The Bolsheviks inherited an empire and they ruled it like an imperial power.
I would not mix the effects of industrialization which the Sowjet Union did in a very rushed way with a better life style for everybody. After the second world war life improved but it did not improve to the same degree as in Western Europe. And Russia's standard of living always lagged behind Eastern Europe even which had been more (capitalist) economically developed right from the start.
Posted by: somebody | Aug 31 2012 15:47 utc | 19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwv7JXgPxLI&feature=player_embedded
Lizzie Phelan;
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The documentary de-constructs the main allegations those actors have presented, namely that the Syrian government was systematically repressing peaceful protests and that it has lost legitimacy. It shows how such claims are supported by scant evidence and are therefore little more than propaganda to serve the foreign policy interests of their countries.
Manufacturing Dissent includes evidence of fake reports broadcast/published by the likes of CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others and interviews with a cross section of the Syrian population including an actor, a craftsman, a journalist, a resident from Homs and an activist who have all been affected by the crisis.
**If the link via the website is not working yet (it will be shortly) please ciick on the link below and share this website and video!
Posted by: brian | Aug 31 2012 15:54 utc | 20
george w bush is the reincarnation of lenin
"By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack the much-needed Baku. Vladimir Lenin said that the invasion was justified as Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku's oil.[61][62] Independent Azerbaijan lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik 11th Soviet Red Army invaded it, establishing the Azerbaijan SSR on April 28, 1920."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan
Posted by: nikon | Aug 31 2012 17:29 utc | 21
What's with this bullshit trying to score points by attacking the few isolated cases of the soviet union's rather limited and knee-jerk imperial expansion whilst totally ignoring the sustained slaughter committed by the expounders of 'freedom of speech' amerika. There hasn't been a decade since amerika was founded where it hasn't been killing some group standing in the way of elite profit.
Nobody has said the USSR was a perfectly formed, ideal nation state. The empire the Bolsheviks inherited ensured that wasn't the case. Stalin was an asshole - so what. Maybe he would never have gotten into the position of power he did if the english hadn't shot Lenin. The fact remains that the old communist ethos focussed on the basic right to live; something all the high minded bulldust spouted outta capitalists and their libertarian ideologues strenuously avoid since it would seriously impair the ability of their bosses to wantonly exploit anything their hearts desire.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 31 2012 22:17 utc | 22
Somebody @18:
The Soviet Union wasn't established until 1922. Famine is often a consequence of prolonged war, and in this case foreign intervention prolonged, but did not change the ultimate outcome, of a war that should have ended in 1918.
Somebody@19:
The Soviet industrialization of the 1930s indeed greatly improved the lives of the Soviet people, by ensuring that Hitler's *war* *of* *racial* *extermination* against them would fail.
And Russia's postwar recovery lagged in part because a *war* *of* *racial* *extermination* waged with Teutonic thoroughness and attention to detail was a difficult thing to recover from. The far milder effects of the American Civil War were visible in the South for decades.
Posted by: rkka | Sep 1 2012 1:17 utc | 23
The problem isn't in the defining, but in the doing. Americans aren't adept at central planning so we end up with something like Obamacare which is what the corporations ordered and not what the people needed.
The essential difference is - at present - one of legality and definition.
Human rights are a formulation of supra-categorical ‘rights’ that humans have or should be awarded or able to claim. Usually, they represent an ideal. Their intent is always universal, even though the formulation may be that of a particular body, culture, country, group, etc. E.g. the UN universal declaration of Human Rights. Animal rights, etc. are the same.
sidebar: This declaration is taught in our schools and 5th graders make short hash of it. Teachers dread these lessons. (After the Holocaust, which they fear even more.)
Civil rights are those granted to citizens, and are framed by law, unequivocal, in present day Nation-States or similar entities. (Their application or scope may pose multiple problems.) They may of course be put forward as aspirational as well, but then they are not existing civil rights but proposals for change, or a goal to work towards, etc.
Ideally, there should be close ties between some universal conception of man and his relations with nature, and rights accorded to citizens. Fat hope!
Yeah this post was not very useful.
