Communism
Name four communist countries during the Cold War.
(Following may not be comprehensive)
Albania, Bulgaria, Czechslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, USSR, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, Laos, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Yemen, Cuba
What term refers to the class of politically sensitive and influential jobs in the state, society, and economy staffed by individuals approved by the Communist Party in the USSR and other communist states?
Nomenklatura
What term is used to describe a dynamic where post-colonial states remain economically dependent on their former colonizer, for example relying on the former colonizer to import raw materials from the former colony?
Neocolonialism
In unstable, post-colonial, developing countries, which institution is often the only one with sufficient autonomy and capacity to provide order?
The military.
Name one economic and one non-economic metric useful to evaluating the economic and social progress of post-communist and developing countries.
Economic: GDP per capita (PPP often more insightful); Gini Index
Non-economic: Transparency International corruption score; Freedom House ratings; UN Human Development Index;
The base is the system of economic production, including technologies leveraged as the "means of production" and the nature of class relations within society as a result of the economic system.
What does the "superstructure" refer to in Marxist ideology?
The superstructure represents human institutions, including politics and the state, national identity, culture, religion, gender relations, etc., which serve to perpetuate and justify the status quo economic system.
Which of the following is LEAST plausibly described as a developing country?
A. Iran
B. China
C. Nigeria
D. Russia
Russia
What term refers to a dynamic in which countries experience economic growth but are unable to develop at the speed necessary to become wealthy? Often this results in increasing wages leaving these countries uncompetitive to perform the low-wage functions that led to their initial economy development, before higher-end industries can be developed.
Middle income trap
Name two key communist figures who were not Russian.
Marx, Mao, Deng, Castro, Kim, Ho Chi Minh, Tito...plenty of others too!
Describe the Marxist view of religion, and the fate of religion in communist states.
Marx considered all forms of religion to be an "opiate of the masses" to perpetuate the "false consciousness" which blinded the proletariat to their terrible economic circumstances, and predicted that with communist revolution religion would die out.
Most communist states were officially atheist and took great effort to eliminate religion. Some were extremely successful in this effort (North Korea, China), while in others religious faith was suppressed but reemerged strongly in the nation's post-communist era (Poland, parts of former Yugoslavia).
Describe the Marxist view of nationalism, and the fate of nationalism in communist states.
Marx considered nationalism to be a tool of the capitalist elite to sustain "false consciousness" which would keep people content with a sense of national identity despite their poor economic conditions. He believed that with international communist revolution, the global proletariat would become more invested in class struggle than traditional national identities ("workers of the world, unite!"). In reality, despite the effort of communist states to disparage national identities, they have remained incredibly durable as strong forms of identity for most people in the world, including in post-communist countries.
Describe two major "waves" of European imperialism since the year 1400.
-- Late 15th - early 19th centuries: Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, and Dutch colonize the Americas, coastal Africa, and portions of coastal Asia
-- Late 18th - early 20th centuries: Britain colonizes India (direct control from 1858), and exerts control over Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia. France controls Indochina, Netherlands (since 17th century) controls Indonesia.
-- Late 19th - mid 20th centuries: European "scramble for Africa" from 1884 Berlin Conference, including Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium
--
Describe two political and social consequences of imperialism on colonized regions.
-- The "mother country's" political organization is imposed on the colony.
-- Ethnic and national identities are established and imposed on native people were none had existed.
-- Gender roles from the "mother country" are imposed on traditional societies.
Describe the nature of the bureaucracy in many developing countries?
In post-colonial developing countries, the professional bureaucracy instituted by the colonizing country is often hollowed out at the end of the colonial period, resulting in a local bureaucracy rife with inefficiency, low capacity, and features of corruption such as clientelism and rent-seeking.
Describe three key elements of a communist political-economic system.
-- Markets and property are wholly absorbed by the state
-- Central planning replaces the market mechanism to determine prices and quantities of goods produced and sold
-- Individual property rights, individual profit, unemployment, competition between firms, bankruptcy, and other hallmarks of the market economy are eliminated
-- The means of production (at least in the "commanding heights") are nationalized
-- The state provides virtually all public goods and social services, including universal health care, education, transportation, and retirement programs.
Describe the key events leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
-- In the early 1980s, American efforts to ramp up the Cold War arms race increased economic pressure on the USSR.
