That Time the Soviets Tried to Abolish Money

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[@Asianometry]

Go to sponsr.is/cs_asianometry and use code ASIANOMETRY to save 25% off today. Thanks to Curiosity Stream for sponsoring today’s video.

[@hugod2000]

Brilliant video. Thanks for posting.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

I find it interesting that most capitalist countries moved off the gold standard towards fiat currency. They build their value on debt. There is a limit to debt. I find it ironic that the very russia is backing their currency by gold which has actual value. Backing a currency by gold has always made a nation strong. Lets see how all of this plays out.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

universal basic income is the socialist dream. That is coming after the destroy capitalism.

[@erikue832]

Great job getting a sponsorship!

[@2tothe253]

3':51 Something wrong with the time here that I don't think you mean June but August. WWI did not really start until August (Yes, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28th, Russia mobilization on 30th but the rest of the belligerent European powers were not at war at the end of July).

[@SgtRocko]

When I was in school in the USSR (in the 70s) every time we'd get a new teacher it was traditional that one of the kids would ask "If we're Communist, why do we still use money?" And it was traditional that the teacher would respond "We're still in Socialism right now, when we achieve Communism we won't need money. Now sit down" LOL

[@muha0644]

After Stalin, the idea of communism was abandoned. Khrushchev and all the goons after him didn't care anymore about constructing communism. Brezhnev's constitution was perhaps the last thing that sealed the fate of the USSR (probably not, though) There were still people that wanted communism (still today, even) but the ruling party didn't care anymore. It was about survival.

[@toddmarshall7573]

When I was in school in the USA (in the 50's) they said communism was the best system. It just hadn't been done right yet. They also said it could only work if the whole world was communist. Care to know who "they" were? We are far more communist now than the communists were then.

[@java4653]

​@@muha0644 Sure, that happened.

[@jonnyd9351]

@@muha0644 Of course it was abandoned, the whole country had lived through the Party’s attempts and no amount of propaganda could wipe those memories.

[@muha0644]

@@jonnyd9351 So how do you explain that the people did not like the revisionism? Your source is "i made it up"

[@randrothify]

Old Soviet joke: “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”

[@omidnamadi9262]

😂😂

[@charlesduncan2051]

I'm sure that joke went a thousand different ways. They pretend to cook, we pretend to eat.

[@domesticcat1725]

и сејчас имајемо тож саму анекдоту у западу 💀

[@brandonmorel2658]

This sounds straight out of the greasy mouth of Sizek. He always tells old soviet jokes like this on his public appearances.

[@kyttraus]

It wasn't a joke

[@angelarch5352]

"It's not money, it's a Ruble." "Well can I have some bread then?" "That will cost you 200 Rubles..."

[@huwpatt3817]

Careful - might happen 2 US$

[@tomlxyz]

​@@huwpatt3817you seem to not understood what the comment was about

[@DrCruel]

@@tomlxyz He knows exactly what the comment was about. He also knows what the woke are up to.

[@ibot2157]

​@@huwpatt3817Well anything "might" happen

[@elio7610]

Lamp oil, rope, bombs. You want it? It's yours my friend, as long as you have enough rubies. Sorry Link, I can't give credits. Come back when you're a little, MMMMMMMMMMM richer.

[@nubidubi23]

"We need another unit of accounting" Oh you mean something people can trade in exchange for products and services? Something used specifically for exchanges as to not confuse people with its value? That would be nice to have. Hope they find it

[@histoking6632]

How about we give people a token for the goods we buy, which they will give to the next person who will sell them goods. The token will be useful as people will give goods in exchange of that token and will give the token to get their desired goods.

[@ideologybot4592]

Guys, guys, guys... the point isn't to replace money with money. The thing about money is, it can be traded among people of their own volition, which could make economics decentralized and give institutions outside the government actual power. The point is, create a unit of account that only the government can use, something that reflects scarcity for internal accounting and capital allocation, but can't be traded with anyone but the government and thus doesn't give anyone the ability to use it for their own self-interest. See? So much better.

[@revwarnut]

@@ideologybot4592 Of course.. for total control of the populace.. Except for those in power of course. They are exempt from any of that..

[@tunasandwich8049]

That sounds like a good idea! It should be like a piece of paper where it has a number identifying the value it represents!

[@CRneu]

@@Ba_shar bitcoin is just a way to scam people out of real money. "Use our fake money but plz give us real money in the mean time. Oh, oops! Our fake money is valueless now but I cashed out before it tanked." Bitcoin(and pretty much all cryptocurrencies) is a scam.

[@EnigPartyhaus]

That is the most fitting video length on the thumbnail for a video about the USSR

[@SOFTWAREMASTER]

Ikrrr lmao. I was thinking the same.

[@recca12]

Lol 1917

[@himanshusingh5214]

Ooops

[@twilightcitystudios]

Lol

[@Thot_Patrol_USA]

“b-b-but it says 19:16”

[@TheMaxKids]

“Print more money!” - the final cry of the creators of bad ideas.

[@ranjittyagi9354]

Print less money! 🤴

[@JudasBenPesach]

Money cannot be printed!

[@laststand6420]

​@@GarnilatorThat line of thinking is why we are in a recession and about to enter a depression due to every government on earth living above their means.

[@GetJesse]

@@laststand6420agreed

[@elizabethtamp1537]

Follow the Fed! QE is ...?

[@Rubashow]

Imagine you're the relative of some guy who was politically cleansed because he objected to nonsensical policies like that only to, a few years later, have the government admit that they were wrong ...

[@fss1704]

now imagine the one child policy going to three child policy going to four child policy with single son people having to take care of two elderly per person.

[@vugiabao5025]

@@fss1704you also enjoy all the resource the parents had. Biggest downside is not having siblings support

[@gwho]

The woke may do exactly the same thing if we I dulge them too much, and let them grab power

[@fss1704]

@@vugiabao5025 in a country in wich most of the population is already indebited and you inherit your parents debts, good try 50¢ army guy, but your comment only makes things way worse.

[@toddgunther8272]

Tell me you've been asleep for the last three years without telling me you've been asleep for the last three years...

[@3dstaco]

Communism: Free the working class from the oppressive bourgeoisie Also Communism: The government is your new boss that gives you work tokens instead of money (More like under new management)

[@mattm7798]

LOL right, now you don't HAVE to work for money, you GET to work for the state with even less incentive to excel than before...sounds like a utopia for innovation.

[@cv990a4]

The Soviet Union eventually had two forms of currency - cash and non-cash rubles. People were paid in cash, paid for goods in cash. But within most of the rest of the economy, activity was denominated in non-cash rubles. Prices within one industry could and did bear zero relation to how they were denominated in another industry. Inside the non-cash economy, rubles were just a way of keeping score. The system was set up to rigorously ensure that you could never cash-out non-cash rubles. One of the steps that Gorbachev took that undermined the whole edifice was allowing the leakage of non-cash to cash. It's unclear whether he (and those around him) understood what he was doing at the time. The people who figured out how to game the system (by cashing out non-cash rubles) were among some of the first oligarchs. I think Khodorkovsky was one such.

[@miyavizim]

What's non-cash rubles? Can't seem to find references of it.

[@NaderNabilart]

Very intresting details, thanks! Was there any way non-cash rubles can be used as debt? For example after spending all my non-cash rubles, could I take a non-cash loan? Same rates as cash loans? Repaid by regular cash rubles or there was other options?

[@BorisBelomor]

​@@miyavizimNon-cash rubles we were used for payments between government enterprises like factories and service industries. Prices were established by government and were updated yearly.

[@cv990a4]

@@NaderNabilart No, there was a strict separation between the two. Also, you're talking about concepts (consumer finance) that essentially didn't exist in the Soviet Union.