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 1 2012 15:46 utc | 25
The essential difference is - at present - one of legality and definition.
Human rights are a formulation of supra-categorical ‘rights’ that humans have or should be awarded or able to claim. Usually, they represent an ideal. Their intent is always universal, even though the formulation may be that of a particular body, culture, country, group, etc. E.g. the UN universal declaration of Human Rights. Animal rights, etc. are the same.
sidebar: This declaration is taught in our schools and 5th graders make short hash of it. Teachers dread these lessons. (After the Holocaust, which they fear even more.)
Civil rights are those granted to citizens, and are framed by law, unequivocal, in present day Nation-States or similar entities. (Their application or scope may pose multiple problems.) They may of course be put forward as aspirational as well, but then they are not existing civil rights but proposals for change, or a goal to work towards, etc.
Ideally, there should be close ties between some universal conception of man and his relations with nature, and rights accorded to citizens. Fat hope!
Yeah this post was not very useful.
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 1 2012 15:46 utc | 26
Oxford prof Robert C. Allen’s 2003 book Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution makes a data-based argument that the USSR’s planned economy performed quite well, particularly from 1928 to 1970. Agricultural workers were squeezed, especially in the early decades, to produce a surplus which was used to provide the benefits of industrialization to an increasingly urbanized society.
Posted by: Watson | Sep 1 2012 16:33 utc | 27
The Amnesty International / Human Rights Watch driven HR hoax is from the very beginning an attack against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One third of the rights listed in the declaration are collective rights, rights that can only be fulfilled by collective effort, collective decision making and coercive power that can force everyone to abide by the collective decisions.
In essence the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a Stalinist document, reflecting Soviet views as much as those of the Roosevelts.
The AI and HRW driven falsification of the declaration aims the cleanse it of all collectivist content. This is done by omission, collective rights have disappeared from "human rights", and – as Joseph Massad correctly points out – civil rights have been renamed human rights.
The argument against collective rights, as expressed by Aryeh Neierm, the founder of HRW is that collective rights always equal authoritarian power. This is 100% true. Even worse is that collective rights are always in conflict with other collective rights, with individual rights and even with themselves. This is however no argument against their existence, in theory they all exist as much as ever - in declarations at least. Globalist and capitalist ideology will attack them all, from the right to education to the Leninist concept of the right of nations to self-determination.
The loss of collective rights. or "labor rights" was recently studied by Mark Ames:
Exclusive: The Quiet Extermination Of Labor Rights From Human Rights
http://thedailybanter.com/2012/06/the-quiet-extermination-of-labor-rights-from-human-rights/
Aryeh Neier, founder of Human Rights Watch and its executive director for 12 years, doesn’t hide his contempt for the idea of economic equality as one of the key human rights. Neier is so opposed to the idea of economic equality that he even equates the very idea of economic equality and justice with oppression—economic rights to him are a violation of human rights, rather than essential human rights, thereby completely inverting traditional left thinking. Here’s what Neier wrote in his memoir, Taking Liberties: “The concept of economic and social rights is profoundly undemocratic… Authoritarian power is probably a prerequisite for giving meaning to economic and social rights.”
Posted by: Petri Krohn | Sep 1 2012 21:05 utc | 28
'The Amnesty International / Human Rights Watch driven HR hoax is from the very beginning an attack against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One third of the rights listed in the declaration are collective rights, rights that can only be fulfilled by collective effort, collective decision making and coercive power that can force everyone to abide by the collective decisions'
what an absurd comment... for 'collective' read instead 'community'...as opposed to the 'individual' rights which fits the american self center survivalist mentality....'Collective' is what we use when laws are made...you know...dont steal dont kill,,these laws are enforced by 'coercive power'(how else?! other wise the individual US super man will take and do what he likes.
Posted by: brian | Sep 2 2012 0:08 utc | 29
'The argument against collective rights, as expressed by Aryeh Neierm, the founder of HRW is that collective rights always equal authoritarian power. This is 100% true. '
fascinating! well lets get rid of all our laws...as these are egs of 'authoriatian power'...just ask any teenage punk and criminal for whom authoritarian power is a block t their individual right to do as they please.
