Russia in the 1980s..

[PeZook]

I suppose that the vending machine maintenance people didn't worry about hooligans smashing/stealing the cup?

Um, not anything I said, actually.

Oh. Sorry, my mistake. I'll amend the post.

[K. A. Pital]

Hey, it was a nice country, nicer than 90% of the world.

Probably so. Maybe not 90% of the world, but certainly nicer than the majority of world countries. By the Human Development Report in 1970 the USSR took 22 place with 0.821, in 1985 on 26 place with 0.925, in 1990 on 25 place with 0.920. By contrast, Russia was on the 57th place (2002), and generally plunged down very deep during the 90's. The USSR's HDI growth in 1970-1985 was 0.104 (compare to the US - 0.132). Not that bad at all.

[Vympel]

Damn Gorbachev and Yeltsin for allowing the USSR to be dismantled in the way that it was- it could've been handled far more efficiently and cautiously and actually created a healthy, democratic, economically sound, powerful nation-state. A whole decade was wasted as Russia wallowed in mismanagement and corruption.

Now Russia resurges with new confidence and power due to a stronger leader, rising price of oil, etc- but it's unclear if that's enough to get it back to a real great power with functioning state institutions, a non-negative birth rate, low corruption, and a credible military.

Good luck, President Ivanov. You'll need it.

[PeZook]

Transferring from a socialist centrally-planned economy to a free-market one takes extraordinary competence from the ruling parties, competence that's hard to find at the best of times. Russia's story is just a repeat of the woes of nearly every other post-socialist country, only worse.

It's sad to see, but it's reality - competent rulers are few and far between.

[FSTargetDrone]

Aside from the interesting yet extremely odd soda/glass vending machine thing, I find the image of the loose, unwrapped and cut loaves of bread in disarray on the shelves a bit weird. In my 32 years, I've never seen loaves of bread unwrapped, let alone scattered about in any grocery store here in the US! I am guessing that if a shopper to the Russian store there didn't need or couldn't afford an entire loaf, he or she cut off half of it? Some of it looks burned, or at least discolored. We're so spoiled here in the US that such bread would never be on store shelves in such a state, let alone for sale!

Some of the photographs seem like they may be out of the 60s or 70s, with the slightly faded color and washed out appearance, if not the 40s or 50s, if the style of dress is any indication.

[PeZook]

Aside from the interesting yet extremely odd soda/glass vending machine thing, I find the image of the loose, unwrapped and cut loaves of bread in disarray on the shelves a bit weird. In my 32 years, I've never seen loaves of bread unwrapped, let alone scattered about in any grocery store here in the US!

Are you trying to say Americans buy all their bread wrapped?

Wow...weird

Down here, bakeries often sell fresh bread straight from the shelves, without any sort of wrapping. You just grab a plastic bag, pick the loaf you want and bag it yourself. It's usually much tastier and fresher than bagged bread, because bagged loafs can lay on the shelves for two or three days. Unbagged bread, though, is always shipped from the bakery in the morning, and is thrown out by the end of the day if unsold.

[FSTargetDrone]

Are you trying to say Americans buy all their bread wrapped?

Wow...weird

Down here, bakeries often sell fresh bread straight from the shelves, without any sort of wrapping. You just grab a plastic bag, pick the loaf you want and bag it yourself. It's usually much tastier and fresher than bagged bread, because bagged loafs can lay on the shelves for two or three days. Unbagged bread, though, is always shipped from the bakery in the morning, and is thrown out by the end of the day if unsold.

No, not all of it. If you go into a bakery you will find fresh loaves of all kinds of specialty breads unwrapped. Sorry, I was a bit unclear, but I was talking about the majority, if not all, of the bread for sale in a supermarket. The sort of regular, everyday sliced, mass-produced "Wonder Bread" type stuff in the US will be individually wrapped in plastic bags:



Many of the large supermarkets have bakery sections and they will sell unwrapped breads and pastries on display in cases (that are of course wrapped as you buy them). But if you are just going in for the boring old sliced bread for your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you will pick out one of dozens of varieties of pre-packaged loaves. But they will never just be sitting out in the open like the ones in the Russian picture.