[@user-wd1pd7dd3p]

​@@miyavizim there was several types of Soviet rubles. You can read basics in Wikipedia, seriously. Basically, there was rubles for foreign trade, rubles for internal use, rubles for "big enterprises". Those types weren't the same.

[@RabbitEarsCh]

This mirrors so strongly with Chavez's attempts to socialize the Venezuelan economy, and also in Cuba as well. You cannot rush the transition, and people are not fungible. If you remove incentives and also the people who know how to run things, your economy will turn to shreds. I'm amazed this lesson keeps being re-learnt every 50 years or so.

[@kamolhengkiatisak1527]

This also mirrors Mao's Great Leap Forward that results in vast famine causing millions of deaths.

[@Greg-yu4ij]

Rush the transition? Maybe don’t. Just don’t. Never again, again, again, again. Would you hold a gun to your son’s head to make him work? Then why do that to anyone else’s son? Capitalism can suck but it’s the best we have.

[@marcfruchtman9473]

It is the unfortunately condition of our humanity, that we forget the lessons of the past because those that learned those lessons are no longer around. The only real way to remember is to hang on to their experiential history and try to incorporate that experience indirectly, but it is hard to do since with each generation the experience is further diluted.

[@hurrdurrmurrgurr]

Socialism is based on there not being an incentive to be corrupted and commodified. Socialists will always fall into the same hole because their system relies on the donkey to work with stick alone.

[@teagueman100]

Yeah your right a transition needs to be just that, a transition. I my view the transition still requires a market that eventually disappears as post-scarcity removes the incentive. Besides anarcho-communism believes in free association of people and producer's so it has room for a market to exist.

[@Strideo1]

It's funny how everyone in history who tries to eliminate the idea of money only seems to come up with a more complicated system that basically only manages to rename money into something else but is essentially a fiat currency through credit systems. "Oh, no, we don't use money. Those are 'work credits', not money."

[@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf]

Because every single idiot who tried to eliminate money was economically illiterate and didn't know, nor cared to learn, what money is, how it works and most importantly WHY it exists in the first place.

[@stoptrudeau42]

Digital id cbdcs comibg. Mark of the beast communism 2.0 . Wef agenda 2030

[@Trancymind]

How about we trade for my 2 pounds of flour with your axe? Or 5 pounds of iron with your 3 pairs of your new shoes?

[@Ledabot]

Or you just... Take what you need.

[@Strideo1]

@@Ledabot Some will take more than they need if there's no cost to themselves.

[@Longjohnsilver58]

I was in college in 1986, and this was before the Chernobyl disaster. I was a history major and one of my professors gave extra credit for attending a lecture by a visiting speaker. I had no idea what was it about but I went. The lady professor (I don’t recall her name) was an economist, and the gist of her speech was communists countries may reject economic laws but they are still subject to those laws. Communist countries may need to be adjusted when measurements are taken, but they can still be measured. Her conclusion was the USSR was a failing economy and could not survive. She predicted the nation would collapse within ten years. She turned out to be right, and she predicted it based solely on the math. I wish I could remember her name and work so I could cite her better, but that lecture left a lasting impression.

[@analyticalhabitrails9857]

Well I think she can agree with the following statement: Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, bartering is the money of peasants - BUT THE BANKS Digitized currencies is the money of slaves.

[@lcdream4213]

Do you still remember at which college you heard this lecture?

[@Longjohnsilver58]

@@lcdream4213 Eastern Kentucky University. It was around 1986. Possibly 87. But she was not a professor there. She was just visiting.

[@lcdream4213]

@@Longjohnsilver58 man im even gonna try to find out her name, i feel like it’d be beyond impossible

[@mattm7798]

The interesting thing is if Gorbechev would have come to power in the 60s or 70s, his loosening the state control on the economy may have allowed the USSR to transition into a Chinese style communism, where some private business is acceptable. Not to mention the better relationship with the west which could have spurred on the economic improvements.

[@timthompson468]

“Life has shown how wrong we were.” That pretty much sums it up.

[@healord51]

"Oooops, sorry about those milions of deaths due to starvation"

[@BobDenny]

Seductive fairy tale. We’re right back here now.

[@saturationstation1446]

@@healord51 more people die from starvation every 8 months in america. three times that much die from starvation in countries colonized by eurocentric powers every 8 months as well. there is this strange barrier in logic when discussing starvation causes where eurocentrics seem to be completely unable to acknowledge things that have happened solely from their influence. FFS more people were starved to death in india alone during ww2 than the total number of european/american/russian people who died in ww2. there are so many disastrously harmful incidents that are somehow completely outside the reality of well off people in eurocentric countries.. wonder why that is lol

[@Steelrat1994]

@@saturationstation1446 while that's true, that doens't negate his point. Lenin tried a drastic paradigm shift in a completely ridiculous way. They did it in a typical russian fashion: don't plan, just go with it and hope it will work(there is a special word/expression for this approach in russian). Surprise, surprise, it turned out horrible and their negligence in governing cost millions of lives.

[@amrastrasartir8079]

@@saturationstation1446 Give me figures, comrade! Dont be shy! How many people die every 8 months from starvation in US? Or american continent? Where are sources of this figures? Just made up, or made up by your fellow comrade? Strong claims need strong evidence. Ever heard this? Other way you are just ideology driven LIAR.

[@Thecrownswill]

I never thought the numbers used in this video would EVER need to be used in history.

[@mackinblack]

What?

[@bill6687]

@@mackinblack he probably means quintillion. Numbers that large do come up in nature but they should never come up in accounting XD

[@Daikini0]

With quintillions in your pockets you may be the poorest being in Hungary in June 1946

[@Bialy_1]

@@Daikini0 Superior power of communism strikes again in 1946 Hungary😅?

[@cristhianramirez6939]

Zimbabwean man walks in:

[@tomfuelery2905]

USSR:" Our inflation is too high!" Zimbabwe:"Hold my beer."

[@VeganKebabDoRuky]

Venezuela: "Pff, amateurs..."

[@hello-cn5nh]

Lenin: " we are Soviets, we don't believe in god, we've no need for god. There is NO god." Also Lenin: 11:26 "For Goddsakes bring us grain, grain, griain! For the love of God!"

[@I-AM-EL-ZOZO]

How bad was Zimbabwe?

[@timdolinger1352]

Billions of Zimbabwean dollars could buy you, like, a loaf of bread or something like that. I dunno if that's true now, but yeah, Zimbabwe had billion and trillion dollar bills.

[@I-AM-EL-ZOZO]

@@timdolinger1352 so pretty the same as Germany after ww1

[@FireOccator]

Decides to eliminate money. Orders people to trade in goods and services instead. Galaxy brain right there.

[@georgecisneros5281]

Galaxy brained mass murderous homicidal mania dressed as “benevolent revolution”…yes.😂

[@voicelessglottalfricative6567]

would've made more sense if pricing directly related to value of a good/service and not surplus value. people would actually make the value they worked for lol

[@fubar12345]

Ended up paying for everything in peasant blood anyway.

[@henrylicious]

​@@voicelessglottalfricative6567Not really. The valuation of any product is dynamic and relative to who needs it.

[@ShadowSumac]

Commies in a nutshell...

[@sparky4405]

A documentary on the Nazi German economy after the hyperinflation in Weimar Germany would be interesting.

[@metagen77]

its socialist policies and chaos there too. more (some) individualism and racism tho

[@Hideyoshi1991]

slave labour and a rapid decline that could only be fixed by adding more slave labour as well as mass murder.

[@M33f3r]

In 6 months the government created 6 million jobs and the standard of living massively increased for everyone. National Socialism is the most anti communist system ever without falling into the pitfalls of hyper speculative capitalism.