-- Gorbachev was chosen as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, and acknowledged the stagnation of the Soviet economy
-- Gorbachev proposed "glasnost" (openness) to encourage public debate on the merits of reform, and "perestroika" (restructuring) to make modest institutional reforms to increase democratic participation and market-based economic incentives.
-- The opportunity for reform led ethnic minorities to push for greater autonomy, and threatened the nomenklatura who benefited from the status quo.
-- During 1989-1990, a wave of political movements across Eastern Europe removed communist governments from power.
-- In 1991, Soviet communist hard-liners attempted a coup d'etat to stop Gorbachev's reforms. The coup failed, and in this moment of state weakness the individual republics of the USSR broke away to become independent states.
Describe the key principles and policies of structural adjustment as an approach to generate economic growth in developing countries.
Structural adjustment (AKA neoliberalism AKA Washington Consensus) is based on liberalism and relies on minimizing state involvement in the economy, privatizing assets, reducing tariffs and other trade barriers, encouraging foreign investment, and generally relying on market forces. In some cases, this strategy is required as a condition of receiving loans or other economic or geopolitical support from the U.S. or U.S.-led institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which some critics consider to be exploitative or another form of "neocolonialism."
Describe the nature of economic development during the colonial period in areas colonized by European states.
-- Traditional agricultural economies were forcibly transformed to meet the needs of the "mother country".
-- Economic organization under imperialism impeded domestic development in the colonies.
-- Free trade was often suppressed, as colonies were forced to supply goods only to the imperial country, creating extractive economies in the colonies. Typically this resulted in a focus on raw materials to be processed elsewhere, and neglect of processing capacity in the colony.
China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos
Russia and China both experienced communist revolutions in the first half of the 20th century, and their experiences with communism remain the most globally significant. In what sense were Russia and China NOT ideal environments for Marx's vision of proletarian revolution?
Both Russia and China were very weakly industrialized, with enormous poor, rural, agrarian populations, compared with the UK and other industrial western European economies which Marx studied.
Describe the debate between supporters of "gradualism" and "shock therapy" as approaches to marketization in post-communist economies?
Post-communist economies need to undergo privatization of former state assets, and marketization to re-create markets in which property, labor, goods, and services can be effectively priced, produced, and traded.
Supporters of "gradualism" argue that the transition from long-entrenched central planning systems would be extremely complicated and socially disruptive, and should be undertaken slowly with a significant (and only gradually decreasing) amount of state involvement, to avoid risk of hyperinflation, poverty, and other negative economic outcomes.
Supporters of "shock therapy" argued that rapid market reforms would be painful and may cause short-term inflation, but would result in an overall healthier and freer economy much sooner than gradual reforms.
Describe the key principles and policies of import substitution as an approach to generate economic growth in developing countries.
Import substitution is a form of mercantilism through which the state engages forcefully in the economy through tariffs or non-tariff barriers to restrict imports. The state promotes domestic production through direct state ownership and/or preferential state financing, tax breaks, or other subsidies for "national champion" companies in target industries. State effort is made to gain access to foreign technology. Historically, this model was common in Latin America following World War II, but often failed to produce companies which could compete globally.
Describe the key principles and policies of export-oriented industrialization as an approach to generate economic growth in developing countries.
A form of mercantilism through which the state plays a strong role in the economy through tariffs and non-tariff barriers to protect domestic industries. The state encourages economic production in industries with a niche in the global market, with the goal of exporting the vast majority of production. While this strategy uses tariffs to protect its companies, it also requires a low-tariff international environment for its exporters to be able to sell cheaply abroad. This approach was common, and in some cases very successful, across Asian nations following World War II.
In what sense would Marx have considered even the "purest" form of communism practiced in the USSR, China, or North Korea to fall short of his idealized communist utopia?
Marx would have considered any of the 20th century embodiments of communist ideology to represent a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which he viewed as an interim stage following proletariat revolution. He believed that under this stage the last symbols of capitalism and the traditional superstructure would wither away, and universal participation in communism would render states, borders, and laws unnecessary. As the USSR, China, North Korea, and other communist countries were still run by states, they were merely transitional forms of socialism and did not achieve true communism by Marx's standards.