The phrase was quite common BITD. Most people, myself (at middle school age) included, just parroted it as a catchphrase, but we obviously didn't want to be nuked. As I got a few years older (late teens), I wondered if the phrase was nothing more than propaganda. But as I got older still (early 20s), I learned more about how a state-controlled economy prevents the price system from being rooted in consumer choice, thereby virtually rendering impossible the cost accounting in factors of production, in turn reducing production efficiency and the ability to accumulate wealth. The light came on. Central planning, at least in theory, reduced the standard of living for everyone except the central planners. But it wasn't until a decade later, when I actually met people who had come from the former USSR and heard their horror stories, that I realized how much worse off the average person actually is in a communist regime. Many people were without basic necessities such as toilet paper (this is often cited in criticism of communism, but it turns out it's actually true!) and of course they lived in fear, not daring to speak out against the state.The early 20th-century writings of Mises concerning the unworkability of a planned economy were definitely on display in the Soviet Union. After Sputnik, we all were led to believe that the Soviets were ahead of the USA in all areas of production. But in retrospect, that wasn't the case. My acquaintances could vouch for that personally, and historians today generally agree. Virtually all of their efforts went toward military purposes to the detriment of the average Comrade in the street, and even those efforts squandered resources just as Mises outlined. Even as late as the 1980s, they were still producing huge amounts of stuff like concrete and steel (making their GDP figures look good), but in the meantime, the USA and Japan were producing computer chips and other technologies that improve the overall standard of living. In fact, I wondered how European communism lasted as long as it did, but it turns out that because the central planners did have access to Western prices through catalogs, etc., they had an inkling of what most consumer goods were worth relative to input factors. And they still couldn't provide a decent standard of living for their people.The same appeared to be true when I visited East Berlin only a year after the fall of The Wall. Buildings everywhere were in disrepair (a few even looked as though they had been bombed the week before) and rusty 1961 cars were the norm. Only the center of the city (where foreign dignitaries would meet) had a modern appearance, with the television tower, the churches, etc. in a state of upkeep. An extremely poor standard of living was on display otherwise.
communist experiment failed wrote:
An authoritarian regime is the inevitable result of communism as defined by Marx. It happened repeatedly every time, every place it was tried.
DiscoGary wrote:
Yep. Road to Serfdom by Hayek explains why.
John T. Flynn's As We Go Marching was also published in 1944. It outlines the steps toward fascism, particularly "economic fascism" - 1) Planned consumption (basically welfare), 2) Centrally-planned economy (or gradually-introduced elements of same, such as artificial Fed-driven interest rates, government wage and price controls, etc.), 3) Militarism, 4) Imperialism. You don't have to look very hard to find many (or all) of those facets on display in 20th- and 21st-century US government.