EDIT: And by the way, when you get bread like the one in the picture I inserted, you will sometimes find the loaf sealed in tightly-wrapped cellophane, as well as being covered with the looser plastic bag as seen in the pic. So it's wrapped twice. You can just make out the secondary wrapping through the outer bag.

[Raxmei]

Continuing on the bread hijack, my local store sells the hippie fancy breads in unsealed paper sleeves. You can generally buy unwrapped pastries, but not bread.

[Zed Snardbody]

I miss working in the bakery now. One of things that amused me most was when we had these upper class fucks* come in and buy the expensive non factory wrapped bread we backed on site and ask me to put it in the bread slicer.

Not that I minded, I just grew up enjoying being able to cut pieces off a loaf of bread myself. Every now and then we'd get people who would want the french bread and baguette cut that way to, which seemed really odd.

*scorn stems from a whole host of other annoying things, not the bread stuff.

[Stofsk]

Not that I minded, I just grew up enjoying being able to cut pieces off a loaf of bread myself.

Really? I grew up utterly frustrated with having to slice pieces off a loaf of bread. The knife was never sharp enough, the pieces I cut were either too thick, or too thin (and thus broke up in my hands), or too uneven.

Of course, my solution to that was to get my mother to cut my bread.

[K. A. Pital]

Now Russia resurges with new confidence and power due to a stronger leader, rising price of oil, etc- but it's unclear if that's enough to get it back to a real great power with functioning state institutions, a non-negative birth rate, low corruption, and a credible military.

Nop. Oil economy cannot transform an investment-uncompetitive country in anything else but Nigeria (Africa's biggest oil producer). Sad, yes. But if we want to change that, we need science, innovations and strong state policy in innovations, as well as the rise of domestic production in all spheres (wasting own capital, i.e. the means of production, in exchange for consumption goods must be the dumbest fucking policy ever) - to re-create the diversified economy - food industry, transportation, heavy industry - sectors which were brutally destroyed or mortally damaged.

As for "non-negative birthrate", who are we kidding? Ourselves? During the baby-boom of late Brezhnew years people were looking into the future with confidence. Now? For Christ's sake, most of the businesses are extremely short-lived, just to get money and then hop off from Russia, taking all the capitals with you. If a company functions over 3 years on the market - without going completely bankrupt due to lack of investment - that's a real rarity already. Patriotism? Ha-ha-ha. Could've worked if the USSR was preserved and worked out better to create a light-industry and services market sector, but now... who wants to be the patriot of a country which, most know, will sooner or later desintegrate if all goes the way it's going now? Yugoslavia's fate has instilled fear into all.

Credible military? The dicsipline has fallen to shit, and _this_ military and _this_ police are no longer any more credible than street thugs. Because of contract soldiers, whom you can't even report to superiors (well, you can, but there won't be any effect quite sure), the Army is turning into a 2-year prison equivalent. And there is little what we can do - totally dismantle and re-create the army, probably... that's all.

And last of all, "low corruption"? Since 1991 the corruption has grown to 99%. Everyone is buy-able. Politics is business and business is politics.

Those idiots in the 90's claimed that "allright, we have now thieves instead of communists, but look - when thieves will steal enough, they will start to care about the property, the people, build functioning police, etc...". Suddenly they found out that the thieves protect _only_ their own property and have absolutely zero incentive to protect the property of someone else - and off to the streets they went to beg for bread. I feel pity for them, even if they're morons.

Good luck, President Ivanov. You'll need it.

I sure as hell hope the bastard NEVER gets elected. He's corrupt as hell, IMHO more corrupt than Putin - and that's a very _low_ standard, y'know, though no one can top Yeltsinist thugs.

I've been to many, many countries in the world, and I can say that a less corrupt autocracy is superior to a more corrupt democracy, rule of thumb. The 1980 USSR was an autocracy with very low corruption levels compared to modern Russia. If the Gorbachov-Yeltsin plot to destroy the USSR would fail, we would have something closer to modern Belarus, but even better, since in 1985-1993 Belarus was also ravaged by disastrous policies of Gorbachov and post-Gorbachovian leadership. Only Lukashenko could stop it, but at a high cost. Still, in _many_ ways the Belorussian autocracy is a lot more people-friendly than modern Russian "democracy".

