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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 4 Feb \ parent \ on: Are you a foot person or a car person? earth
Those are fair points, they just weren't part of the argument. However, if it was a simple matter of plunder, rather than endogenous impoverishment, then the reduced global demand would have been offset by the west spending their spoils.
The issue is primarily reduced demand from self inflicted economic wounds throughout the non-western world. The Iran point would be more relevant if it also explained why that cheap oil wasn't consumed in the communist economies, but it is certainly part of the picture.
My point would be how 'self-inflicted' those economic wounds actually were. (Even the Communist revolution in China only happened after the 'Century of Humiliation' by the West. And Lenin and a party of 40 Bolsheviks were put on a sealed train out of Switzerland, organised and secured by Germany1, and given safe passage back to Russia before the October Revolution.)
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I accept that correction. I was speaking loosely and do really hate the idea of blaming the victims of either communism or colonialism for what they suffered under.
The more rigorously stated point is that communist central planning artificially depressed what should have been most of the global economy. That made oil artificially cheap in the west. That led many American cities to grow in an environment of limited fuel constraints. The result is that American cities are distorted towards car use from what would have happened without communism in the East and South.
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