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From: nrh@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: What is socialism?
Message-ID: <1944@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Feb-85 01:25:26 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.1944
Posted: Thu Feb  7 01:25:26 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 06:23:35 EST
Lines: 50
Nf-ID: #R:topaz:-42000:inmet:7800295:000:1939
Nf-From: inmet!nrh    Feb  6 01:05:00 1985

>***** inmet:net.politics / dciem!mmt /  8:33 pm  Feb  4, 1985

>In the absence of any possible demonstration, no-one can refute the
>apparently fantastic claims of utopian life in Libertaria; neither
>can one refute the claims of those who argue the merits of a true
>socialist state.  All the same, one can look at the performance of
>different states that tend (slightly) in one direction or the other.

Are you willing to be convinced by your own argument?

About six months ago, I published a list of 
countries that had been partitioned and divided into more- and less-
socialist countries, along with their per-capita income.  The 
more-socialist nations, North Korea, East Germany, People's
Republic of China, all had lower per-capita income than their
"other halves".  
                 
                 
		More-Socialist	Less-Socialist
Germany			7,180		11,130
China			  347		 2,143
Korea			  786		 1,880

In all cases, the figures are in US dollars.  In some cases, the 
figures are from slightly different years (I believe the figure for
South Korea is from 1982, whereas the figure from N. Korea is from
1981).  Figures are all from the Information Please Almanac.

By your own argument, and where the countries involved are comparable,
in the sense of starting from a common origin, the socialist nations
tend to have lower per-capita incomes than the non-socialist nations.

>After accounting for the ENORMOUS natural wealth of N. America, it
>is astonishing that it is NOT the country in the world with the
>highest quality of life.  

Hmmm.....  The Soviet Union could give us quite a run for our
money there.  The energy reserves under Siberia are said to be
quite large, and as I recall, the Soviet Union was not a net
importer of oil, at least during the oil crisis.  

>-- 
>
>Martin Taylor
>{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
>{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt
>----------
>

Nat Howard