[@wtice4632]

TIK history has some great videos on that topic

[@jaggmeeler2039]

‘Socialism is when the government does things’ - tik history

[@untouchable360x]

They did not try to eliminate money. It was a “special monetary operation.”

[@cwg9238]

if the end result is the same it doesnt matter what you called it on the way there.

[@hattorihanzo562]

@@cwg9238you missed the joke

[@el_guero0958]

Lol

[@A_Simple_Neurose]

@@hattorihanzo562 This joke is so tired though... I really hope we get another one by the end of the war. Just to stop people from kicking the dead horse. Maybe Prigojhin's plane crash being a stupid ruse like that plane scene in Nolan's Batman? They expect one of us in the wreckage, bratan...

[@Henry-yf2np]

Theirs a difference between the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. A HUGE difference.

[@tomasviane3844]

"They owned nothing and they were not happy."

[@Pgr-pt5ep]

But they did "eat bugs".

[@Youtuber69428]

At least they were able to own their homes

[@MA_KA_PA_TIE]

​@lucasjensen841 so long as you pay property tax nobody owns their home. Paying 10K to 20K a year to prevent your house from.being sold at a tax sale isn't ownership, it's renting.

[@Youtuber69428]

@@MA_KA_PA_TIE the soviet's payed 10-20k a year in tax?

[@michaelpelzek8882]

​@@KZbinr69428but they didnt own the homes though..

[@Gewalt1984]

Don’t forget comrade! There is no money when the money is worthless!

[@elio7610]

Yeah there is, it is just worth less.

[@brianjones7660]

They pretend to pay us…..we pretend to work ❤

[@analyticalhabitrails9857]

Lolol, heres one better. Share it while we still have any liberty left. Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, bartering is the money of peasants - BUT THE BANKS digital currencies is the money of slaves.

[@dzanderallison]

to the contrary, when the money is worthless everybody is a millionaire!

[@fastestdino2]

@@dzanderallison If we're all poor then no one is poor!

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

Call it dollars, credits, or labor units, if you have a medium of exchange, that quantifies commodities or labor, its at least fiat money, or what we just call money. Economics 101.

[@GordonFreemayne]

@@farfromreal The video doesn't really do a good job of it but Marx does. The craftsman who sells the chair can charge however much they want, but they don't necessarily need money in exchange. What they need are food, clothing, shelter, self fulfillment, etc. They make a profit because they're allowed to (see also: military contractor price gouging), but the point is the craftsman is alienated from his labor because he's being exploited by his landlord, the power company, the sewage company, etc etc.

[@MrNpc81]

​@@GordonFreemayne "exploited" 😂

[@Grak70]

@@GordonFreemayneor maybe all the people standing up are being exploited by Big Chair.

[@justovision]

@@MrNpc81 You feel like society is equal in the distribution of talent and effort?

[@williemherbert1456]

@@GordonFreemayne Money is convenient medium as means of exchange to get food, clothes, shelter, and self-fulfillment to some extent, you can't just ration what the compensation for labor given by workers to be called other than money, a money can be anything even with salt or grain. This is how money idea being implemented, so you can't run away from the concept of money as long as resources are finite or hardly crude to be needed further processing to wanted form. Kinda weird to generalize energy, sewage, and water company as always be privately-owned, many others that not from USA usually owned and managed by the state directly, even so they can't be stay at loss when its tax money to close off the gap in bearing brunt of this consequences to overlook cost-profit view in running those company. But doesn't mean it justifies the method of running vital sector businesses in same methodology and viewpoint of ethic as neo-liberals are having by now in USA and UK as prime example, it's just ensure the cost of running those vital business sector shouldn't be allowed being inefficient to some extend, especially inner-structure corruption.

[@dannydaw59]

It turns out people dont want to work for free.

[@martinpalm5]

also. Anyone that has worked a job knows slackers will take advantage of the hardest workers to get by with the least work.

[@Seth9809]

@@martinpalm5 Anyone who has worked understands that most employers want everyone to be the hardest 25% of workers, but get paid like they're the laziest 25% of workers. In many places, working harder and showing up early just results in someone else getting promoted.

[@dieglhix]

​@@martinpalm5 same as universal basic income bs

[@vin2620]

not how compensation under communism works but ok

[@PolishBehemoth]

​@@Seth9809you have no idea wtf youre talking about.

[@aramisdagaz9]

Seems like the Bolsheviks fell into the same pattern of behavior regarding farmers as medieval monarchies had regarding peasants. They are quick to say peasants are lazy, duplicitous, and always hoarding food without realizing that peasants and farmers live on the thinnest of margins between starvation and living through winter to start the cycle anew, and this is just dealing with the unpredictability of nature. Add in the demands of taxes and national governments, local feudal lords, and outlaws outright taking their produce for one reason or another, it’s no wonder they would be given to hoarding food and hiding it away whenever possible!

[@fahadalghamdi9316]

Trying to get rid of money in order to eliminate greed is much like trying to get rid of fire in order to prevent burns.

[@vorcanvorcan9032]

Are you're insinuating that money is as natural a part of reality as fire is? Or did you get that fire part backwards? 🤔

[@fahadalghamdi9316]

@@vorcanvorcan9032 yes, I am insinuating just that. Social creatures (not just humans mind you) interact with exchange of resources at any and every level. Money is just the standardization of that process. Besides, all human behavior is as "natural" as beavers building a dam. Or ants building a hive.

[@vorcanvorcan9032]

@@fahadalghamdi9316 Technicalities like those don't really mean much to the big picture though. While other animals are pretty comparable to each other, the same cannot be said when you compare every other lifeform on earth to human beings. The norm of that [natural] doesn't fit as it used to. Our existence is both physical and mental. And the mental side of our existence, the side that birthed monetary value, is not even close to comparable to other lifeforms on Earth. Even those that come closest to us still appear to be missing very important, extremely vital aspects of what we've become. But before anything else, how do you feel about [responsibility]? If animals are natural but cannot sensibly be held accountable for their actions, can we be? Do you think humanity ought to mature? Or do you think it doesn't matter? Do you think monetary value is a good or bad thing? Do you think it is something we want to keep around indefinitely, or do you think we need to outgrow the need for it at some point?

[@fahadalghamdi9316]

@@vorcanvorcan9032 it seems we are running on completely different sets of assumptions. I fundamentally believe that the physical and evolutionary and psychological elements are inseparable and innate. Of course there are possibilities to change behavioral attributes, or even societal attributes as evolution demands. But I don't think humans have as much control over these as you'd like to think they do. (Most attempts to do that have been catastrophic at best) The human evolutionary process is pretty organic and rarely intentionally self-directed. Unless you believe in some kind of progressive Providence (a belief that you can't prove or disprove)It seems that this conversation will ultimately be fruitless as it's going to be difficult to communicate with our assumptions being as fundamentally different as they are. I wish you a good day. Edit: correcting typos and errors. It's good to have a stimulating conversation all the best to you

[@vorcanvorcan9032]

@@fahadalghamdi9316 I agree with you on that. That is why I had so much trouble responding, although you wouldn't know that. 😅 Whether a conversation would be fruitless or not, I can't say I feel the same way. I think that between individuals who want to figure out [the truth], other people's assumptions shouldn't matter in that way. But for what it's worth, I can understand your decision. I would like to reverse-uno what you said though; You could potentially be underestimating our potential. Don't forget, we are inherently ignorant and haven't even started to walk yet. Perhaps it is easier than you think to [have control] as long as you've figured out the right things. I also think your assessment of self-directed evolution is a bit too hasty. Humanity has never been in a situation in which it could efficiently attempt to do such a thing, let alone actually do it. We are less than amateurs at it at this point. What we have mostly done in our collective existence, is to make changes and additions to [the game called society]. And we've sort of come to believe that those changes are changes to humanity itself. Instead, what appears to be happening is that humanity "naturally" changes to accommodate itself to these things we've created and changed about society. You might feel like calling that [self-directed], or maybe you wouldn't. I don't know for sure unless we talk more. But I basically think that such a method is actually detrimental to our evolution. Like how we've become [dependent] on things like money to the extent that we can collectively be called [addicted to the system], the same thing would likely happen with the manipulation. Instead of learning how to be in control of ourselves in a "natural" way, we would instead grow accustomed to the idea that humanity can only be moved through manipulation of the self. (I have reasons to believe that such a thing is unhealthy in the long term.) Most of what we've done doesn't even come close to what I believe [directed evolution] would actually look like in terms of the collective species. But I agree with you that, although rarely, it has been done on the individual level. Anyways, you have a nice day as well. 🖖

[@Baamthe25th]

Trying to get rid of money is getting rid of a basic technology, and going straight back to barter or even worse, no exchange at all...

