Pew Research poll: East Europeans prefer communism to capitalism

[murdoch]

"Would you say that the economic situation for most today is better, worse, or about the same then under communism?"

Even in Poland, "worse or the same" is tied with "better". In Hungary, "worse" is 72%.

Pew asked a number of poll questions.

In 1991, 76% of Lithuanians approved of the change to capitalism. That number is now 50%.

Only 36% of Ukranians now think the move to capitalism was good - 47% disapprove of it.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1396/european-opinion-two-decades-after-berlin-wall-fall-communism

[Cleita]

1. Poor people. They got the worst of communism, totalitarian

dictatorships and now the worst kind of capitalism, the laissez faire kind. The think I remember the most about the propaganda we got about the eastern bloc communist countries were long lines of people waiting in the snow for bread, shoes or anything else that was in short supply. Stores had shelves empty of goods. But people did have health care, shelter and basic needs met although they were far below our standards.

[murdoch]

4. Our standards

The thing is, Russia's GNP was about that of Brazil's in 1917. The US was decades ahead of Russia in economic development in 1917. Yet starting in 1929, the press began comparing the US standard of living to the Russian one. At 12-13 years of age, that would have been like a football match between a high school freshman team and the NFL.

From 1917 until the 1950s, Russia plowed most of its money into capital. Living standards did not improve much, but the economy grew enormously. Much better and faster than the US - when the US and Europe was in a Depression, Russia was importing labor on a large scale and putting up factories all over the place. From the 1950s to the 1980s, Russia shifted its focus to consumer goods. Growth slowed but living standards improved enormously. The shift from Stalinist capital growth to concentration on consumer happiness did mean that the USSR would never catch up to the US though.

[Cleita]

6. Like I said, the information we got back during the cold war was

highly propagandized.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. I've spent lots of time in Lithuania

Taught law there, right after their independence. The poll is deceptive. I suspect that in the countryside, 70-80% would prefer communism to the pure capitalism they have now.

The city folks? more than 50%, easy. Unemployment is raging. The youth cannot find jobs, and what jobs there are pay pennies. There is little investment capital, and what there is tends to be swallowed up by a couple of large projects that seem to fail. In other words, people are desperate and very unhappy. Worst off? the elderly and retired.

People miss the certainty of food, a roof, and medical care, not to mention a job. I am not surprised that the rest of eastern europe feels the same. People support Putin, and westerners wonder why. The answer is that Pure Capitalism, the goal of today's GOP is far worse for every individual, than their socialism.

[izquierdista]

3. I can understand that

The haves and the have-mores took all of the wealth of the nation for themselves and left the proletariat with less than they had under Communism.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. very well stated.

that's exactly what happened.