Orostan wrote:Elwher wrote:
If one wants to compare similar socialist vs capitalist countries, we actually have one good current example and one other equally good one from the recent past. In both cases, they were one country split into socialist and capitalist halves.
East and West Germany: 1991, the year of unification, GDR had a per capita income of less than half that of FRG. and an unemployment rate about 25% higher. Unit labor costs were also about 25% higher. These figures come from a 2015 article in The Economist, a reasonably reputable source https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/10/daily-chart-comparing-eastern-and-western-germany
North and South Korea: According to Index Mundi https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/south-korea.north-korea, the average life span in DPRK is 70.7 years, ROK is 82.5. Per capita GDP was %1,800 vs #37,500 in 2015. Industrial production growth rates: 1% vs 3.5%.
In both cases, the countries were geographically similar, being portions of the same country, and started from an identical background, the aftermath of WWII. They did not, however, progress equally as shown by the economies years later.
1) You have a fair point, but West and East Germany did not have equal starting positions. The Soviets weren't too interested in rebuilding Eastern Germany, while West Germany got tons of American money to prevent socialism from coming in. In 1991 the GDR was experiencing economic trouble along with the rest of the Eastern block, so using numbers from there might not be the greatest indicator of economic health.
2) North Korea has been cut off from much of the world for a very long time. South Korea meanwhile has had billions of dollars of US aid funneled into it, and has had access to the rest of the world. If most of the world was socialist and North Korea was Capitalist, we'd see something similar to what we see now. And besides that, It's debatable if North Korea meets the criteria for socialism anymore.
Also, isn't NK's economy growing faster than SK's right now? I might be wrong on that, but I think I remember reading about it a while back.
in 1945, both parts of Germany were devastated by the war. That was the equal starting position. The socialist USSR, the friend of the international working man, did not want to rebuild the GDR for whatever reason (I suspect they were afraid of a rival, but there is no proof of that). The selfish, profit over people capitalist countries, on the other hand, put millions into rebuilding the FRG, allowing them to successfully compete against them on the world market. I use 1991 as that was the end of the GDR as a separate country, but current figures show that they have not yet caught up with the western part of Germany due to the problems they experienced under socialism.
Korea, again, shows the result of socialism's solidarity with the international workers vs the profiteering of the capitalist countries. I have not heard that NK is growing faster than SK, but if so, that is as a percentage of a much smaller base. If I have $100 and increase it to $150, that is a 50% growth rate. If I have $10,000 and increase it to $12,000, the rate of growth is only 20% but I have added a great deal more to my worth anyways.