[@090giver090]

And humanity got rid of the straight barter as the main exchange practice thousands of years ago *for a reason* 🤣

[@Itsmespiv4192]

The myth of barter is still going strong 😂

[@Baamthe25th]

@@Itsmespiv4192 It's not a myth, even if left-wing pseudo economists like to call it one. There's not much evidence for it, simply because without a transaction medium (like a metal coin), we can't find much in the archeological records beside the product themselves. And there, we've got plenty of evidence of prehistoric trade routes, long before any state rose. For example, evidence for a 2000km trade route in siberia dating back at least 8.000 years has been found. There are plenty of studies and article on the subject Tbh, the only reason you midwits say it's a "myth" is because adam smith and others economist deduced that before money, there could only be barter. Ie, they used their brains, which is something lefties are apparently incapable of That you say that just demonstrates how dumb you are

[@techpriest4787]

True. Because it is a scoring system. There is no better way to manage a complex economy without it. It weighs the importance of things. Hence its need and therefore priority. I fail to see how one could think any different.

[@user-uh8fu3mb9l]

However, money is already struggling to accommodate modern, digitized economy. It is still largely essential for everyday purchase, but various bonds, credits, and scores are already replacing it, especially when large non-state platforms are concerned. On the other hand, the decade-old proliferation of foreign currency exchange after the collapse of Bretton Woods system kind of defeats money's purpose of circulating currency itself. One may even argue that money is a relic of state authority, and as sovereign states decline in importance relative to international corporations, so too will fiat money fall.

[@chasejones8302]

Inflation doesn't just hurt purchasing power. It disincentivizes production.

[@toddmarshall7573]

"Inflation doesn't just hurt purchasing power.": Oh really? Put a dollar under a rock for 20 years. Then bring it out and see what it trades for. And the good ole USA claims to target 2%/yr inflation...and delivers 4%. Makes a 1913 dollar worth about 4 cents today. If you think you know what money is and where it comes from, tell me.

[@GameFuMaster]

which isn't really true. You're saying that if you buy a dozen loaves of bread today and leave them on the counter, they should still be good 5 years from now.

[@toddmarshall7573]

@@GameFuMaster Oh really? I'm saying that? You may find it interesting to know if five years ago you chose cement blocks rather than gold to store wealth, you would have done better.

[@GameFuMaster]

@@toddmarshall7573 well I wasn't replying to you in the first place. And your first comment pretty much aligns with the OP's comment, so I'm not sure what you're trying to comment on.

[@Expllosaoriginal]

@@toddmarshall7573 My dude, you really should learn how to interpret texts. English is not my first language but even I understood what Chase said better than you...

[@sjoerdglaser2794]

This is the first time I've seen a curiosity sponsor without nebula. I was waiting for it the whole time

[@jamalgibson8139]

Until this comment, I literally thought it was nebula sponsorship, lol. I'm so used to them being bundled that I didn't realize it was different. 😅

[@zippofcy]

I wouldnt call anything that has killed hundreds of millions of people "fascinating". I would call it a crime against humanity. Which it was.

[@skun406]

This is like Adam Curtis documentaries - "they wanted this thing, but in the process the other thing surfaced"...

[@Jonpoo1]

Just needs a bit of stock footage over eerie slow rock.

[@charliekelly205]

Really appreciate the efforts you put into your videos man. Thank you for being a gem on the internet.

[@thomasbrand2650]

15:30 Damn, if only there was a means of measuring the value of someone's labor over a period of time. Like, if they do X job for me, I'd give them a token with monetary value for each hour they spend working... Someone should definitely invent that.

[@Dulc3B00kbyBrant0n]

fascist

[@darktimesatrockymountainhi4046]

😂

[@jakkuwolfinsomnia8058]

Money will always exist, it simply exists in one form or another. “I want a piece of bread” “Okay I’ll have 5 tomatoes, or 8 potatoes or 2 big pieces of meat” Technically, all of these things are money just also commodities. Money is not a commodity without its nominal value. But it’s legally given tender through its affiliation to currency. Anything can be money but money has been agreed to retain value. It’s all human nature

[@rharris22222]

Yeah, and so is "Credit." Long before fiat currency, a bank's, or even a wealthy person's, letter of credit, or backing could be money. The main difference for what we now call money is threat of violence. Government: "Only our notes are legal tender." Freeman: "Other things have real value." Government: "Only our notes can be used to pay taxes." Freeman: "You know, I don't really care for taxes anyway." Government: "And how much do you care to be arrested at gunpoint, handcuffed, and thrown into prison?" Not-so-Freeman: "How do I get me some of those notes?"

[@techdistractions]

Always happy to see a new doco from you, thank you for the hard work 👍

[@vaheakli4551]

NEP is another great story... And then the Industrialization... I want to suggest one specific and very interesting topic inside all of this - education in early soviet union. It was very different from itself every few years, of course, but there is a lot to explore. The most widely known situation with homeless orphans just after war, another situation with schools in cities, another with schools in countryside, another about teaching professional skills, another about preparing teachers, and the greatest by overall amount of dedication both of teachers and students story of high school of engineering in 20s and 30s Maybe it will be interesting for you to dig into that and relationship between education, soviet society and soviet industry. There is a lot of great stuff. I personally will be very interested in your representation of asian education of XX century. Starting even from broad view on already well known (compared to others about asian education) topics like education of nucleus of chinese communist party. I hope there will be some unobvious insights even in there. And I sincerely hope and wait for more local themes. Thanks! 🥰

[@ianweniger6620]

Long live Vygotsky!

[@nvelsen1975]

Funny trivia: In Dutch 'nep' means fake.

[@artemplatov1982]

@@nvelsen1975 Another funny trivia: Dutch language is a joke

[@2hotflavored666]

@@artemplatov1982 😂Based and very true

[@wtice4632]

@@artemplatov1982 its a drunk guy trying to speak english and german at the same time

[@FobosLee]

“Money was a lie to remove wealth from the worker” - that’s why they’ve printed so much of it!

[@sionbarzad5371]

love how you keep churning out these, ty!

[@ahG7na4]

no money or bad money, gets replaced by informal privileges. not being able to have regular things because you don't know the right people (or, better yet, having to curry favor with service sector workers) is triggering over and above simply not having the money

[@GameFuMaster]

nah, no money eventually just gets replaced by something crappier that just doesn't use the word "money". i.e. "work effort". The only other method of trading is just bartering, but we've moved on from that obviously because of how difficult it is in a large scale economy.

[@Seth9809]

@@GameFuMaster You're so wrong, it's insane. Money didn't exist for most of the history of mankind, and it was barely a thing for most of the history of civilization. Bartering also has almost never been documented or recorded on a widespread scale, even among native tribes or faraway peoples.

