# Have all Communist/Socialist nations turned into. . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 17, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087 "2015-08-17T16:41:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/41 "2015-08-19T01:38:46Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Even in Chicago, the study noted that “Close in around the store’s location, between 35 and 60 percent of stores closed.” > > If the store you wanted to shop at closed, you are SOL. If every pharmacy within your neighborhood closed, you have the option of buying at Wal-Mart’s pharmacy, going mail-order, or traveling (which isn’t an option for everyone). > > Some of my relatives live in Springfield, Missouri. In the 1990s, they had Dillon’s, Ramey’s, Consumers Market, and Smitty’s as the big four grocery chains, all of which operated multiple locations across the city. Today, Ramey’s has evolved into Price Cutter (which are fairly small grocery stores), Consumers and Smittys have folded, and Dillons left town. Now the major full-line grocery stores are a single Hy-Vee and ten Wal-Marts. > > Springfield isn’t some little podunk village; it’s the largest city in southwest Missouri, and the closest larger town is Kansas City, 165 miles away. Dillon’s wasn’t a podunk chain, either; they’re part of Kroger, one of the largest grocers in the U.S., but they pulled out of SW Missouri entirely, with the closest store now being probably the Dillon’s in Pittsburg, Kansas (80 miles). That’s a long way to go for groceries. I’m calling [Bullshit](https://search.yahoo.com/local/s;_ylt=A0SO8yey3dNVCOMAddFXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyc3A0MWFvBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQTAxNTZfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=grocery+stores&addr=Springfield%2C+MO&fr=ymyy-t-999) on that claim. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/42 "2015-08-19T01:52:03Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Quick quiz: which was higher: the Gini index in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union or in Lyndon Johnson’s America? (Let’s not even get into what happened to inequality in America after the mid-1970s). > > The Scandinavian social democracies were somewhat less unequal than the Soviet Union in its heyday, but that’s somewhat comparing apples to oranges because the Soviet Union was dragged down by the poorer central Asian republics. The Belarussian SSR, which is more comparable in size to a Scandinavian country, had a lower Gini index than any capitalist European country then or now. > > The Soviet Union was a very unequal place _under Stalin_, but since I’m not a Stalinist, nor are most people who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union nowadays, that’s somewhat beside the point. The second half of the Soviet Union didn’t have the mass graves, either. (Yes, they had restrictions on free speech and travel, clearly. I think life was still clearly better off for the poorest slice of Soviet society in the 1960s than for, say, American black people). I don’t take quizzes. Nothing you posted contradicts anything I posted. The GINI index tells you nothing about HOW the rich got rich. If Bill Gates got rich by making poor people suffer, you still haven’t explained how that happened. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/43 "2015-08-19T02:12:08Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m calling [Bullshit](https://search.yahoo.com/local/s;_ylt=A0SO8yey3dNVCOMAddFXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyc3A0MWFvBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQTAxNTZfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=grocery+stores&addr=Springfield%2C+MO&fr=ymyy-t-999) on that claim. You can call whatever you like. I’ve lived there, I’ve been in those stores. I will repeat that “Now the major full-line grocery stores are a single Hy-Vee and ten Wal-Marts.” I mentioned Price Cutter above; they are small stores with limited selection. Harter House is a gourmet specialty store; Seoul Oriental Market, the Lucky Panda Asian Market, and the Latino Market definitely don’t qualify as full-line. The [Signal Food Stores](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.1708384,-93.2954122,3a,75y,261h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1syQnT4ZfOG_q48tDRJA98aw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DyQnT4ZfOG_q48tDRJA98aw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D261.61865%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)? Yeah, they’re gas stations/mini-marts (so are Rapid Robert’s, Casey’s General Store, Circle K, and a few others on that list). Walgreen’s is a pharmacy with a grocery aisle. The Missouri Horse Market sells horses (and occasionally donkeys, mules, and so forth, all on the hoof). The Ozarks Food Harvest is a food bank, while Ozark Mountain Popcorn sells, um, popcorn, and I have no clue at all how Bed, Bath, & Beyond made the list of grocery stores. Try again, and this time try to actually look at your results. