Thread: Western Propaganda aka клюква lol

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

They're both grammatical, but the emphases are different. "Universal values" implies (to me) that everyone everywhere accepts these values; "universally valuable" implies (to me) that the values have some inherent positive worth, and that everyone everywhere OUGHT to accept them. In other words, North Korean ideology does not accept private property as something good, but the libertarian assumption is that the North Koreans would be vastly better off if their society DID recognize private-property rights, at least to some degree.

That's a fair point. But (except among radical libertarians), saying that private-property rights ought to be regulated and restricted to some degree by the government is different from claiming that private-property as a concept has no inherent positive value for human well-being. (The radicals claim that restricting private-property rights to ANY degree is tantamount to denying them -- thus the cliche "Taxation is theft".) On the other hand, it's a general assumption of libertarians (not just the radicals) that such rights as freedom of religion, speech, and the press can all be logically derived from and protected by an underlying respect for private property.

Look, the majority of people in the West (I do not know how in the US, but certainly in the western Europe) DO NOT have private property in the same meaning as it was understood in the USSR. What they have is what the USSR would call "personal property". The majority of the people are employed in any country, not the business owners, and as such they have no private property. That means that only a minority of population in any country enjoys the private property rights, even in the west.

Originally Posted by Anixx

Look, the majority of people in the West (I do not know how in the US, but certainly in the western Europe) DO NOT have private property in the same meaning as it was understood in the USSR. What they have is what the USSR would call "personal property". The majority of the people are employed in any country, not the business owners, and as such they have no private property. That means that only a minority of population in any country enjoys the private property rights, even in the west.

I think a good example of a private property a typical westerner might think of is a real estate. Who was an owner of the real estate in the USSR? Say, what options would a typical young Soviet family have in that regard?

Originally Posted by Crocodile

I think a good example of a private property a typical westerner might think of is a real estate. Who was an owner of the real estate in the USSR? Say, what options would a typical young Soviet family have in that regard?

They could

- rent a flat from the state in a multi-storey building (this right could not be revoked by the state and the payment was virtually non-existent, the right would be inherited by those who live in the flat)
- have a private house (officially, "personal" because there was no private property, only "personal property", but for you it's the same as "private"). The house would be inherited by the relatives even if they do not live there.
- being a member of a house-building cooperative (condominium?) with a share, corresponding to a flat in a multi-storey building (with the right to sell the share, that is the flat). Upon leaving the cooperative the share would be paid in money. The share would be inherited by the relatives and the cooperative members would vote if to accept a new member. If refused the share would be paid in money.
- have a country estate "dacha" in addition to their urban flat. The dacha was private while the area at which it was built usually was state property (the state gave it into indeterminate-term usage). Although if one did not build a dacha in the given place in time, the place could be taken by the state. Dacha had no street address so one only could have dacha in addition to their main residence.

That said, one could not have a flat in a multi-storey city building in private while could easily buy a separate house in a town or a village or a flat in a 2-4 flat small houses (where available). One also could buy a share in a cooperative with the right to use a flat in a multi-storey house built by that cooperative.

One COULD NOT

- buy an office
- buy a shop
- buy a plant
- buy an oil refinery
- buy a newspaper (although it was probably possible to institute a non-commercial society over certain interest such as homebrew or radio-constructing and issue papers or bulletins from the name of the society).

Originally Posted by Anixx

They could

- rent a flat from the state in a multi-storey building (this right could not be revoked by the state and the payment was virtually non-existent, the right would be inherited by those who live in the flat)
- have a private house (officially, "personal" because there was no private property, only "personal property", but for you it's the same as "private"). The house would be inherited by the relatives even if they do not live there.
- being a member of a house-building cooperative (condominium?) with a share, corresponding to a flat in a multi-storey building (with the right to sell the share, that is the flat). Upon leaving the cooperative the share would be paid in money. The share would be inherited by the relatives and the cooperative members would vote if to accept a new member. If refused the share would be paid in money.
- have a country estate "dacha" in addition to their urban flat. The dacha was private while the area at which it was built usually was state property (the state gave it into indeterminate-term usage). Although if one did not build a dacha in the given place in time, the place could be taken by the state. Dacha had no street address so one only could have dacha in addition to their main residence.

That said, one could not have a flat in a multi-storey city building in private while could easily buy a separate house in a town or a village or a flat in a 2-4 flat small houses (where available). One also could buy a share in a cooperative with the right to use a flat in a multi-storey house built by that cooperative.