[@wojciechciagaa7723]

@@Seth9809 every time I hear the story about how humans traded shoes for potatoes until they FINALLY discovered that money is so cool and convenient I want to tear my hair out

[@wojciechciagaa7723]

@@GameFuMaster barter is a myth

[@naitnait00]

​@@Seth9809 Gold, silver, copper, bronze, other metal (coins) and seashells were money, because it was used as money.

[@M167A1]

Food under socialism is like Socialist humor, not everyone gets it

[@danielhutchinson6604]

The Capitalist System appears to substitute Drugs for Food? The appearance of Homeless Humans in every town, proves my point.

[@Novasfan100]

And yet they continue to feed their population more than any capitlist country, thats just a statistical fact!

[@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago]

Lolol. Well unfortunately in the US now the same could be about it (where I'm guessing we both live). Clearly there's still a lot of work to do before we find the perfect system that provides everyone with their minimum basic needs met on a daily basis, on an ongoing stable basis.

[@danielhutchinson6604]

@@YourCapybaraAmigo_17yrsago There are plenty of houses, a few Rich Folks just own them. There is plenty to eat, Farmers never got rich anyway. When the money is worthless it will be simple to ignore it.

[@TheLeftPath]

Fun fact: a cia document from the 80s (i think) found out that soviet citizens and us citizens had almost the same nutritional data.

[@FUCKINB4RTo]

First time watching one of your videos. Thoroughly enjoyed it and learned something. Subscribed

[@cic-400]

@asianometry this is a fantastic episode. Do you have reference sources for this info? It's really fascinating and I'd like to dive into it a bit more.

[@omarpasha9855]

It's incredible how much confusion there is in governments who do not micro-plan and micro-test their plans out before pushing their confusion onto the masses! What I mean by micro-planning and micro-testing is to try out their new economic and social ideas on a very small segment of the population as a prototype model to observe and learn from it in order to decide whether to go forward with it or not! While at the same time having experts changing and modifying it until it reaches a near perfect model. Then, the changes and transitions will be at lot smoother and less violent!

[@brag0001]

Depending on the policies you want to role out, this doesn't work. UBI is a great example of this. You can't really do small scale experiments, because those don't have the economic effects large scale introduction would have. So with UBI small scale experiments can help you see how some people would react to it if they essentially got free money. But you can't really test how rent, basic necessity prices, etc. would evolve once UBI was introduced universally. Nor is it possible to study long term effects on people's motivation to do unpleasant work. And it's even harder to study next generation effects, as even if people were to keep doing what they were already doing, the real question is how people raised from childhood with UBI would respond to the needs of society to have certain work done ... And it's even less possible to study the long term effects of a country introducing UBI and comparing how it then fares compared to other countries who don't. Will they stagnate like Argentina in the 19th century relatively to the rest of the world? Or will they flourish to an untold extend?

[@NickSteffen]

No amount of testing or planning could make this much change in such a short time work. Almost anytime you throw away the existing system wholesale you are going to make things worse even if you might have been right about some things in principle. You need to make small changes over a longer time period. This decreases the damage of failures and allows for course correction. This is in effect how most countries have operated successfully for the entirety of human existence. When you put ideologues with no administrative experience in charge of things this is what happens.

[@teeletsetse445]

Socialists would refer to that as 'incrementalism'. And they dislike it very much.

[@Sever3dHead]

The ideology in question has no place for testing, not even talking about micro-testing. They believe the system they want to achieve works, they will not stop at reality's lessons.

[@mikolasstrajt3874]

I think that idea of micro planning and escpecially micro testing was not well established in this time. They simply wanted full on revolution either for ideology reasons or as quest to get personal power. But micro testing and micro planning was implemented afterwards. This is all the "special economic zones" etc and it's what enabled china somewhat smooth transition to state capitalism or whatever they are doing.

[@alecmagill5337]

The Soviet Union is like trying to build a house without building the foundation first

[@gaoxiaen1]

Just like the Millenium Tower in San Francisco.

[@gwho]

communism is like trying to build a space elevator without knowing about gravity.

[@gwho]

@@BrendanRaymondKoroKoro my point is if you don't account for something as critical and significant such as gravity when attempting to build a m ega-scale project, shit might, just might not work out

[@gwho]

@@BrendanRaymondKoroKoro nah that's some commy assumption that capitalism is doomed to fail. Marx was wrong about that and about socialism being the transition to communism, and about the labor theory of value, and about himself not being the word exploiter of hisaid and children.

[@alecmagill5337]

@@BrendanRaymondKoroKoro the issue with the Soviet Union, as in the US with the “great experiment” of democracy, it had never really been tried before. Communism as a concept has been around for thousands of years, but attempting to transform the Soviet Union overnight is like trying to take an aircraft carrier through a drive through; they would’ve had to have slowly change their policy and approach to governing very slowly over 50+ years to actually achieve what they wanted in the first place. At least with the US it was already semi democratic so it wasn’t a massive leap to go from self governing colonies to a collection of semi self governing states in a confederation (under the articles of confederation), to a federation.

[@user-fn3js8tm9y]

we need money because high quality products costs more to produce than low quality products

[@worldsgreatestdude1784]

Cambodia abolished money under pol pot in the 70s. I think we all know how bad that regime went

[@nietur]

printing money to errode trust in money to get to a moneyless society is smart

[@LNVACVAC]

What did you expect from a society based in a neognostic religious movement?

[@toughgamma]

Stop noticing things.

[@ydid687]

it can work, if its others who have to pay for your mistake like 2008

[@RyuuOujiXS]

Ya, it worked out really well...

[@hawoaliahmed6996]

Wait a moment

[@fefferryerr1818]

me: but without money, people won't be motivated to work. idealistic friend: That's not true, they will work the jobs they enjoy.

[@mattm7798]

Haha, yeah and when those quickly reach max density....

[@ProfAzimov]

Who is interested in cleaning the sewers?

[@user-lz1yw4fl2e]

@@ProfAzimov If it is in your private property area, then you.

[@ProfAzimov]

@@user-lz1yw4fl2e No private property under communism

[@shauncameron8390]

Too bad society will just crumble.

[@rjhs01999]

I was speaking about this topic the other day. Thanks for the video.

[@kir6688]

6 million dead was just a little mishap for Lenin and his enthusiasm. Imagine the guy and his 'ideas' are being glorified today, instead of standing in one line with Adolf's

[@vetv_lavrovaya]

Do you know WHY the Bolsheviks abolished money? Because the monetary system was absolutely destroyed by the previous events and previous governments. Soon after, in 1922-1924, a monetary reform was carried out and in 1925 the Soviet rouble was officially listed on the stock exchanges of different countries.... I grew up in the Soviet Union and has never heard of any plans of practical abolishing of money. This might have been discussed in theory - well, but it happens throughout the world even now. And... who knows, the new idea of digital money - isn't it something that is even more worthy of discussion and .... more ambiguous because it is much closer to reality ?

[@marcfruchtman9473]

An incredibly timely video.

[@AYVYN]

No Logistics No Production No Organization No Money Truly one of the ideas of all time

[@davidkuder4356]

Great Job! Just found your channel & will be following with interest!

[@korakys]

Insulation from consequence, rather than money, is the root of all evil. This is why regular elections are so important.

[@saltymonke3682]

Election isn't really a solution, and not that important

[@defeatSpace]

yup

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

Originally the Biblical quote said that money was the root of all KINDS of evil, it being translated "Root of all evil" may have given people an unbalanced view of money. "There is a time to gather rocks together and a time to throw rocks away."

[@saturationstation1446]

there is no place on earth where you can elect your way out of something that rich people decided you needed to go through. unless you call violence and election lol

[@MatthiasGorgens]

@@saturationstation1446If that were true, Romney would have been POTUS.