Fancy HRW arguing against Law. However HRW has also been acting against nation states that stand in the way of the authoritarian power of the US.
'Even worse is that collective rights are always in conflict with other collective rights, with individual rights and even with themselves'
what utter and very american bunk....the reverse is true...the individual wants to do what he wants and other people stand in his way.The use of words like 'authoritian power' an attempt to manipulate people in favor of a situation that would be disastrous
Posted by: brian | Sep 2 2012 0:16 utc | 30
'In Libya and Syrian, where the basic economic rights were widely, though uneven fulfilled, external instigation and military support was needed to bring those countries in line with U.S. demands:'
how ironic the land of individualism is the land that takes authoritarian coercian to a whole new level...US uses Authoritarian power to dictate to other nations
Posted by: brian | Sep 2 2012 0:22 utc | 31
rkka no 23, it is a moot point as obviously you cannot separate war and revolution from the USSR economy. It is like arguing that the USSR would be alive and kicking without the war in Afghanistan thirty four years after the end of World War II. Economists have no way to test their theories in vitro.
"The Soviet industrialization of the 1930s indeed greatly improved the lives of the Soviet people, by ensuring that Hitler's *war* *of* *racial* *extermination* against them would fail."
Of course you can argue that in hindsight forced industrialization under the barrel of a gun was necessary for the Soviet Union to survive militarily, it is quite a stretch though to call managing to survive "improving people's lives" and yes, most of the destruction happened in WW2 and Germans were responsible for most of it that however does not change the fact that the USSR has never been a successful economic or political example to follow. Of course there are many reasons for this, but what is the point in arguing that Bolshevism might have worked in Switzerland?
27 watson, performance in the framework of industrialization as a stated goal does not necessarily mean making people's life better and did not as a matter of fact as the workers had to perform in very bad conditions with no unions that would defend them.
Fact is that even today, more than 50 years after the end of World War II, life expectancy - which probably is the main indicator of the quality of life in a place - in Russia is below rank 110. No, it is not the climate, Finland is no 25.
Posted by: somebody | Sep 2 2012 13:35 utc | 32
It is true the decl. of Human Rights is both Roosevelt-ish (look at the preamble, the word freedom) and Stalinist, in the sense of ‘can only be constructed or guaranteed by some communal organization.’
Man is a social animal and his rights, i.e. living conditions and individual scope of action - his / her role, life, work, aspirations, child care practices, etc. - are dependent on social organization.
These may be informal and traditional, never questioned, or may have to be agreed on and then promulgated, encouraged or enforced by a ‘central, powerful’ body, be it the Local Chief, Priest, or the US Gvmt. Or come from ‘grass roots’ movements, local organization...they can be adopted, collectively, and are all the time, every day of the week. Leadership need not be ‘authoritarian.’
In fact, all rights are ‘collective’ as an isolated individual has all rights but no life.
Posted by: Noirette | Sep 2 2012 14:16 utc | 33
@ahji no 16:
"If a govt. wishes to build hospitals, schools, sanitation, create full employment, act towards environmental amelioration, etc. (i.e. the human rights as stated by b) - in what way does the wearing or not wearing of an item of clothing, or the expression of one's sexual preference, or any other personal behaviour that does not limit the behaviour of others, limit a govt's ability to carry out such programmes?"
My point is that you cannot have civil rights without first having human rights (human rights take precedence over civil rights). When 800 million of the population of India live on less than 30 cents/day can one really talk about "freedom of expression" or "freedom of assembly" in India irrespective of what is written in the Indian constitution? In other words no matter how much you try to enshrine civil rights in your constitution, if the human rights are not guaranteed, the laws regarding civil rights remain a hollow sham. When 800 million Indians (out of 1 billion) live on less then 30cents/day, the "civil rights" that are enshrined in the indian constitution defacto become the rights of those who can afford those rights (ie. bourgeoisie)! Those laws will become like an item of luxury: completely out of the reach for those 800 million who cannot even afford their next meal.
