XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   From: holman@mappi.helsinki.fi   
      
   In article <5hb5a4hfhnta97ri4n9ovbv36jl5k9oqfa@4ax.com>, James A. Donald   
    wrote:   
      
   > On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:59:43 -0500, David Friedman   
   > > I'm reasonably sure that CIA figures on Russian   
   > > economic performance, back when the USSR existed, were   
   > > based on the official Russian figures, which we now   
   > > know were bogus.   
      
   I would venture that the CIA had its own model for calculating how the   
   Soviet economy was performing, a model that took into account that   
   efficiency and profitability in the western sense were not the criteria   
   regarded as important by the people running it.   
      
   Having lived in the USSR for a month, and visited there more than twenty   
   times in various capacities between 1966 and 1991, I claim some expertise   
   regarding the issue. Briefly put, the Soviet economy was run in a manner   
   similar to the US Army.   
      
   The primary purpose of the US Army is to provide the US with "security".   
   How well it does this is not much of an issue, given the outcome of the   
   Vietnam war and the results of more than five years of fighting in Iraq   
   and Afghanistan. The important thing is that it is there and doing the   
   best that it can. In order to supply "security", politicians decide the   
   amount of tax revenues exacted from the population that will be allotted   
   to the Army. Even though the Army brass has some input in this manner, the   
   amount of tax revenues allotted to the Army is not based on its   
   performance or the quality of the "security" provided, but rather on what   
   is politically expedient. This money is used to maintain personnel and   
   bases, and provide and maintain expensive munitions and weapons systems,   
   many of them redundant or outrageously overpriced rom the standpoint of   
   market economy. These include such items as $150 screwdrivers and $2000   
   toilet seats. Some of the munitions, in addition to being wildly   
   overpriced, are inferior to what the adversary produces, the expensive   
   hi-tech but unreliable American M-16 vs. the cheap, basic, and reliable   
   Kalashnikov AK-47 being the most cited example. Some of the bases are   
   arguably pork barrel projects, providing employment in depressed areas but   
   little else that contributes to "security".   
      
   The US Army provides its personnel with free housing, clothing, and food.   
   It provides them with free dental and medical coverage, as well as with   
   all of the education that they can absorb in a field relevant to the   
   Army's activities. It pays them a salary that covers their everyday   
   expenses and allows them to save some money, but has little relationship   
   to the amount of work that they do or the risks that they take.   
   Increasingly, the US Army outsources jobs such as catering to private   
   companies that can do the job more efficiently than it can, even if such   
   outsourcing costs considerably more money than it would if the Army had   
   its own personnel do it (this is like having the Finns provide the USSR   
   with the kind of basic consumer goods that most developed economies   
   produce domestically).   
      
   The US Army is bloated with bureaucrats who spend a lot of time analyzing   
   past and present performance and planning war games as well as what-if and   
   option-B scenarios. They are convinced that a bureaucracy of this size is   
   necessary for the provision of future security. Although the personnel of   
   the US Army is now taken on a volunteer basis, and can quit if either side   
   decides that the individual in question is unsuitable, for most of its   
   history the Army obtained its personnel by a draft. A person who was   
   drafted had few options open to avoid service, and once in the Army   
   defection ­ desertion ­ was a serious enough crime to be punished with a   
   death sentence in some cases.   
      
   The underlying functional principles of such an organization are knowing   
   one's place in the chain of command, obedience to superiors, and carrying   
   out orders given, preferably with no questioning them. A good soldier,   
   defined as someone who did not rock the boat or dissent, had a good chance   
   of surviving his tour of duty and receiving a pension and generous   
   veteran's benefits when he left the organization.   
      
   That is the manner in which the USSR, a country which in its last years   
   was so poorly run that it could not even feed its population and had to   
   import food from its potential adversaries, was run.   
      
   Regards,   
   Eugene Holman   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)