this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Remember that growth is relative. GDP per capita in the mid 30s was still three times higher in countries like the states, UK, and Switzerland compared to the Soviet Union. This trend continued into the next decades. Pretty much all of Europe had a stronger economy. And there weren’t mass famines and rampant scarcity issues to the same extent in the west. Yes the Soviet economy did grow, but the libertarian argument is about efficiency.
And sure, price in isolation isn’t a super useful indicator. But many factors influence price (competition from profit seeking, availability of resources, etc). As for the latter part, companies do run market research, including non hostile espionage, to find what consumers want most. I personally don’t see where that would be irrational. It directly fills needs.
And how did that pan out for high GDP France? GDP per capita is a bad statistic to use. Two economists trading a random object and 20 dollars back and forth raises the GDP of a place by forty dollars per cycle
Thats because they exported their economic problems to the colonies. Look up how many people starved to death In British colonial India. Also the soviet union ended the previously periodic famines when their collectivization policy was fully implemented
What sort of efficiency? Because Marxists argue that capitalism is really good at making profit and really bad comparatively at efficiently improving human outcomes.
That is literally why it has low information value.
1 - Are you saying that France made poor economic plans because they were invaded by the Germans? It might be because they were being bombed and attacked during the deadliest and largest war in modern history. Devastating war tends to have devastating economic effects.
And trade is a good indicator of an economy. It turns out fair trade is massively beneficial to everyone. The study of the allocation of resources is what economics is all about. And I don’t think you’d say that poor countries had lower GDP because they didn’t have textbook economists trading 20s in the back rooms.
2 - The starvation you mention also correlates with India’s driest years on record for over a century in agricultural areas. These famines were later tamed by the import of western technology like railroads. And Britain still grew 3/4 of its own food, although decreasing, for much of this period.
I’m not calling the British innocent. They imposed taxes and tariffs that helped themselves, as they did with colonial America, and damaged the Raj economy as a result. They did not, however, “pillage” India, as some have oversimplified.
3 - What sort of human outcomes? The USSR had terrible housing, lower life expectancy than western countries, and had significantly worse technology, infrastructure, working conditions, and availability of goods and services. The USSR's economy growing at all doesn't equate to magic wonderland.
These are the human outcomes of states that detach people from their own interest (communism, socialism, fascism). It makes everyone equal at the cost of making everyone poor.
Libertarians argue that generally, free enterprise, and it's efficiency by extention, leads to better human outcomes. And the data seems to back it.