[Vympel]

Nop. Oil economy cannot transform an investment-uncompetitive country in anything else but Nigeria (Africa's biggest oil producer). Sad, yes. But if we want to change that, we need science, innovations and strong state policy in innovations, as well as the rise of domestic production in all spheres (wasting own capital, i.e. the means of production, in exchange for consumption goods must be the dumbest fucking policy ever) - to re-create the diversified economy - food industry, transportation, heavy industry - sectors which were brutally destroyed or mortally damaged.

As for "non-negative birthrate", who are we kidding? Ourselves? During the baby-boom of late Brezhnew years people were looking into the future with confidence. Now? For Christ's sake, most of the businesses are extremely short-lived, just to get money and then hop off from Russia, taking all the capitals with you. If a company functions over 3 years on the market - without going completely bankrupt due to lack of investment - that's a real rarity already. Patriotism? Ha-ha-ha. Could've worked if the USSR was preserved and worked out better to create a light-industry and services market sector, but now... who wants to be the patriot of a country which, most know, will sooner or later desintegrate if all goes the way it's going now? Yugoslavia's fate has instilled fear into all.

Credible military? The dicsipline has fallen to shit, and _this_ military and _this_ police are no longer any more credible than street thugs. Because of contract soldiers, whom you can't even report to superiors (well, you can, but there won't be any effect quite sure), the Army is turning into a 2-year prison equivalent. And there is little what we can do - totally dismantle and re-create the army, probably... that's all.

And last of all, "low corruption"? Since 1991 the corruption has grown to 99%. Everyone is buy-able. Politics is business and business is politics.

Those idiots in the 90's claimed that "allright, we have now thieves instead of communists, but look - when thieves will steal enough, they will start to care about the property, the people, build functioning police, etc...". Suddenly they found out that the thieves protect _only_ their own property and have absolutely zero incentive to protect the property of someone else - and off to the streets they went to beg for bread. I feel pity for them, even if they're morons.

Good luck, President Ivanov. You'll need it.

I sure as hell hope the bastard NEVER gets elected. He's corrupt as hell, IMHO more corrupt than Putin - and that's a very _low_ standard, y'know, though no one can top Yeltsinist thugs.

I've been to many, many countries in the world, and I can say that a less corrupt autocracy is superior to a more corrupt democracy, rule of thumb. The 1980 USSR was an autocracy with very low corruption levels compared to modern Russia. If the Gorbachov-Yeltsin plot to destroy the USSR would fail, we would have something closer to modern Belarus, but even better, since in 1985-1993 Belarus was also ravaged by disastrous policies of Gorbachov and post-Gorbachovian leadership. Only Lukashenko could stop it, but at a high cost. Still, in _many_ ways the Belorussian autocracy is a lot more people-friendly than modern Russian "democracy".

I think you're being too negative. It's something of a cliche that Russia's economic forces are solely dicated by oil- an article in a business magazine I like to read a year or so ago noted that even if the price of oil was to fall by, IIRC $20.00 (at the time the price of oil was much lower than it was now) Russia's economy would not be anywhere close to badly harmed. Wish I still had the article.

As to the military- I think you're being nostalgic for the Soviet military- even back then 2 years of military service was much loathed and people did their damndest to get out of it- it's the same with bullying- the practice of more senior soldiers has been around since the Red Army, the introduction of contract soldiers didn't create it (in fact, a professional military is the only chance they have of eradicating it!).

[Netko]

Aside from the interesting yet extremely odd soda/glass vending machine thing, I find the image of the loose, unwrapped and cut loaves of bread in disarray on the shelves a bit weird. In my 32 years, I've never seen loaves of bread unwrapped, let alone scattered about in any grocery store here in the US! I am guessing that if a shopper to the Russian store there didn't need or couldn't afford an entire loaf, he or she cut off half of it? Some of it looks burned, or at least discolored. We're so spoiled here in the US that such bread would never be on store shelves in such a state, let alone for sale!

