Why do socialists in America refuse to admit they are socialists?

[Al B. Sure!]

The idea that US WWII economic structures were almost no different than USSR WWII economics structures is not a small point, you ****ing ******.

My greater point was that casually throwing around terms like right-wing and left-wing is not very meaningful.

My lesser point within that was that you can't make any meaningful judgments about Nazi economic ideology since our knowledge of it was purely in a Depression and war economy.

Within that point, I noted that you wouldn't be able to honestly describe America as capitalistic if you only looked at the period of 1941-1945. At first glance, it would look very left-wing for all the reasons I stated.

What exactly are you taking issue with?

[KrazyHorse]

I'd also like to point out that his "Five-Year Plans" aren't relevant since there was no five-year plan during the war.

It's a miracle! The war caused Stalin to STOP planning the USSR's economy.

[Al B. Sure!]

At the beginning of World War II, a rationing system was begun in the United States. Tires were the first item to be rationed in January 1942 because supplies of natural rubber were interrupted. Soon afterward, passenger automobiles, typewriters, sugar, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, fuel oil, coffee, stoves, shoes, meat, lard, shortening and oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies and fruit butter, were rationed by November 1943.
To get a classification and a book of rationing stamps, one had to appear before a local rationing board. Each person in a household received a ration book, including babies and small children. When purchasing fuel, a driver had to present a gas card along with a ration book and cash. Ration stamps were valid only for a set period to forestall hoarding.

Medicines such as penicillin were rationed by a triage committee at each hospital.
Many levels of rationing went into effect. Some items, such as sugar, were distributed evenly based on the number of people in a household. Other items, like gasoline or fuel oil, were rationed only to those who could justify a need. Restaurant owners and other merchants were accorded more availability, but had to collect ration stamps to restock their supplies. In exchange for used ration stamps, ration boards delivered certificates to restaurants and merchants to authorize procurement of more products.
The work of issuing ration books and exchanging used stamps for certificates was handled by some 5,500 local ration boards of mostly volunteer workers selected by local officials.

Why does that, at first blush, not strike you as very socialist?

[Al B. Sure!]

It's a miracle! The war caused Stalin to STOP planning the USSR's economy.

Did I say that? The USSR was always a planed economy. My point is so was the US for all effective purposes during the war.

[KrazyHorse]

Do you seriously not understand that ALL THE FACTORIES AND FARMS AND SHOPS in the USSR were OWNED BY THE GOVERNMENT during this time period?

This was an EXTENSION of control employed during the NEP of the 1920s, in which very small private enterprises were allowed (like a dozen employees or less IIRC)

[KrazyHorse]

Douchetard, there is a difference between government spending accounting for 60% of the economy (some large fraction of which was supplied through relatively normal private contracting) along with wage/price controls and rationing on some fraction of the rest of the economy and 100% GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF ALL PRODUCTION.

[KrazyHorse]

By the way, the sources I'm seeing show total government spending as peaking at 53% of GDP

For reference purposes, that's about 10% higher than it is today.

[Al B. Sure!]

Do you seriously not understand that ALL CONSUMER GOODS REQUIRED RATION TICKETS THAT WERE GIVEN OUT BASED ON NEED BY GOVERNMENT RATIONING BOARDS during this time period?
Do you seriously not understand that GOVERNMENT SPENDING REACHED NEARLY 60% OF GDP during this time period?

Are you seriously trying to argue that the US's war economy during World War II was some bastion of liberal capitalism?

[Al B. Sure!]

Oh I see your game... you want to nitpick on a small point I used to drive home a bigger point (perhaps with the shock of some exaggeration) without wanting to discuss the bigger point.

Tell me, KH, why do you do this? Does this make your dick hard?

[KrazyHorse]

Do you seriously not understand that ALL CONSUMER GOODS REQUIRED RATION TICKETS

No. No, no, no, you ****ing moron.

http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/ration_items.htm

Looks like most food, along with fuel, footwear, autos and bicycles

[KrazyHorse]

Are you seriously trying to argue that the US's war economy during World War II was some bastion of liberal capitalism?

The gap between this statement and the inverse of the one you made is as wide as the hole between your ears, you ****.

Are we now admitting that you didn't have the first ****ing clue what the **** you were talking about?

By the way, the number I found was 53%. Again, 10% higher than today...

[KrazyHorse]

If you don't want people to laugh at you then don't make retarded statements "for swaggeration" you ****ing moron.

Anybody who has any idea of economic history would know full well what an idiotic assertion you made. It's a show-stopper. I don't read any further. It means that we're equating an economy in which government control was about as prevalent as in your standard "mixed economy" with PERHAPS THE STRONGEST CENTRALLY-PLANNED ECONOMY IN ALL OF HISTORY.

[Al B. Sure!]

No. No, no, no, you ****ing moron.

http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/ration_items.htm

Looks like most food, along with fuel, footwear, autos and bicycles

Food, fuel, clothes, medicine, autos and bicycles... This is 1942. How much was there really to buy at the time? I wonder what sort of big-ticket purchases were being made for non-rationed goods.

I suppose you think the US during the war had a vibrant consumer economy

[Heraclitus]

Firstly let me point out that Hitler was a National Socialist, which is on the far right of the political spectrum. Where as Stalin, and Mao were Communists of sorts, so they sat on the far left of the political spectrum. Secondly Obama is leaning towards the right. In other words he is a facist, not a socialist.

Hitler wasn't a leftie, however he most definetly was a national socialist. And there where real lefites in the German National socialist Worker's party, however they mostly lost in the battle for power.

[curtis290]

A very stupid argument between KH and AS.

KH is right in that the US economy wasn't the same as the USSR's, and AS's claim that the US's policies were the same as the USSR's are a bit exaggerated. I think AS, however, is right in the general sense of the argument, and kudos for him to pointing out the extent to which the American government had to intervene in the economy for the war effort. That's what must happen during war time, the state has to be involved in the economy to make sure that it serves the war effort and the people. This is something that just about every American conservative has forgotten. They're too busy worshipping Milton Friedman and libertarian economics to remember what needed to be done during the Second World War. They're too busy worshipping 'economic freedoms' and the idea of small government to realize that extraordinary measures need to be taken during a time of war, and that the state isn't nearly as inefficient as they thought in managing an economy. Many of these conservatives look back to this era with fondness and emphasize the fact that we fought to protect the world from liberalism. Yet they completely forget about the economic policies we used in the war, and demonize the type of state that evolved afterwards, the state of the Bretton Woods era that was involved in our economy.