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Originally Posted by Bakunin Brigade  And you know this because? |
Consumer prices in socialist systems fluctuate strongly and are anything but logical. e.g. A loaf of bread may cost 3 cents but a lemon $25,-.
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I'm sorry to beat on a dead horse, but under the soviet system the people were actually relatively wealthy in comparison to the rest of the world. They actually had money, but they didn't have anything to spend it on due to the backwardness of the soviet state in regards to entertainment, fashion, etc. I doubt procuring rice was much of a problem.
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I'm sorry to beat on a dead horse but the GDP per head was more than half of that of western countries. Comparing the SU with Africa, South America and Asia (at that time.) is kind of mute.
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Furthermore, under an actual socialist economy currency will have been substituted by labor vouchers, which are representations of the actual labor of the worker, and not set wages which could never be the true product of one's labor.
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That will only work if you predetermine what a person is allowed to consume. Otherwise you'll get huge shortages of one product and huge overflow of another product at the same time. Also:
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It is also important to point out that while capitalism may be able to create cheap rice, the problem with the distribution under such framework creates a system of inequality, where a good number of people employed in sweatshops around the world wouldn't even be able to afford it!
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Socialist system =/= Charity system; transportation would be just as hard in a socialist system because it will not cost the same amount of production to feed every single person.
It will cost more to feed a person living in a food poor region than it does to feed a person in a food rich region. As such inequality will also follow with Socialism.