--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why does the Japanese produce better vehicles and the old Soviet vehicles ... as massed produced . . . not specialized .. . were of an inferior quality? One thread of thought says the Soviet system was inferior to the American system and the Soviet workers were lazy, stupid, culturally backwards and lacked freedom of _expression due to their bureaucracy. This is the exact argument advanced by a section of the intellectual stratum of Japan against their American counterparts.
--- It's not because they were lazy or stupid, it's because they couldn't be fired for doing a bad job. Or most anything else -- many workplaces had one or two incorrigible alcoholics who would come in to work and be told to sleep it off in the back room. (They were given the worst jobs though.) All Soviet goods were sold with the date of manufacture, and the purchaser invariable made sure not to buy something made after a holiday or on a Monday (to avoid hangover-related shoddiness) or at teh end of the month (which meant everybody was working ful speed to fulfill the plan). Note that in areas where the Soviets _did_ discipline labor -- the military and aeronautics, for instance -- their goods were surberb. _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. http://messenger.yahoo.com
