On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 02:47 PM, Michael Meeropol wrote: > > I think the major take-away has to be what Piketty said --- the privileges > of the party elite were very dramatic and impossible to quantify ----
Agreed, Micheal. Also impossible to quantify were the "invisible earnings" of the masses in terms of their access to employment, education, health care, sports and cultural facilities, vacation and retirement benefits, etc. often overlooked by Western analysts in their one-sided view of the former Soviet Union. Whether these offset the "labour disciplinary measures" introduced in the 30's to forcefully raise labour productivity in the interest of rapid industrialization is another matter. As was the predominantly piecework pay system aimed at speed-up which we roundly condemn here. I doubt most Soviet workers were as committed as Stakhanov to mining coal well above their quota in the interests of building the socialist economy. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29323): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29323 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104795089/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