[@cavaleer]

You should do an entire video on the American savior of Lenin's idiotic and suicidal "government"- Herbert Hoover and his team of skilled managers at the American Relief Association. After this imbecilic flirtation with famine, Lenin went head long into it in 1921 with crop requisition. By the end of the year 100,000 Russians were dying every week from starvation. Cannibalism was almost widespread throughout much of the country. You allude briefly to these conditions but I suppose it was beyond the scope of the video and its timeline but not by much. Hoover convinced a very reluctant Congress to support his relief effort and by the end of 1922 the ARA was feeding 11,000,000 Russians a day.

[@jonnyd9351]

That part of history was actively ignored/ forgotten by later leftists, and the fact Lenin never thanked them and ended up saying the US was trying to spy on them is ridiculous. Also I remember reading how inefficient the Soviet’s were in transporting the food and while US leftists were criticising Hoover, claiming he was “exaggerating” the issues the soviets were causing. And then Hoover decided to not release evidence of the issues for purely moral reasons, giving more credence to the leftist politicians attack him. In the end it was the biggest famine relief effort in human history and it was shoved under the rug because it went against the ideals of half the world.

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

Yet another thing to add on to the reasons why Hoover was a bad president. If we let them starve there is a good chance the Soviet Union would have collapsed

[@deborahdean8867]

Lenin was simply a egotistical jew with nothing to do, like Marx. Even lenin liked the attention and importance he felt from having followers, and you don't get followers without an ideology. It's not hard to sell an ideology to serfs.

[@user-lz1yw4fl2e]

The “Provisional Government” headed by Kerensky began to requisition the harvest even before the October Revolution. With each year of military conflict, this intensified even more, especially since at some point the army numbered 3 million (not counting other troops who also did not have their own food). And this was despite the fact that throughout the 19th century there was regular famine in Russia.

[@DistributistHound]

This video is Gold! Thank you for sharing your research

[@djohanrady]

Hi, @Asianometry, great video! I enjoyed it thoroughly. Just wanna ask if there's a source for the Lenin's quote at 18:27 time mark?

[@RonJohn63]

17:07 That's a *_LOT_* of calories; similar to a US daily MRE ration for soldier in combat.. Even 2600 is a lot... (Shows how much manual labor they performed.)

[@escgoogle3865]

Avg age at that time, high movement labor and light use of personal cars, I can believe that initial calorie intake number. Still, seems like a BIG number. 2600cal would be doable for me but not fun (ditched the car 4 years ago)

[@bradleycooper5436]

That's not that much.. most American males eat more than that daily. Two big meals with a drink cover 2600

[@RonJohn63]

@@bradleycooper5436 which is why we're fat. I'm dubious that there were many fat Russian peasants.

[@rejvaik00]

Massive amounts of hard labor typically you want about 3200 calories

[@RonJohn63]

@@rejvaik00 that is, of course, why I wrote "Shows how much manual labor they performed."

[@kevinthefox]

We bust our collective ass and live in near poverty, So great leader can have a deluxe apartment and live in luxury of course!

[@easygamingwwiigamingchanne729]

Now they ate trying to abolish money again globally.

[@dogukan127]

This was such a great documentary. Thanks a lot!

[@dameanvil]

0:02 💸 The Soviet Union initially aimed for a moneyless society, but it backfired disastrously. 1:58 🔄 Marx viewed money as a factor in capitalist cycles of overproduction and exploitation. 3:42 🌍 World War I triggered economic chaos in Russia, leading to inflation and industrial decline. 4:56 📉 Bolsheviks inherited an economy already crippled by inflation and significant territorial losses. 5:56 🏭 Russia's economy was ill-prepared for a shift to socialism due to semi-industrialization and agriculture. 6:39 🏦 Bolsheviks swiftly nationalized banks, aiming to control the economy's financial core. 8:45 💼 Nationalization of industries was chaotic, causing skilled worker displacement and inefficiencies. 9:42 ⚔ The Bolsheviks grappled with the Russian Civil War while implementing economic transformations. 10:13 💰 Funding the war strained the treasury, forcing extensive money printing and hyperinflation. 11:22 🍞 Food shortages plagued Russia, exacerbated by government intervention and hyperinflation. 14:10 🏆 After the Civil War, Bolsheviks intensified measures to de-monetize the economy. 16:14 📉 War Communism devastated the Russian economy, leading to famine, productivity collapse, and social unrest. 18:20 🔄 Lenin admitted errors in strategy, shifting to the New Economic Policy (NEP) to stabilize the economy.

[@MrCram]

Thank you

[@Ben-jl2rh]

This needs to be pinned

[@paxwallace8324]

The problem is philosophical infrastructure. We are locked into a win lose fear based ie scarcity based way of thinking because for many thousands of years we as a species struggled against famine. Everything Economic that we do as a species is actually predicated on How many countless times we've collectively had to deal with famine.

[@IsmaelSantos-xv9qf]

Socialism will never work. The only thing it is "good" at is destroying lives, economy and civilization. It's a parasitic cult that, if society worked properly, would be treated much like how cancer is treated: detect early, excise/burn ASAP before it grows into a tumor.

[@3158dave]

New subscriber..this video gave me a better understanding of what's happening in the west even though I had some understanding of Soviet and Russian history.

[@markuskeller4281]

Thank you for all of your videos, they help me so much to understand the world!

[@wwondertwin]

That's the Russian way: keep fucking something up until it's beyond repair, then announce that you always intended to do just that and it's Mission Accomplished.

[@CHURCHISAWESUM]

Communism wasn’t a Russian ideology. Marx was a German influenced by French thinkers and financed by Brits. Communism was imported into Russia and its takeover was literally the most resisted and bloody takeover in Russian history, one of the worst in world history only exceeded by other communist takeovers

[@wwondertwin]

@BrendanRaymondKoroKoro Oh yes, and the fact these few shining examples come to mind as individual names rather than the culture of doing things in general, speaks volumes.

[@AdamG20]

I had an idea like this once.We would all work for benefits instead of money.The government would give us a house and everything we need Including. Food vouchers..All I would have to do is go to work and come home and everything would be supplied to us. But it never knew how to implement it.Apparently it was already tried and failed.

[@dizietz]

This is the kind of sponsor that feels ok on this channel! Yay Curiosity Stream!

[@Addictedtocollecting01]

This channel is underrated.. keep it up!

[@WildsDreams45]

Technically you could live life without money, but you would have to be really good at trading and have to plan months in advance because not everyone is going to want what you have to trade. It would make life complicated, but you could use a system of currency for less of a headache 😅 Currency was very important in the creation of civilizations... This is all basic history... Money(currecy) is one of the important building blocks of creating an advanced society.

[@neilreynolds3858]

Or you could do what I did and steal what you needed. That removes the complications.

[@shauncameron8390]

@@neilreynolds3858 And risk jail time.

[@BlisaBLisa]

@@neilreynolds3858 this is the way

[@FoxWolfWorld]

Basically every government today: *”Write that down, write that down!”*

[@jonathanwilliams1065]

What the hell is going on?

[@josephmurphy1459]

Marx would have laughed at Lenin for trying to abolish money when he did. Marx emphasized that a money system cannot be abolished until technological, productive capacity has reached a point at which an abundance of goods and services can be produced. Marx understood very well that a highly developed capitalist economy is a necessary condition for abolishing money and the state. Russia was so underdeveloped at the beginning of the Soviet Union that it was basically still an agrarian economy; very little technical industry existed at the time. One of the points that Rosa Luxemburg made against Lenin is that a revolution cannot be forced or rushed. Lenin knew Marx’s works very well, but had little wisdom about how to apply his theory to the conditions of Russia. In fact, Marx understood that there’s little incentive to work at, say, a factory, without a livable wage. This is one of the reasons that Marx wrote that high levels of automation were needed to achieve communism. However, Marx didn’t write that just because of the economic issue; he actually claimed that the social necessity to work for a living held people back from their creative capacities and individual development and free expression. The communist vision was not simply to abolish money and the state; the goal was to free individuals from the necessity of the 9-5 job so that people can spend most of their lives pursuing activities that they find meaningful. Communism, according to Marx, is actually a radical vision of individual freedom and development, deeply rooted in the writings of thinkers such as Aristotle and Rousseau.