Can't seem to find the image, but if it what I think it is,

You're not spoiled, you just eat crap bread full of conservatives daily as standard, while in Europe the standard is fresh bread which tastes infinitely better, not to mention being far less full of various crap, but is good for only a day or two tops.

This is also the reason that you don't see sliced bread being sold - sliced bread hardens and becomes uneatable if made from fresh bread very quickly (half a day), while if you keep the bread as a loaf, at worst you have to slice of a slice which is "bad" (not really, just hard) and the rest is still good.

In any case, different cultures and all, but don't think the American way is much better - you pay for your wrapped, longer lasting bread in taste which is absolutely horrific compared to fresh bread.

[FSTargetDrone]

You're not spoiled, you just eat crap bread full of conservatives daily as standard,

I think you mean we have "preservatives" in our bread. But there are plenty of bread-eating conservatives. Especially the white-bread-eating-kind.

while in Europe the standard is fresh bread which tastes infinitely better,

We have that too, but it's a lot more expensive. And it's never loose on a shelf. Instead it's in glass cases or the like.

[Pelranius]

They don't wrap the bread in most Taiwan bakeries. Though I don't think you're generally allowed to actually cut up the loaves before purchase.

[K. A. Pital]

I think you're being too negative. It's something of a cliche that Russia's economic forces are solely dicated by oil- an article in a business magazine I like to read a year or so ago noted that even if the price of oil was to fall by, IIRC $20.00 (at the time the price of oil was much lower than it was now) Russia's economy would not be anywhere close to badly harmed. Wish I still had the article.

Regardless of what they say, I have witnessed firsthand a drop in oil revenue for my local region just this year. Everything essentially came to a halt. People think that "Russian economy" is some sort of productive force... well, you know... that makes goods (machinery, food, etc) and stuff. This is wrong. Russian economy has drastically changed, productive services constitute a very small part of the economy and "services" is a major part (of which most are short-term monetary speculation).
But comparing this to the developed countries, which have "outsourced" their production industries to the Third World cheap workers, Russia has simply destroyed it's industry. That's all.

So, while in comparison terms to the overall "economy" the oil revenue might be small, take that away and well, nothing_ will be left. Aside from oil and gas, Russia has few things that it really _produces_ and sells - mostly also crude matter exports. So all these "services" would evaporate just as soon as the monetary mass of oil exports evaporates. Stabilization funds in foreign currency can prolong the agony, but they can't save unless oil prices come back up.

The whole problem is with production. Services, as we found out, are worth precisely dick. You can't eat money. You can't even sell your money to your neighbor if there's no real industry behind it, no real machinery, production assets - this money would be worth nil.

As to the military- I think you're being nostalgic for the Soviet military- even back then 2 years of military service was much loathed and people did their damndest to get out of it- it's the same with bullying- the practice of more senior soldiers has been around since the Red Army, the introduction of contract soldiers didn't create it (in fact, a professional military is the only chance they have of eradicating it!).

Not that I'm being nostalgic, I talk a lot to people who were and are in the field (I'm a member of the VIF, which has those people plenty). The difference between Soviet army and now is that during the Soviet army, more strict discipline from the officers eliminated some of the more notorious "dedovshina", but now the officers cannot do that much for the soldiers (not to mention that the officers themselves are becoming increasingly corrupt, involved in drug trade, machinations, crime, etc.) The problem with contract soldiers is that they are totally free to act at their will, the officers cannot discipline them any more.

The practice of "senior soldiers" has been there since the pre-Revolutionary army, actually, but I don't think either Tsarist Russia army or Red Army equalled to what is going on now in the Army.

Frankly, the "dedovshina" has been growing in Brezhew times, but since the downfall of the Union, it just became ubiqioutous and omniscient, everywhere from basic schools to militia to the Army - with differing severity levels.

[Lord Zentei]

The whole problem is with production. Services, as we found out, are worth precisely dick. You can't eat money. You can't even sell your money to your neighbor if there's no real industry behind it, no real machinery, production assets - this money would be worth nil.

