The Stalinist Empire…Book Review

I read The Stalinst Empire. It is one of a two book set by Ted Gottfried. The other is The Road to Communism. The set is called The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union.

The rise of Stalin. His ignominious reign. Taking communism world-wide, into China, Vietnam, and Spain as examples.  The tangled events leading to WWII. The disasters of central planning.

It is written for young adults. Very clear. I sometimes prefer books written for youth, as compared to those written for an adult audience, as a way to introduce myself to a historical topic. Then I can go further.

I will buy this book at amazon.com “new and used”, because I will want to refer to it again. It can be purchased there, in hardbound edition, for $4 plus $4 shipping.

The Stalinist Empire: Looking for Similarities

The Stalinist Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. By Ted Gottfried.

Looking for similarities. My comments are in italic.

1921 was a dire time. “In 1921, Lenin had instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP) to deal with this situation.” (p.31)
Does 2009 call for such policies?

Bolsheviks were the extreme left wing of the Social Democratic Labor Party  (p. 22). Does the name of that party sound familiar? “It, (the Social Democratic Labor party) was the organization that would evolve into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (p. 20).

Stalin “called for the collective ownership of the land” (p. 45). Does this sound eerily like nationalizing banks in 2009?

Lenin demanded “a purge of the Russian land from vermin…the idle rich, priests, bureaucrats, and slovenly and hysterical individuals.” (p. 42) Does this sound like present calls to embarrass and cap CEOs, investment bankers and the rich?

“The Central Committee ruled that a person would have to prove that he was a worker in a government authorized factory or business to obtain food.” (p. 46) Present Congressional friendliness to union demands recalls these measures. (See WSJ: Labor-Union Leaders Prepare Lengthy, Ambitious Agenda, March 2009)

Lenin’s crypt “provided the first Communist example of the cult of the personality. Joseph Stalin was to be its heir. (p. 18) Americans would never fall for this.

For a taste of the horrible fruits of the Communist era consider, in addition to the death by starvation of millions, the following:
“There were periodic orders from Moscow for the mass execution of prisoners. 50,000 prisoners were tied up with wire like logs, stacked in trucks, driven outside the camp, and shot. (p. 72)
“Many prisoners never reached the gulags, (camps) alive. They did not survive the horrors of the railway journey, which might last months, in overcrowded trucks, unheated in winter, unbearably hot in summer, with inadequate food, water and sanitation.” (p. 77)

Stalin writing

Neighborhood Conservation Clubs

Interview with Dan at AERO in Helena
March 5, 2009
Dan is the coordinator for Neighborhood Sustainability Clubs
The idea of clubs was hatched by Ben Brower, in the same ofice, after reading the book “Low Carbon Diet” The book was about individual low-carbon living. Since AERO’s mission is to “link people to create sustainable solutions”, Ben put the neighborhood template to the ideas in the book.

The meeting 2 days ago in Bozeman attracted a total of 15 people. “Ten of them were individuals interested in the concept”. The other 5 were him, Ben Brower, a local intern for the City of Bozeman and two other taxpayer supported employees, I would guess.

Helena is the pilot and Bozeman is the first franchise. In Helena, they have 2 clubs that are active that meet about every month. There are 6 other clubs that “meet every few months.” This is a resounding success, one that merits effort by city employees, and much press coverage? The Chronicle has been promoting it.

Dan thinks that clubs make sense from both a environmental as well as an economic point of view. They “find and promote cost effective ways to lower utility bills and energy costs.” It sound so much like an individualistic, free-market concept, about how to save your own hard-earned cash. But it is a collective organization promising individual gain. That is a suspicious blend.

My big reservation is about spying. Neighbor watching neighbor’s electric meter through binoculars. Children turning their parents in. Social coercion. I doubt they’ll get many people willing to subject themselves to the expectations and scrutiny of their neighbor. This is what we see in Cuba. China’s Cultural Revolution had aspects of this, neighbors enforcing the Party’s dogma.

The following is a quote from the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:
In Helena, the clubs have done household energy assessments, set conservation targets, collectively bought and shared a push lawnmower, taken turns picking up and hauling each other’s recycling, and replaced water-intensive plants with native plants and shrubs, Wold said.

Sharing a push lawnmower? How do you get out of that commitment? Will your neighbors ostracize you if you abandon the club and mow the May forest of grass with a gas mower? What if your recylcing pile is not its usual size? Will someone from the Club come over to “encourage” you to keep recycling? Will pictures of your sprinklers going at a non-approved time be emailed to other Club members as a chastisement?

As I said before, few people are going to volunteer for this level of hassle, enviro-moralism and scrutiny.

NPR, Obama, Medicine

The president has plans for medicine.

He is bringing people together.

The best plan is a market.

NPR this morning told of President Obama’s desire to “reform” health care. His three big goals are:

1. Increase the number of people “covered”

2. Lower costs

3. Improved quality

The system known to do such things is that voluntary, non-coercive thing called the free market. Markets give more goods, better goods, and at a lower cost. This is true whether the goods be avocados or heart transplants. Government schemes cannot deliver.

Obama is calling a meeting. He is bringing people together; Big Insurance, Big Government (agencies), members of Congress, Big Medicine (doctors and hospitals), consumers. Did he leave anyone out? The payers. The taxpayers, the producers, the earners.

Justice is best achieved in voluntary transactions, aka markets, not government planning.

Oh, my poor kids and grandkids.

I Hardly Know Myself (Song)

This is the video of me singing I Hardly Know Myself, words of which appear in a previous post.

White House Business Management

My previous blog post detailed how feckless it is for Congress to manage business. Today’s Bozeman Daily Chronicle, National Digest section, has Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, making management calls. He tells U.S. car companies they build too many gas guzzlers and they haven’t invested enough in alternative energy vehicles, they have an outdated health care cost structure. Way to call the shots, Rahm!

“GM and Chrysler have received $17.4 billion in loans, and are seeking an additional $21.6 in aid.”

Czar of Czars

Czar of Czars

We have an Energy Czar. The President is trying to name a Car Czar. We have a de facto Finance Czar. We need a Czar of all the lower Czars. That would have to be the President.

This will necessitate a change in the Constitution. Whereas Article II. Section 1. now states: The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United State of America. It will have to be changed to: The executive power shall be vested in a Czar of the United States of America.

Further, Section 2 will have to read: The Czar shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States…

Note: Czar is the Russian equivalent of Caesar.

Benefits of Socialism

Starving Vietnamese Man

Obesity is rare.

Canal in gulag

Everyone works together.

Mass Transit Bus

Everyone enjoys mass transit.

Communal, not individual transportation.

Lining up for work

Union contracts and work rules bring corporations to their knees. Everyone is equal.

When government control replaces free markets, you get:

Ø Lines, ration cards, shortages

Ø Make-work projects

Ø Neighborhood spying, prison camps, public self-denunciation sessions

Ø People escaping

Ø Subsistence farming, barely subsistence

Ø Powerful unions, no jobs

Ø Spirit-less state churches, shuttered up

Government control, GovCon, is another name for socialism and central economic planning. It is government on steroids. Prosperity, initiative, enthusiasm, true grit, pluck, and personal growth wilt.