[@blakekarbon9428]

Id love to have an Asianometry style video about mexico history, the fall of internstional harvester, small minicomputer and mainframe manufactures, so many things. Love the content.

[@basillah7650]

Mexico not Asian

[@thomashenebry8269]

Note the word Asianomentry. Outside of Asia, Forget it!

[@OOsarovakOO]

This video teached me in 19 minutes more about relevant history than all my primary school years, thank you.

[@thorbrennergostasson8556]

Time to learn you a book

[@Dispo030]

It would’ve surprised me if economic policy of the early USSR was a topic in primary school lol

[@FGP_Pro]

And, in one minute a comment "teached" you that taught is the past-tense of teach.

[@youtubesadhominem9118]

ignorant statement from a privileged position to assume the originator of the comment primary language of choice happens to be English

[@FGP_Pro]

Not ignorant, nothing assumed, no insult intended, just some pithy pedagogy. Lighten-up.

[@srikanthan1000]

The irony never fails to amaze me: The USSR produced such brilliant ppl in such varied fields as science and mathematics and statistics………yet not one of them could figure out the simple fact that Communism is unworkable………..After all modern economics was taken forward by independent thinkers at different junctures like Adam Smith and Paul Samuelson. A whole body of economics evolved out of such independent thought and yet not one person in the USSR could figure it out themselves what with all their brilliant minds.

[@deborahdean8867]

If they did figure it out, they couldnt talk about it. The power structure was dependent on the system standing. Bureaucracy perpetuating itself.

[@shauncameron8390]

Hard to do that in a centralized power structure in which freedom including that of thought is suppressed.

[@BlisaBLisa]

what are you talking about a lot of people in the ussr were obviously miserable, the idea that they were all just mysteriously too stupid to figure out that stuff wasnt working is so weird. they were living in a dictatorship its not like they could just vote these people out or even speak out about it. also probably worth mentioning some of these brilliant people were able to do what they did in large part because of the communist system they lived in, they could get funding to pursue seemingly unprofitable things because there wasnt a profit incentive. we have a lot of cool soviet art for example bc of this.

[@user-gh8fs4uy9g]

don't be so sure you understand economics either

[@barricadedpurifier]

Money is an evil but a necessary evil. For many, money is a source of security and a means of achieving their goals and aspirations. It can be used to pay for basic necessities, such as food, housing, and healthcare, as well as for luxuries, such as vacations and fancy cars. For others, money is a way to gain power, status, and respect in society. A key function of a currency is as a store of value which can be saved and retrieved in the future without a significant loss of purchasing power. Currency is the primary medium of exchange in the modern world, having long ago replaced bartering as a means of trading goods and services. In the Soviet’s foolish quest to rid of money and currency, they made a new form of currency in the form of the Ruble which ended up being used as money to buy things and participate in economy. Reminds me of a certain quote: “You could not live with your own failure. Where did that bring you? Back to me.” Despite this, there are many foolish enough to think that they could just abolish money altogether. A sentiment shared among many young but naive college students. Very sad.

[@prestonhanson501]

Capitalsim isnt perfect. But its a hell of alot better then delusional idiologys based on what should be instead of what actually is

[@tdb7992]

Words cannot describe how much I love this channel. I wish this guy was my best mate in real life. With our autistic-level nerdiness combined, we could conquer the globe.

[@gengar1187]

Fantasy fajjit

[@befeleme]

More likely you would end up at each other's throat arguing which version of socialism is more appropriate for your conquest.

[@lashlarue7924]

I feel the same way.

[@guerrerohr5500]

para social relationship

[@Bloated_Tony_Danza]

Asianometry has THE BEST commentary on the Soviet Union. I LOVE the soviet episodes! So informative, and i always learn something.

[@ihl0700677525]

True. Objective, quite comprehensive, and politically neutral.

[@4grammaton]

@@ihl0700677525 yes, I remember that very "objective" and "politically neutral" statement in a video of his where he said that the USSR had no concept of quality control, because there was no incentive for Soviet workers to work hard. What a joke of a channel.

[@ihl0700677525]

@@4grammaton 1. Soviet Union was corrupt authoritarian state. No matter how hard you work, you can never climb the ladder if you don't know some influential people in the govt. Ofc there were exceptions to this, but the story about how Stalin purged the party (e.g. Trotsky's demise) and the military (demoting and executing more than half of Red Army senior commanders), and how Soviet car and electronic industry failed, really show that USSR was not a meritocracy. Loyalty to the party and to the leader (e.g. Stalin) was more important than your actual skill and contributions. 2. Saying that there's problem with Marxist/Socialist system (or with Capitalism or any other ideology/system), does not mean it is not neutral or against Marxism/Socialism. IIRC this video did not advocate for nor against Marxism, therefore it is IMO neutral. 3. As for lack of objectivity, show me any factual mistake in this video, and I'll consider changing my mind about it. Otherwise I think this video is quite objective in explaining Soviet attempt to revolutionize its economy by abolishing money.

[@shellking2061]

Half - if not the entire comment section should read David Graeber’s book “Debt: The First 5000 Years.” Because no one here seems to understand the anthropological, historical, social, moral, and power dynamics that underpin the concept of money and debt. No one even considers to reevaluate established economic narratives and the broader implications of monetary systems on society and human relationships. And no one wants to explore the idea that early societies relied on social relationships and trust rather than impersonal transactions.

[@scottfranco1962]

Gonna cross the big half million I see. I've been watching since less than 100k. Congratulations.

[@joziepozie5178]

The Bolsheviks were the OG shock doctrinaires

[@jaggmeeler2039]

History is like poetry, it rhymes

[@volodymyrbilyk555]

OG genocidal dipshits

[@TheRVSN]

There are only two subjects of global politics: global predictor (concept of fascism) and bolsheviks (concept of social justice). The rest (privileged and unprivileged mob) are marionettes of global predictor: state "elites", global "elites", clans, miscellaneous social groups...

[@miketan4803]

Lenin said "for the love of God"? Odd

[@gikigill788]

Lenin was more complex that most people would know. He himself said that religion exploits but also provides comfort to the exploited.

[@nomobobby]

IDK, Lenin definitely did not pray but he was probably pushing people who were. So probably unusual but understandable given the situation.

[@Hereford1642]

People often quote Marx as saying that religion is the 'opium of the people' in a purely disparaging way, but the full quote is rather more nuanced - ' "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."'

[@tech477]

The situation was that dare...

[@youtubeshadowbannedmylasta2629]

centrally planned is the biggest problem, if it was individually planned it could in theory work but since its not that means it will never work.

[@shantanuselokar6357]

This entirely ideology of "the world is evil, I am a messiah, I know what to do, I know what is right, I am capable of making only correct decisions, I should tell everyone what they should do, everyone should do as I say, I and my intentions are pure" never works never will.

[@LearnThaiRapidMethod]

I haven’t read enough of Marx’s works to understand that he was somehow against “money”. No economic system can exist without money - even barter requires a a unit of value. A truly barter system can only work in very small communities where there is virtually no economy and everybody is more or less self-sufficient (growing their own food, making their own jam, building their houses, constructing their own tools or “machines”). It breaks down very quickly, the moment you involve outsiders or of the village grows to more than about 100 people. Money is a fundamental means of storage and exchange of value. Even “moneyless” societies still have a form of accounting, which is a monetary system. Surely, Marx would have understood this?