I take issue with the idea that services are worthless. Certainly you need production as well, but to say that services are worthless is false. As for instance, 80% of the US economy is in services. Intending to rely on industry and rejecting a transition to services is itself anti-progressive.

However, the transition to a service based economy must be preceded by a healthy industirial economy that is geared for such a transition. For an industiral economy to self destruct and for people then to expect services to save the day is a no-go.

[K. A. Pital]

I take issue with the idea that services are worthless.

They have no natural value, as I'm sure you know. You can't have a 100% services economy unless someone produces the physical stuff... food, housing, etc.

Certainly you need production as well, but to say that services are worthless is false.

Unless you outsource the production of physical goods, or make the productivity very high so that a small percept of the labour force can satisfy the whole demand of physical goods... which is what the West achieved through:
a) outsourcing production for cheap labour
b) automatization
Unless this is done, you can't have any sort of "healthy" services-based economy.

As for instance, 80% of the US economy is in services. Intending to rely on industry and rejecting a transition to services is itself anti-progressive.

The 20% percent must be satisfying the domestic demand, + outsourcing. And it goes both ways - US can outsource it's services to dominantly industrial, agrarian places (banks, etc), for which those workers have to pay up with their natural product. The US economy can sustain itself this way.
Can Russia? Who needs Russian services when there are superior Western services already? And how are you going to outsource your industry, if you have destroyed it?

However, the transition to a service based economy must be preceded by a healthy industirial economy that is geared for such a transition. For an industiral economy to self destruct and for people then to expect services to save the day is a no-go.

Of course. That was the whole point. You don't get services by _destroying_ the industrial sector, you simply have the service sector grow _on_ the basis of the industrial sector. And if the services sector requires more workforce, you then outsource industrial production and shift the industiral workers over to services.

Now, which of these is suitable for Russia? None. The industry is destroyed; not outsourced, the services have been created by _destroying_ the underlying industry and agriculture. That's why the proportion of services grew so fast

[Lord Zentei]

I take issue with the idea that services are worthless.

They have no natural value, as I'm sure you know. You can't have a 100% services economy unless someone produces the physical stuff... food, housing, etc.

"Natural value"? If you mean what I think you mean, I reject the concept.

Certainly you need production as well, but to say that services are worthless is false.

Unless you outsource the production of physical goods, or make the productivity very high so that a small percept of the labour force can satisfy the whole demand of physical goods... which is what the West achieved through:
a) outsourcing production for cheap labour
b) automatization
Unless this is done, you can't have any sort of "healthy" services-based economy.

Well, that is pretty much obvious. But "services are worthless" is too sweeping a statement.

As for instance, 80% of the US economy is in services. Intending to rely on industry and rejecting a transition to services is itself anti-progressive.

The 20% percent must be satisfying the domestic demand, + outsourcing. And it goes both ways - US can outsource it's services to dominantly industrial, agrarian places (banks, etc), for which those workers have to pay up with their natural product. The US economy can sustain itself this way.
Can Russia? Who needs Russian services when there are superior Western services already? And how are you going to outsource your industry, if you have destroyed it?

Quite so. Though that doesn't change my point.

However, the transition to a service based economy must be preceded by a healthy industirial economy that is geared for such a transition. For an industiral economy to self destruct and for people then to expect services to save the day is a no-go.

Of course. That was the whole point. You don't get services by _destroying_ the industrial sector, you simply have the service sector grow _on_ the basis of the industrial sector. And if the services sector requires more workforce, you then outsource industrial production and shift the industiral workers over to services.

Then my issue was the way in which you made your point earlier.

However, you are still being too pessimistic.

Now, which of these is suitable for Russia? None. The industry is destroyed; not outsourced, the services have been created by _destroying_ the underlying industry and agriculture. That's why the proportion of services grew so fast

The industries were also destroyed because they were not geared for such a transition. While Russian services were not competitive with western ones, the same may have been true of the industrial sector to an extent vis a vis the productivity-per-worker. The transition should have been managed with the idea of focusing on such sectors where Russia had a chance of being competitive instead of going for rapid structural change.

