1/3 [most western states (and, in fact, most states) don’t suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.]
I have to partially disagree. While it is likely true that the USSR was more outward with its suppression methods than most western states today, countries, like America for example, do suppress dissent on a regular scale (Campus protest, George Floyd protest are just two notable examples, but there are plenty of more).
2/3 Also, speaking of America again, one of America’s suppression methods is suppression through delusion, tricking people into thinking that they’re actually free with constant propaganda in media and schools when the reality is that America is just as much (and maybe even more, since it’s hard to compare the exact numbers to the Soviet Union) police presence and civilian surveillance as the Soviet Union did (but probably more surveillance given the advancements…
3/3 …in technology) and all while having the largest prison population in the entire world, possibly being larger than the amount of prisoners in labor camps under Stalin (again, it’s hard to compare since records from that era from the Soviet Union are lacking).
There’s currently less than 1.4 million prisoners in the US, while official Soviet records show 0.79 million in executions alone under Stalin. Average that by year, and you still have 0.02 million per year.
According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, which averages to 0.58 million per year.
Edit: That’s a little bit more than two times the current US prison influx amount, and I didn’t account for per capita-ing (modern US has more population in total than USSR ever did).
Robertson drew attention to one of the great scandals of American life. “Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today,” writes the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. “Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America–more than 6 million–than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.”
I only counted those incarcerated. You’re counting community service, probation, parole, etc. And my sources are The Guardian and this academic journal.
That’s just splitting hairs, but even going with your numbers, it’s clearly comparable to the time of peak incarcerations in USSR. So, if we look at how the systems evolve over time, USSR incarceration rate dropped, while US incarceration rate continues to climb.
USSR having double of course isn’t comparable, and the US prison rate has been going down (well, at least until 2019, after which we got COVID and prison rates saw a gigantic dip that has been climbing bit by bit since, but still lower than 2019).
And no, it’s not just splitting hairs. There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
The only way you get double is by massively undercounting the actual rate of incarceration in US.
There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
It’s amazing how you managed to write this without a hint of irony as if Snowden leaks haven’t happened. The level of surveillance that’s currently happening in US is far beyond anything KGB could’ve ever dreamed of.
Having poorly made police officers is way worse than have state policies of persecuting ideas and even forms of art. Unlike what would happen in the USSR, Snowden’s leaks were not blocked and promoters of the leak weren’t hunted down (except for Snowden himself, which would happen in most countries), and you are free to discuss here without being banned.
Oops, yeah, I forgot about that. But you actually see livestreamed debate about whether suppressing these protests was good (oftentimes it’s highly criticized), and you don’t just get prosecuted if you just express opinions online. Also, the campus protests were suppressed because the owners of the private property being protested on didn’t like it. They get substantial funding from the state, but there’s still a difference from the state itself doing it. Like socialists and flat-earthers don’t get straight-up stamped out by police, whereas Stalin actively prosecuted people who didn’t support pseudobiology.
I’m not at all trying to suggest that Stalinist Russia was more free than modern-day America, just that many people think of America as a free country when it’s actually closer to Stalinist Russia than they’d care to recognize.
My point is that the United States is indeed much less authoritarian. Saying that there’s no such thing as a state that’s more authoritarian or less authoritarian is denying reality.
US incarceration rate is higher than what USSR had during Stalin’s purges. It’s hard to think of a better measure of how authoritarian a state is than the percentage of the population it keeps behind bars.
@Aatube @yogthos @NoiseColor
1/3 [most western states (and, in fact, most states) don’t suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.]
I have to partially disagree. While it is likely true that the USSR was more outward with its suppression methods than most western states today, countries, like America for example, do suppress dissent on a regular scale (Campus protest, George Floyd protest are just two notable examples, but there are plenty of more).
@Aatube @yogthos @NoiseColor
2/3 Also, speaking of America again, one of America’s suppression methods is suppression through delusion, tricking people into thinking that they’re actually free with constant propaganda in media and schools when the reality is that America is just as much (and maybe even more, since it’s hard to compare the exact numbers to the Soviet Union) police presence and civilian surveillance as the Soviet Union did (but probably more surveillance given the advancements…
@Aatube @yogthos @NoiseColor
3/3 …in technology) and all while having the largest prison population in the entire world, possibly being larger than the amount of prisoners in labor camps under Stalin (again, it’s hard to compare since records from that era from the Soviet Union are lacking).
There’s currently less than 1.4 million prisoners in the US, while official Soviet records show 0.79 million in executions alone under Stalin. Average that by year, and you still have 0.02 million per year.
According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, which averages to 0.58 million per year.
Edit: That’s a little bit more than two times the current US prison influx amount, and I didn’t account for per capita-ing (modern US has more population in total than USSR ever did).
actual sources seem to disagree with you
https://web.archive.org/web/20121104001152/https://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2109777,00.html
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/the-caging-of-america
I only counted those incarcerated. You’re counting community service, probation, parole, etc. And my sources are The Guardian and this academic journal.
That’s just splitting hairs, but even going with your numbers, it’s clearly comparable to the time of peak incarcerations in USSR. So, if we look at how the systems evolve over time, USSR incarceration rate dropped, while US incarceration rate continues to climb.
USSR having double of course isn’t comparable, and the US prison rate has been going down (well, at least until 2019, after which we got COVID and prison rates saw a gigantic dip that has been climbing bit by bit since, but still lower than 2019).
And no, it’s not just splitting hairs. There’s a difference between being constantly surveiled and watched by the state, temporarily (at least nominally); and getting locked up in a festering environment where they neglect your good feeding and, in the USSR’s case, your well-being and being forced to labor, with a much stronger KGB.
The only way you get double is by massively undercounting the actual rate of incarceration in US.
It’s amazing how you managed to write this without a hint of irony as if Snowden leaks haven’t happened. The level of surveillance that’s currently happening in US is far beyond anything KGB could’ve ever dreamed of.
Having poorly made police officers is way worse than have state policies of persecuting ideas and even forms of art. Unlike what would happen in the USSR, Snowden’s leaks were not blocked and promoters of the leak weren’t hunted down (except for Snowden himself, which would happen in most countries), and you are free to discuss here without being banned.
Oops, yeah, I forgot about that. But you actually see livestreamed debate about whether suppressing these protests was good (oftentimes it’s highly criticized), and you don’t just get prosecuted if you just express opinions online. Also, the campus protests were suppressed because the owners of the private property being protested on didn’t like it. They get substantial funding from the state, but there’s still a difference from the state itself doing it. Like socialists and flat-earthers don’t get straight-up stamped out by police, whereas Stalin actively prosecuted people who didn’t support pseudobiology.
@Aatube @yogthos @NoiseColor
I’m not at all trying to suggest that Stalinist Russia was more free than modern-day America, just that many people think of America as a free country when it’s actually closer to Stalinist Russia than they’d care to recognize.
My point is that the United States is indeed much less authoritarian. Saying that there’s no such thing as a state that’s more authoritarian or less authoritarian is denying reality.
US incarceration rate is higher than what USSR had during Stalin’s purges. It’s hard to think of a better measure of how authoritarian a state is than the percentage of the population it keeps behind bars.
https://lemmy.ml/post/17103219/11784747