Economics and law

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, Chris,

I didn't mean to bad mouth you in the short way I spoke about your comment.

No doubt the SU's transportation safety, and industrial workplace safety
were not perfect. I think that the basic structural emphasis on non-auto ,
mass transportation ,(as you mention below , fewer cars), is the first
argument that  the Soviet overall transportation system had a fundamentally
safer structure. I think this proposition is correct: Emphasis on mass
transit other than auto is itself a fundamentally safer approach. Whether
this was due to democratic pressure on the CP , of course, I haven't
demonstrated, but on the other hand it is a plausible hypothesis that
greater democracy than in the U.S. was a factor on this point. Greater
democracy could be real just in the fact that there weren't any giant
private companies influencing the government decisions. Mass influence would
have more relative weight by this absence alone.

Workers taking their time more, not facing speedup and the lash of the
bourgeoisie's foremen, would, possibly make both workplaces safer and
products more carefully produced. On the other hand "taking your time" to
the point of lax work could obviously create product defects.

Yet I want to repeat here something I have alluded to before. What the fuck
good is a workers' revolution if workers can't take their time on their
jobs, work somewhat at their own pace, remove some of the toil from their
labor ? Seems to me that this is one of the most elementary democratic
features of a proletarian revolution. I have said before that this runs into
a very sharp and even determining contradiction in that the SU was under
deadly threat with all of world capitalism with its rip roarin' production
still under the lash, thus able to produce super weapons. The slip shod work
that resulted from some Soviet workers' being irresponsible in the role of
being more of their own supervisor is a related contradiction resulting from
making  truly more free labor. Ironically, it demonstrates that there was
significant DEMOCRACY , industrial democracy, in the SU and more than in the
U.S.  And industrial democracy is a factor in the "index" of total democracy
in a country.

They used to talk about NYC drivers being crazy. I remember riding around
Moscow with an Ethiopian cabdriver with whom I corresponded for some time
later. But I don't remember thinking the driving was much wilder than U.S. ,
like when I'm going 75 in the right lane in a 70  zone and people are
tailgating me to go faster.

Exploding televisions seem less dangerous than exploding car gas tanks. But
an overall comparison of the whole array of use-values that are also
dangerous instrumentalities would take opening up the files there if they
are there. There must be some somewhat readily availble statistics on causes
of death, somewhere.

But what about a little glasnost in the U.S. speaking of democracy. Did you
see this that I posted yesterday ?

Info on car safety off-limits to public

U.S. rule keeps data secret at request of companies, lobbyists

August 18, 2004

BY JEFFREY McCRACKEN
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

The federal agency that oversees auto safety has decided -- based largely on
arguments from automakers and their Washington, D.C., lobbyists -- that
reams of data relating to unsafe automobiles or defective parts will not be
available to the public.

-clip-



Anyway just one more point on the issues on this thread, as you maybe imply
and others have said, it becomes a bit like comparing apples and oranges to
compare auto safety in the two different systems  because of the difference
in emphasis on auto vs omnibus/train. But, if we do compare cars, I believe
an earlier comment from someone was that being heavier, like a Lada being
means Lada's are somewhat less likely to pass the impact of a crash through
to the passengers; just like a tank can protect its occupants from crashes
better than a car. I'm trying to think the physics through on that. The
momentum might still be passed through, bouncing around inside. Not sure.
Does a wind tunnel test tanks vs cars ?


CB



*       From: Chris Doss

________________________________

Hi Charles,

Based on my experience, Soviet products BY AND LARGE
broke (and break) down a lot. Presumably this
translated into accidents in some cases (e.g. the
infamous exploding television sets). Whether that is
the case with respect to automobiles I do not know.

One thing that has to be taken account in this context
is that Soviets did not use cars very much. The USSR
(and contemporary Russia) had (and has) fantastic
public transportation systems, which you know if you
took the Moscow metro when you were here. Cars were
expensive and you had to be on a waiting list to
receive one. (My friend Sasha Kondorsky has some
chatty columns on this subject here:
http://www.therussiajournal.com/index.htm?obj=29281
and
http://www.therussiajournal.com/index.htm?obj=26375 )

Comparison of auto fatality statistics would have two
problems. First, the Soviet government before
Gorbachev did not release statistics on a whole host
of things. Second, there are differences in driver
behavior. My experience is that a Russian driver will
take it as an insult if you put on the seatbelt, and
the disregard for traffic laws (and laws in general)
is something to be seen.

Here's Sasha writing on cars specifically:


A view from behind the wheel

Cost of Living
by Alexander Kondorsky
>From the day-to-day grind to a night on the town,
Alexander Kondorsky keeps you in the know about how
much bang you can expect for your buck in the Russian
capital.

Alexander Kondorsky
17 May 2002

The Soviet Union's car market was a mystery wrapped in
an enigma. It was full of paradoxes, and even now it
is difficult to solve its many puzzles. For example,
how was it possible for Soviet people to buy 2 million
locally produced cars every year, each costing as much
as 70 months in average wages? On top of that, there
were waiting lists, and it normally took three years
from the time a person was listed before he could buy
a car. This led to the now-inconceivable situation in
which used cars, traded through the so-called
commission stores, could be two or three times as
expensive as new ones.

http://www.therussiajournal.com/index.htm?obj=5880