The questionable manner in which many industries were "privatised" (read: handed out for tuppence) didn't help much either.

[K. A. Pital]

If you mean what I think you mean, I reject the concept.

I mean natural production. People can't survive on thin air. They can't all just do services, they have to have physical production that satisfies them all, at the very least. You can't just "reject the concept" that natural production to satisfy people is required.

But "services are worthless" is too sweeping a statement.

Not worthless par se, but worthless without underlying industry.

However, you are still being too pessimistic.

I live here. And all this "services ahoy!" talk is appaling to me - while many millions in the post-Soviet space are in hunger and yet more in poverty. If capitalism is so great, why can't it satisfly all the basic material needs for all, instead of making some work in "services" at the expense of those who produce food, housing and other physical production "for himself and the other guy"?

The industries were also destroyed because they were not geared for such a transition. While Russian services were not competitive with western ones, the same may have been true of the industrial sector to an extent vis a vis the productivity-per-worker.

If you mean physical production, many of the industries were good enough to produce at least for our own population. Now we haven't got even that.

The transition should have been managed with the idea of focusing on such sectors where Russia had a chance of being competitive instead of going for rapid structural change.

Indeed. And, what was required, to open certain sectors, like space, oil, up for foreign investment. The utter destruction of Russian agriculture and industry now allows for food dependency. We pay for this food in currency every year as capitals flow out of Russia.

The questionable manner in which many industries were "privatised" (read: handed out for tuppence) didn't help much either.

The privatization was a sham. Though it was done in the exact juntist way as the earlier Chile program by Pinochet's "boys" - total and rapid dissolution of the state sector (as opposed to _not_ touching the majority of state sector, but allowing the market sector to grow).
But frankly, if you know, the citizens were given out vouchers, which were in the course of a few days concentrated in the hands of people with monetary capitals and influence. Capital wants to grow itself, the old imperative. And so the majority of the country ended up as paupers while a bunch of richies was shouting about how great life has become

[PeZook]

Isn't it that services are important, because they manufacture (or, rather, conserve) time, as in - skilled workers and scientists get more time by using services, thus being able to devote more of it to work, rest and education, improving their efficiency?

Economy is simply a way for society to efficiently distribute scarce wealth. Shortly, what people want is stuff - as much stuff as they can. Something needs to produce stuff, and it's more efficient for specialized service workers to take the burden off people who make the stuff, so that they can make even more. Services without industry are worthless, because nobody will actually make things that make civilization go around.

[Netko]

You're not spoiled, you just eat crap bread full of conservatives daily as standard,

I think you mean we have "preservatives" in our bread. But there are plenty of bread-eating conservatives. Especially the white-bread-eating-kind.

yeah, thats a mistranslation on my part. Yeah, preservatives is what I meant.

while in Europe the standard is fresh bread which tastes infinitely better,

We have that too, but it's a lot more expensive. And it's never loose on a shelf. Instead it's in glass cases or the like.

Does them being in the glass cases really matter that much? Unless the shelf is obviously dirty or something, there isn't much of a difference...

Again I haven't seen the image of the shelf, if you could link it, I might be able to form a more exact opinion.

[Lord Zentei]

If you mean what I think you mean, I reject the concept.

I mean natural production. People can't survive on thin air. They can't all just do services, they have to have physical production that satisfies them all, at the very least. You can't just "reject the concept" that natural production to satisfy people is required.

Then we seem to be having a disconnect of terminology: you mean "physical production", yes? As opposed to implied "natural", or "intrinsic" value...

But "services are worthless" is too sweeping a statement.

Not worthless par se, but worthless without underlying industry.

One may argue that an economy without the one or the other is not going to accomplish much.

However, you are still being too pessimistic.

I live here. And all this "services ahoy!" talk is appaling to me - while many millions in the post-Soviet space are in hunger and yet more in poverty. If capitalism is so great, why can't it satisfly all the basic material needs for all, instead of making some work in "services" at the expense of those who produce food, housing and other physical production "for himself and the other guy"?

I meant too pessimistic about Russian potential. Capitalism is "great", as in it allows for efficient production, though lawless capitalism is rather less so. And of course, you cannot expect it to be applied overnight.