One COULD NOT

- buy an office
- buy a shop
- buy a plant
- buy an oil refinery
- buy a newspaper (although it was probably possible to institute a non-commercial society over certain interest such as homebrew or radio-constructing and issue papers or bulletins from the name of the society).

One could not do probably the most important thing that applies to real estate anytime anywhere - one could not buy a piece of land so that it would be their property (personal, private, call it whatever). That is, there was no such thing as private ownership of land, all the land belonged to the state, and there was no law that could protect you if they decided to "get a piece of their land back" (the one your house was built on)

Originally Posted by Eric C.

One could not do probably the most important thing that applies to real estate anytime anywhere - one could not buy a piece of land so that it would be their property (personal, private, call it whatever).

I do not think the majority of people in Western Europe are landowners. Possibly in the US many people have houses with small piece of land attached to it, but not large land masses.

That is, there was no such thing as private ownership of land, all the land belonged to the state, and there was no law that could protect you if they decided to "get a piece of their land back" (the one your house was built on)

You are wrong. A private owner can take your land at will but the state could not. There WERE laws about it. The land only could be taken if you did not use the land and had not built anything on it for a number of years. Or if the land is necessary for say, federal road or pipeline, but in that case you would be given compensation like in any country. The land was given for free and for indefinite term. Nobody could take it without compensation if you had a private house built on it.

Anyway I think the "land question" is quite irrelevant in an urbanized society where the landowners are only a tiny percent.

Originally Posted by Anixx

They could

- rent a flat from the state in a multi-storey building (this right could not be revoked by the state and the payment was virtually non-existent, the right would be inherited by those who live in the flat)
- being a member of a house-building cooperative (condominium?) with a share, corresponding to a flat in a multi-storey building (with the right to sell the share, that is the flat).

Alright. So, since we're talking about the urbanized society, let's stick with those two options, shall we?

So, the first option meant a young family would have to wait in line in the first come - first served basis and agree to whatever option (location-wise) was available. That could take a very significant time. So, where the young family ought to live for the time being?

The second option meant a young family would have to have a significant amount of money to enter the building cooperative. For example, by the mid 80's, the cost of a small cooperative apartment in Moscow was a couple of thousands rubles. How that money could be earned in the state where an average family monthly income was about 200 - 300 rubles was a mystery. There was another special mystery for a young family who managed to gather that amount with the help of all their relatives and ought to wait for 10 years or more for their cooperative apartment to be built. And where they were supposed to live for the time being?

That does not necessarily to say those options did not exist, but just to correct an assumption those options were in any way better than the options a typical young western family would experience. Were they any worse - that's a topic for another discussion.

However, I agree with you that the notion of the private property and protecting it is only practically applicable to a non-personal belonging. The private property would either be the means of production (aka private entrepreneurship) or an investment (aka speculation). And the protection of private property means that people have some kind of assurance from the state: I'm starting a business and I'm paying the state the "protection money" so that the state would maintain itself (aka buy itself some nice buildings and yachts) and protect my business from the gangs and the vandals. In the situation where everything belongs to the state, the protection of private property does not make much sense.

The only real difference for the working class was the principle of "confiscation" which was in the very core of the Soviet Law system.

Say, you're a tenant in a state-owned apartment. If you disobey the state (aka break the law), that apartment would be taken from you by the state (aka the confiscation of the belongings). And that also applies to the other belongings you mentioned: a private country-home, a cooperative apartment, a car, etc. (By the way, that was a primary reason why some of the law-breakers had a habit to register their belongings on their wife's name so as not to loose everything once they come back from the jail.) But, the society which protects private property has a different law - you would be obliged to liquidate your private property only to compensate another party for the amount decided by the court and the rest of the value of the property is yours. In the Soviet Law system there was an entity named "the people" and the law-breakers had to compensate "the people" i.e. the state. And it some cases it was very difficult to estimate the damage. For example, if you secretly made private business producing something (e.g. the food) and selling it privately beyond the norms allowed by the state, you made the proprietary damage to "the people" since the "extra food" that you produced belongs to "the people" and you stole that from "the people" and it's very difficult to estimate the price. Hence, the confiscation of everything (with the subsequent imprisonment).

... DO NOT have private property in the same meaning as it was understood in the USSR. What they have is what the USSR would call "personal property". ...

This kind of meaning survives in the west in the term 'propertied class'. Not just any property.