[@System_X]

Marx was a certified idiot.

[@SnakeHelah]

I don't think he was thinking this far. Marx is just one man, I have no clue why people treat his work as gospel. I guess there's just not enough thinkers trying to come up with a system that's better than capitalism. IMO if Marx was never born, someone else would've probably taken his place, or rather, Russia/USSR would have picked another silly ideology to push their evil forward. Who knows though? Honestly the only way I can see a moneyless/communist type of society working is some kind of space colony/space travelling society. Since everyone is dependent upon each other for literal basic needs (oxygen, water, safety of the environment etc.) people actually work as a collective and therefore money becomes redundant since you're at limited resources and labor anyways.

[@joshmnky]

So we take money and power from the wealthy, and give it to a smaller, more insular group? We also remove choice in what people can have for their work? When does this start to make life better?

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

It doesn't. Communism is IMPOSSIBLE because every living being on this planet is selfish

[@madmonkeys88]

Welcome to every socialist/communist implementation that lasted longer than a year. I believe there have been a few actual implementations of "correct" socialism that doesn't turn it into a sort of oligarchy. However those always seem to get conquered by neighboring countries because the state itself is too weak to defend itself from aggressors. And if it were to try it would end up with centralized power again.

[@neilreynolds3858]

It makes life better for the people in charge. I don't think there's an economic or governmental system that doesn't work that way.

[@annoyedchef7124]

What? No insensitive to work when there is no money or you don't get anything else either? Especially for the government. Who would have known that? 😅😅

[@Clone003]

Lenin: “life has shown how wrong we were!” The millions dead and in poverty:

[@romanmir01]

and yet millions of people today want to try this again and again and again, people do NOT learn from history.

[@EroticOnion23]

"We'll make it work this time! Just give me all the power!!" 🤩

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

The rhetoric coming out of the far left in the Democratic party is absolutely terrifying. I fear the day when the Millennials and Gen Z take over the reigns of power

[@Seth9809]

Anything that was invented, logically, can be uninvented.

[@scorpixel1866]

@@Seth9809 This requires murdering absolutely everyone with that knowledge, excluding a select few in power with the objective of cutting down any future attempt at rediscovering it. It could be feasible for some advanced technologies and a critical lack of humanity, but money? The thing that existed for almost as long as the concept of barter and exchange did?

[@theali8oras274]

did u learn how to ride a bike on your first shot?

[@redheadbrothers]

Hey, can you cite your sources? It would be useful, for watchers who want to do research into this stuff themselves. Also: what font did you use? I recognize it, but I don't know what it is.

[@prcc]

"'Why worry about something that's never going to happen?' That's perfect. We should put that on our money."

[@deckape714]

Bold choice of a topic. Well done

[@victorminkov5183]

That’s what always baffles me. Is that people act like that laws of markets and finance are just totally imagined and can be ignored. It’s more discovery than invention. It’s a scientific process to understand how and why people distributes goods. The best possible way to do that is through money, private ownership, and free exchange. You can have debates about how limits on those but your ignore the reality of markets. If humans were different communism may be a workable system, like if we were ants but were not. We are men and we operate on a different level than ants. You are not going to create the new man, the Bolsheviks learned that quite clearly.

[@victorminkov5183]

@jackjones4824 there are inventions with economics but there are hard set laws and rules like the case of unlimited desires and limited resources, the production possibilities frontier, and the nature of how money performs in system like inflation. They are called the laws of supply and demand for a reason. That’s the biggest flaw of communism that it fundamentally misunderstands these laws and acts if they are not relevant, that they are pure invention. The laws of economics are at the heart of free markets which naturally exist it’s just a matter of how/if to facilitate them that’s up for debate. I don’t think Anarcho-capitalism is useful system to even look at or consider. This is because systems around anarchy are never stable enough to facilitate economics beyond extremely micro transactions. All systems gravitate away from anarchy into order. Eventually an order arises within the system that defeat its purpose. It’s fundamentally impossible system to implement unlike communism which is possible but just very inefficient.

[@valueofnothing2487]

GILLIAN: Don't' tell me they don't use money in the twenty-third century. KIRK: Well, they don't

[@jasonhare8540]

We tried that once. It was called the Neolithic . That era has passed ....

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

The course of events were inevitable given the conditions prior to the Revolution. Any government would have faced similar problems but additionally the Bolsheviks had to undermine the power base of the bourgeois class waging a counter-revolutionary war against them (both at home and abroad). That left them even fewer choices. This is not to say they were not also at fault and that was a failure to pre-plan. In particular, "central planning" is worthless unless you are bringing into existence new forms of incentivization. Expecting revolutionary "enthusiasm" alone to induce peasants to grow surplus crops is Idealism plain and simple. A party founded on Materialism should have understood that and prepared better. It is possible to reward labour in other ways (eg "potlach', privileges, status, feus and directed development) but the communist parties of the day had simply not prepared a solution. The same for political organisation - how was the "withering of the state" ever to be achieved? These are not fundamental flaws in communist thinking but they are fundamental failures of planning. Sadly, too many pre-revolutionary communist leaders and theorists were intellectuals not workers or they would have better solutions ready. The lesson is timeless: anyone who has realised the necessity of change today needs to understand that nothing fundamental will ever change if we don't begin at the bottom.

[@qZbGmYjS4QusYqv5]

No need for good incentives if you can make peasants slaves again. As Lenin did. Work for food or die. Brilliant. Just brilliant. But what can you do, Marxist were from upper classes after all. That's why they had to quell endless peasants revolt till the beginning of WW2

[@MrTomyCJ]

Please don't go the "communism would've worked if...." route. Study economics, communism's theory has been refuted. It will always fail in practice because it fails in theory. Some other system might work, but it would be completely different from communism, so no need to try and resucitate that monster.

[@aaaronmiller100]

bravo! Concise, important lessons. Its unbelievable how effective the process of erasing this from our collective memories has been. Numbers don't lie. You hit this one into the upper decks.

[@M33f3r]

Because mass starvation is not an accident. It is intentional. The same people who murdered hundreds of millions in communism want to take over everything else and are well on their way.

[@ZacharyBittner]

Here is something to think about, the Soviet Union trying to cause hyperinflation intentionally is not the worse case of hyper inflation. The right wing nationalist government of hungry caused the worse case of hyperinflation did.

[@godfreypoon5148]

@@ZacharyBittner cool story bro

[@Bialy_1]

@@ZacharyBittner This video is based on Soviet propaganda... they lost war with Poland in 1920 and here we are told the story about Red Army amazing success in that exact year when in reality they were anihilated in attempt to conquer Warsaw... Your version of the hiperinflationin Hungary is similar: "The Republic was proclaimed in the aftermath of the Soviet occupation of Hungary at the end of World War II in Europe and with the formal abolition of the Hungarian monarchy in February 1946, whose throne had been vacant since 1918. Initially the period was characterized by an uneasy coalition government between pro-democracy elements-primarily the Independent Smallholders' Party-and the Hungarian Communist Party. At Soviet insistence, the Communists had received key posts in the new cabinet, particularly the Interior Ministry: despite the Smallholders' Party's landslide victory in the 1945 elections. From that position the Communists were able to systematically eliminate their opponents segment by segment through political intrigue and fabricated conspiracy, a process that Communist leader Mátyás Rákosi called "salami tactics." " Right wing government? With Communists on key positions in the cabinet, particularly the Interior Ministry?!🤣

[@earlysda]

aaaron, your joke about "collective" on a Communist video is exquisite!

[@MagnumInnominandum]

When one has a monopoly on rifles and bullets, who needs money?

[@johnsnow5534]

You should make a video about the history of georgism and its implementation