The industries were also destroyed because they were not geared for such a transition. While Russian services were not competitive with western ones, the same may have been true of the industrial sector to an extent vis a vis the productivity-per-worker.

If you mean physical production, many of the industries were good enough to produce at least for our own population. Now we haven't got even that.

Nah, I was referring to competitiveness against industries in other countries.

[K. A. Pital]

Then we seem to be having a disconnect of terminology: you mean "physical production", yes? As opposed to implied "natural", or "intrinsic" value...

No, not "natural" value. Merely physical production. Though it's pretty clear that if physical production has zero value while the population requires food, something is wrong.

One may argue that an economy without the one or the other is not going to accomplish much.

Most economies started as large, almos totally agriculture-based, then industrial development and finally the growth of services. You get all of them if they grow in a consequence.

I meant too pessimistic about Russian potential.

I don't know if there's such a subject in Western schools called "economic geography", but was quite illuminating for me. And yes, I'm pessimisting because I can see the inner workings of today's business and yesterday's socialism. Both have had problems, but I don't think today's "business" is one inch better. Socialism created this infrastructure which is now being used up by capitalism in a "liquidation" fashion - it's not "owners changed from state to private", it's "private owners find it more effective to destroy production assets, then move capitals out". Russian "potential"?

From what I see now, this country has just recently been on the verge of collapse and desintegration. And quite frankly, the most common type of business (3-year "money-washing" firms created to generate capital and self-destruct) makes me wonder if this isn't going to happen as soon as Putin's popularity fades - the government has only a 28% rating, Putin's popularity and clever PR is perhaps the only thing that keeps it afloat.

Capitalism is "great", as in it allows for efficient production

I don't know if economic efficiency is the only criterion for socioeconomic systems. I consider a system which produces enough food to feed all people with 3500 cal and potentially able to sate 12 billion (and had the productive potential to do this for quite a long time now), but failing to sate 6 billion with close to 1 billion in hunger from year to year "efficient" only in a machinery term. Is capitalism, as an economic machine efficient? Sure. It separates those who are "uncompetitive" consumers and locks capitals in the most productive spheres (i.e. where circulating them brings most revenue on capital). This mechanism of capitalism that is based on cutting off, lowering costs, etc. leads to rather vicious consequences, like the aforementioned hunger and poverty.

Nah, I was referring to competitiveness against industries in other countries.

I know. The mere fact that they were socialist industries, and from a poorer country - the Soviet bloc didn't have such enormous concentration of capitals, it was always 50-70% behind the capitalist West in the terms of capital size. And this sealed their destruction by greater capitals of the West.

Frankly, even the productiveness of labour in both oil and energy supergiants in Russia has drastically fallen since Soviet times (just as Russian internal consumption), but the prices have risen and therefore those companies have increased their capitals greatly and now are considered "competitive for investment". Does this mean they are effective? The mere capitalization allows for things that were previously unthinkable, just as price conjunctures.

[FSTargetDrone]

yeah, thats a mistranslation on my part. Yeah, preservatives is what I meant.

Not to worry. Your English is better than any attempt I could make at whatever your native language is!

Does them being in the glass cases really matter that much? Unless the shelf is obviously dirty or something, there isn't much of a difference...

Again I haven't seen the image of the shelf, if you could link it, I might be able to form a more exact opinion.

This is the image I was referring to as seen in Sheppard's original link here:



Of course I don't know exactly the sort of store that image was taken in (nor its exclamation!), but it looks a tad grungy. Some of the loaves there look to be somewhat discolored (though it may be the image itself). Some (but not most) of the other images of food stores in the link show decidedly bare shelves. There's one of what looks to be a refrigerated case of meat with very little meat and lots of case. Lots of canned stuff though.

The point I was trying to make was that you wouldn't find such a display of that kind of bread here in the US in most large grocery stores. Even convenience stores have racks of sealed loaves.

I make no judgment about the quality or taste of the bread in the picture, but you just wouldn't see that here. Even in the 1980s.

I love this bread tangent!