0f7b5b56
c47f5491
XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian
From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com
In article
,
holman@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> > > A second explanation is that the USSR was somehow a
> > > captive market--that it had nobody else to sell its
> > > raw materials to or buy manufactured goods from. That
> > > again is implausible, since the western allies never
> > > attempted a trade embargo.
>
> However, the Soviets imposed their own version of a trade embargo: they
> preferred to trade with a country such as Finland, that was willing to
> swop on a barter basis according to long-term trade agreements, rather
> than deal cash-on-the line on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Anyone
> with even an elementary understanding of Soviet economic planning can see
> why they favored the model that was the basis for trade with Finland. To
> put it crudely, it was the difference between marital sex and occasional
> trysts with ladies of pleasure.
Capitalist firms make long term contracts too, and they have no
objection to barter if, for some odd reason, the other party doesn't
like dealing in cash.
...
(I think this part is from James)
> > Voluntary trade creates value, since obviously each
> > party to the trade must receive more than he yields, or
> > else he would not yield it, and no trade would take
> > place. Commanded "trade" is apt to destroy value, even
> > with sincere intention that it create value for
> > everyone, and even if it seems reasonable that it is
> > creating value for everyone.
> What you say is true only if trade is regarded as simply a matter of
> economic transactions. For Finland in the early 1950s, Soviet trade was a
> matter not only of economics but also, more abstractly, of major social
> policy decisions. Should the bloated industrial infrastructure that had
> been built to pay the war reparations and which employed hundreds of
> thousands of people be dismantled, at the cost of a tremendous social
> upheaval in Finland, or should some kind of arrangement be arrived at that
> would allow it to continue doing what it was intended to do: serve the
> gigantic, virtually insatiable market to the east? It was in the clear
> economic, social, and economic interests of both countries to figure out a
> way to preserve the infrastructure, jobs, and inflow of consumer goods
> traded for raw materials than it would have been to do anything alse, all
> the nore so if the trading terms could be based on comprehensive,
> long-term agreement in which the exchange of cash and fluctuations in
> world market prices played a minimum role.
The cost of constructing that infrastructure was at that point a sunk
cost. If it could be used to produce goods that would sell for more than
the variable cost of producing them, it was worth doing so. If not,
continued production was simply throwing good money after bad--producing
at a loss.
Obviously it was in the interest of Finns to sell goods to Russia if the
Russians offered a higher price than anyone else and that price was
sufficient to more than cover the variable costs of production. But that
doesn't depend on the existence of a bloated industrial infrastructure.
So far as I can tell, your argument really comes down to the idea that
Russia was buying Finnish political support with subsidized trade.
That's a possible explanation of the facts, and may well be a correct
one. But the rest of your explanation doesn't see to add anything to it.
...
> When Finish-Soviet trade collapsed, both sides found themselves in worse
> condition.
Why were the Russians worse off? The USSR no longer existed, so there
was no longer any need to buy political support from the Finns. And, by
your account, they could get more for their natural resources by selling
them at market prices and using the money to buy stuff at market prices
than they had been getting from the Finns.
...
>
> >
> > This is a highly unconvincing example of Finnish
> > courage, much as Günter Grass is highly unconvincing as
> > evidence that Germans are no longer Nazis. Finnish
> > courage before and during World War II was an
> > inspiration to the world. But they just got tired and
> > frightened. Perhaps too many of the bravest Finns died.
> > That is apt to dampen anyone's courage.
>
> There is a more fundamental reason. Despite its bravery, Finland lost and
> was forced to deal with the consequences. Younger generations would rather
> be less brave, but survive, all while remembering that the bravery of
> their parents and grandparents served as a lesson to would-be invaders
> that there are other, less costly, ways of settling issues.
That only works if the would-be invaders don't realize that the younger
generation is less brave, since it was the bravery that imposed the
costs. If the invaded country is going to surrender in the first week,
on the grounds that it can't win, the invasion doesn't cost much.
...
> One of these strategies includes interlinking your
> potential adversery' economy so closely with your own that military
> aggression would mean mutual economic suicide.
1. You might want to read Kipling's poem "The Peace of Dives," which is
more or less on this theme.
2. If military aggression is going to be met by surrender, it doesn't
lead to economic suicide. You continue the same interlinking, only now
with subjects instead of independent trading partners.
...
> Finns often discuss the different fates of Finland and their southern
> neighbor, Estonia. The Estonians, a much smaller nation, realized in 1940
> that aggressively resisting the Soviets would mean national suicide, so
> they opted for accommodation and passive resistance. The result was a
> 47-year occupation and an ethnic dilution of their country that saw it
> stand at 38% non-Estonian (up from 2% in 1944) at the restoration of
> independence. The revolts in East Germany in 1953 and in Hungary in 1956
> showed that the USSR had a red line that it was suicidal to cross, and the
> Finns prudently did what they could to accommodate themselves to these
> realities.
On the other hand, if Finland had joined NATO, it is at least unclear
whether the soviets would have invaded. Estonia didn't have that option.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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