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/44 "2015-08-19T02:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=Hector\_St\_Clare] Quick quiz: which was higher: the Gini index in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union or in Lyndon Johnson’s America? (Let’s not even get into what happened to inequality in America after the mid-1970s). [/QUOTE] Who cares? Are you suggesting that people were less free in the US than in the Soviet Union even including blacks?? If so, please feel free to provide citations and evidence to this incredible claim. > [@](#): > > The Soviet Union was a very unequal place _under Stalin_, but since I’m not a Stalinist, nor are most people who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union nowadays, that’s somewhat beside the point. The second half of the Soviet Union didn’t have the mass graves, either. (Yes, they had restrictions on free speech and travel, clearly. I think life was still clearly better off for the poorest slice of Soviet society in the 1960s than for, say, American black people). So, what you are saying here is that after Stalin or at some point in it’s history, the Soviet Union was less ‘unequal’ than the US. Again, feel free to provide evidence for this incredible claim. You might want to look into how minorities were treated in the Soviet Union first, however…and you might want to look a bit deeper than the GINI index, since that really says little about how free or totalitarian a given nation is. This is GQ so you really need to back up your assertions with some evidence. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/45 "2015-08-19T02:28:13Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Even in Chicago, the study noted that “Close in around the store’s location, between 35 and 60 percent of stores closed.” > > If the store you wanted to shop at closed, you are SOL. If every pharmacy within your neighborhood closed, you have the option of buying at Wal-Mart’s pharmacy, going mail-order, or traveling (which isn’t an option for everyone). > > Some of my relatives live in Springfield, Missouri. In the 1990s, they had Dillon’s, Ramey’s, Consumers Market, and Smitty’s as the big four grocery chains, all of which operated multiple locations across the city. Today, Ramey’s has evolved into Price Cutter (which are fairly small grocery stores), Consumers and Smittys have folded, and Dillons left town. Now the major full-line grocery stores are a single Hy-Vee and ten Wal-Marts. > > Springfield isn’t some little podunk village; it’s the largest city in southwest Missouri, and the closest larger town is Kansas City, 165 miles away. Dillon’s wasn’t a podunk chain, either; they’re part of Kroger, one of the largest grocers in the U.S., but they pulled out of SW Missouri entirely, with the closest store now being probably the Dillon’s in Pittsburg, Kansas (80 miles). That’s a long way to go for groceries. Well, there seem to be a [lot of choices](http://www.rxlist.com/pharmacy/springfield-mo_pharmacies.htm) for pharmacies in Springfield MO. As well as [grocery stores](http://www.superpages.com/yellowpages/C-Grocery+Stores+%26+Supermarkets/S-MO/T-Springfield/). I’m not sure how many choices one needs to be free of totalitarian influences, but that seems like quite a few, though, granted, there isn’t a different store on every corner, and some areas have more than others. In Chicago there are, again, a lot of [grocery stores](http://www.yellowpages.com/chicago-il/grocery-stores) and [pharmacies](http://www.yellowpages.com/chicago-il/pharmacies), though, again, they aren’t on every street corner or in every neighborhood. I’m unsure why only having a Walmart or Walgreens or whatever is necessarily a bad thing, especially since in most cases Walmart is the only store in a given area because they beat the competition. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/46 "2015-08-19T03:01:47Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > You can call whatever you like. I’ve lived there, I’ve been in those stores. I will repeat that “Now the major full-line grocery stores are a single Hy-Vee and ten Wal-Marts.” > > I mentioned Price Cutter above; they are small stores with limited selection. Harter House is a gourmet specialty store; Seoul Oriental Market, the Lucky Panda Asian Market, and the Latino Market definitely don’t qualify as full-line. The [Signal Food Stores](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.1708384,-93.2954122,3a,75y,261h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1syQnT4ZfOG_q48tDRJA98aw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DyQnT4ZfOG_q48tDRJA98aw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dsearch.TACTILE.