And India's attempts to show itself as a democracy turns into a disgusting show of hypocrisy. I used India as an example this argument actually applies to ALL LIBERAL DEMOCRACIES.
Posted by: pirouz_2 | Sep 2 2012 14:37 utc | 34
Re: USSR/Russia life expectancy, and USSR standard of living vis a vis former Eastern Europe
In 1985-87, life expectancy in the Soviet Union ranked 31 in the world. (Finland was 19) Hungary was 32. East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland were 25 through 28. http://199.173.225.108/policy/docs/ssb/v58n2/v58n2p34.pdf
Notwithstanding the restrictions and suffering caused by the lack of democracy, the relative equality of standard of living in the Soviet bloc was evidence of its ethical superiority to the ‘West’. The Soviet Union was subsidizing its satellites; capitalists exploit theirs. Compare the standard of living in the USA then or now with that of El Salvador, Haiti, the Philippines or Zaire. Meanwhile, the Soviet bloc was diverting scarce resources to provide crucial support to the anti-colonial struggle. Ask Mandela.
Posted by: Watson | Sep 2 2012 15:16 utc | 35
Watson, no 35, I am not sure the article you quote counts the full list of countries
according to this detailed account Russia and Ukraine reached similar mortality rates as France in the 1960's and declined from the 1970's onwards (ie people actually having a shorter life span)
until 2005 (no data given later than that)
Which is confirmed by this Oxford Epidemology paper
The reasons given are alcohol abuse, air pollution, overuse of pesticides, careless release of industrial waste and - given as reason five years before Chernobyl, happened - poorly constructed nuclear facilities, an underpaid corrupt health care labour fource and a focus on expanding facilities instead of upgrading.
Plus there is this interesting point
"Finally, Eberstadt argued about deeper societal and psycho-
social causes of the health crisis. In his view, the patriotism of
the Russian people has always been combined with continuous
suffering and self-sacrificing for purposes, that could be ‘seen
and understood.’ This quality was fully exploited by Stalin’s
system. Eberstadt claims that Stalin ‘managed to raise life
expectancy in the Soviet Union from about forty-four when he
assumed total power to about 62 when he died in spite of
politically inflicted famines and World War II.’ Stalin’s
successors tried to ‘marry’ a system of total state control
over all aspects of country’s life with ‘consumerism.’ But in the
1970s this movement turned into a failure. The Russian people
had to realize that their hard work did not bring them any
closer to communism and also did not provide them with good
life standards. This led to adverse psychological changes such as
spread of pessimism, demoralization, and alienation from the
state."
Posted by: somebody | Sep 2 2012 17:53 utc | 36
Various countries possess various questions of the contravention of Legal Human rights and various needs of the different legal documents along with various procedures which will help in correcting the problems and its violations thereof
It’s certainly important to analyze and understand the crimes, errors, and inefficiencies of the governments which tried to be or claimed to be socialist/communist.
It’s even more important to scrutinize the methods and outcomes of capitalism, which has a much more extensive track record and is currently dominant. Half the world is living in needless squalor under the obscurantist sway of despots and oligarchies.
Posted by: Watson | Sep 3 2012 13:18 utc | 38
"Agricultural workers were squeezed, especially in the early decades, to produce a surplus which was used to provide the benefits of industrialization to an increasingly urbanized society..."
Watson: is this not true also of Britain ca 1750-1850? And indeed of almost all industrialising countries? Is it not true of China today?
somebody: the history of the Soviet Union, after 1945, was largely shaped by the Cold War. This is not to say that the CPSU was powerless but to recognise that the USSR was under constant threat and forced to earmark capital and resources to defend itself. Its impoverishment was one factor making it very conservative and unadventurous politically. Stalin's great fault was always the political conservatism which made him, for managers and bureaucrats, the more attractive, safer candidate for power.
Posted by: bevin | Sep 5 2012 19:08 utc | 39
The comments to this entry are closed.
More western indoctrinated truths exposed as lies by the sober-thinking eastern thinkers.
Posted by: Alexander | Aug 30 2012 17:44 utc | 1