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D261.61865%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)? Yeah, they’re gas stations/mini-marts (so are Rapid Robert’s, Casey’s General Store, Circle K, and a few others on that list). Walgreen’s is a pharmacy with a grocery aisle. The Missouri Horse Market sells horses (and occasionally donkeys, mules, and so forth, all on the hoof). The Ozarks Food Harvest is a food bank, while Ozark Mountain Popcorn sells, um, popcorn, and I have no clue at all how Bed, Bath, & Beyond made the list of grocery stores. > > Try again, and this time try to actually look at your results. I’m calling it bullshit because it is bullshit. You’re “conveniently” sidelining certain stores because they don’t meet your own personal definition of being “big enough”. But let’s remember what this thread is about and what the original claim was: Capitalism vs Communism and whether Capitalism = Communism because… WALMART!! You want to know which stores wouldn’t meet your definition of full-line grocery stores? Every single “grocery store” in the USSR that was open to the general public. Even if a US city had only one Walmart store, that store would beat, hands down, your typical USSR grocery store in terms of quality, availability and selection. ---
**Author:** ![tullsterx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tullsterx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tullsterx)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/47 "2015-08-19T04:14:32Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > The problem is that the “common man” is a construct. If you define it as someone who wants to live securely from cradle to grave and wants nothing else, then communist regimes did this for a good many people. If you define it as someone who wants upper mobility and achievement… not so much. The US has gone rather the opposite route of making it possible for a few to become astronomically rich, supported by the suffering of a great many poor people. Society continues to be one big experiment of trying to find a balance between ensuring security and permitting achievement. Even if we got the formula exactly right, you can be sure that changing conditions will make past decisions seem like pure idiocy. Yeah, I agree with most all of that. It’s a constant balancing act that the US continues to work on. But, it seems like all of the large socialist revolutions espoused helping the “common man” but instead. . . enslaved them? That’s too dramatic. . . used them as tools of production, instead of really improving their circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/48 "2015-08-19T05:00:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I’m calling it bullshit because it is bullshit. You’re “conveniently” sidelining certain stores because they don’t meet your own personal definition of being “big enough”. But let’s remember what this thread is about and what the original claim was: Capitalism vs Communism and whether Capitalism = Communism because… WALMART!! No, I’m saying that gas stations, pharmacies, naturopaths, and livestock auctions don’t count as grocery stores, even if Yahoo chooses to label them as such. If you want to do your grocery shopping at the [Conoco gas station](https://www.google.com/maps/place/2101+S+Glenstone+Ave,+Springfield,+MO+65804/@37.175947,-93.2624867,3a,75y,301.25h,86.25t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sfN1XbCqAHaqOxExqZ2aM4w!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DfN1XbCqAHaqOxExqZ2aM4w%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D100%26h%3D80%26yaw%3D59.259167%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x87cf6352228ff71d:0x4c80a75a37dc9bf2!6m1!1e1), that is your privilege, but even an old-line Soviet grocery store probably had a better selection. The list you provided included multiple Starbucks coffee shops–do you consider them “big enough” to qualify as a full-line grocery store? We got onto this topic because you couldn’t understand why the lack of alternatives forced people to shop at Wal-Mart. If you want to go through the list of Springfield grocery stores and decide which ones you think are “big enough” to provide a meaningful choice, have at it, but telling people that the [Golden Pond Apartments](http://www.goldenpondapartments.info/) is a reasonable grocery alternative makes you look foolish. (Yes, that is one of a number of non-grocery establishments included on the list to which you pointed.) ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2015, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087/49 "2015-08-19T05:15:56Z")
> [@tullsterx](#): > > Yeah, I agree with most all of that. It’s a constant balancing act that the US continues to work on. But, it seems like all of the large socialist revolutions espoused helping the “common man” but instead. . . enslaved them? That’s too dramatic. . . used them as tools of production, instead of really improving their circumstances. Are you limiting this to socialist REVOLUTIONS, or do freely-elected socialist governments qualify? Germany, Norway, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, etc., all have or have had socialist governing parties in the post-war era, while the current constitution of India explicitly declares that country to be a “socialist secular democratic republic.” A reasonable argument can be made that socialism improved the lot of the common man in each of these, and certainly none of them qualify as slave regimes. None of them were born in a socialist revolution either. The countries that have had socialist revolutions are mostly those that had lousy pre-existing governments: certainly czarist Russia was no cakewalk for ordinary people, and neither was Bautista’s Cuba. Chinese communism, as noted above, was born amidst civil war and anarchy. The German revolution of 1918-1919 is another example where the collapse of the old order sparked revolutionary fires. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-all-communist-socialist-nations-turned-into/728087.md?page=2)