The problem is with unneeded people making unneeded decisions for you anonymously (for them), centrally and obviously with no transparency.
In business, it’s described as a kind of Principal-Agent problem. What happens when the person you’re working with has goals that deviate from what you contracted with them to do?
A classic “unsolved problem” of social relationships.
have you contracted police to, well, police your area?
Sadly, I’ve been outvoted in every election that centers on inflating police budgets.
Had Soviet citizens contract NKVD?
The NKVD was a tool of the Russian Soviets to police itself. So, less a contract between citizens than between party bosses.
But Soviet police were far closer to the ideal community policing model than their Western peers, simply because they weren’t built atop the framework of plantation overseers, slave catchers, and anti-indigenious paramilitary.
Pick up a copy of Fanshen (Chinese Cultural Revolution, not Russian Stalinist era, but it’s the same through line). The social transition from a country of sovereign landlords to egalitarian policing was rocky, but it was real and significant.
it’s a mechanism imposed on you with power
All societies are. The question becomes whether you find value in this mechanism or whether it is entirely extractive.
The difference between a plantation overseer and a union rep is significant primarily because of who they answer to.
The NKVD was a tool of the Russian Soviets to police itself. So, less a contract between citizens than between party bosses.
NKVD means “People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs”. And in Stalin’s era they still retained the pretense of a democracy on new principles from the 20s.
But Soviet police were far closer to the ideal community policing model than their Western peers, simply because they weren’t built atop the framework of plantation overseers, slave catchers, and anti-indigenious paramilitary.
No. If you ever learn Russian well enough … I actually don’t know what specifically to recommend you. Vysotsky’s songs? It’s just everything you read that will communicate some idea of how it all worked.
Soviet “militia” (it was called that, but in fact it was police, of course) was quite similar to all three things you’ve mentioned.
Also NKVD was both what later became KGB and what later became MVD (after Stalin and Beria USSR had sort of a moment of epiphany, not complete, but hundreds of thousands of people were released from prison camps, hundreds of thousands rehabilitated postmortem, and it was said publicly and officially that such things shouldn’t happen again), so it included both people in black leather coats who’d come at night and people in white coats who’d regulate road traffic and catch small time thieves at day. With pretty similar methods between them.
Imagine if German police under Nazis and Gestapo were one and the same organization administratively. There’d be more “cultural exchange” than there was in reality.
Pick up a copy of Fanshen (Chinese Cultural Revolution, not Russian Stalinist era, but it’s the same through line). The social transition from a country of sovereign landlords to egalitarian policing was rocky, but it was real and significant.
I will, but my knowledge of Stalinism is closer to the root, and Russian is my first language, so I don’t think this will be useful for that kind of example.
The difference between a plantation overseer and a union rep is significant primarily because of who they answer to.
Since USSR came into this discussion, official unions in USSR made that difference very small. Their main activities were about organizing demonstrations on all the important days, though. And also the usual Soviet organization stuff - distribution of some goods via that organization to its members (like some fruit which would rarely be seen in some specific area due to Soviet logistics being not very good), sending children of some members to some kinda better summer camps or some competitions, all that.
In business, it’s described as a kind of Principal-Agent problem. What happens when the person you’re working with has goals that deviate from what you contracted with them to do?
A classic “unsolved problem” of social relationships.
I agree it’s an unsolved problem, but have you contracted police to, well, police your area? Had Soviet citizens contract NKVD?
It’s rather between the two. In fact it’s a mechanism imposed on you with power, but there’s a lot of effort to conceal it as an imperfect market.
Sadly, I’ve been outvoted in every election that centers on inflating police budgets.
The NKVD was a tool of the Russian Soviets to police itself. So, less a contract between citizens than between party bosses.
But Soviet police were far closer to the ideal community policing model than their Western peers, simply because they weren’t built atop the framework of plantation overseers, slave catchers, and anti-indigenious paramilitary.
Pick up a copy of Fanshen (Chinese Cultural Revolution, not Russian Stalinist era, but it’s the same through line). The social transition from a country of sovereign landlords to egalitarian policing was rocky, but it was real and significant.
All societies are. The question becomes whether you find value in this mechanism or whether it is entirely extractive.
The difference between a plantation overseer and a union rep is significant primarily because of who they answer to.
NKVD means “People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs”. And in Stalin’s era they still retained the pretense of a democracy on new principles from the 20s.
No. If you ever learn Russian well enough … I actually don’t know what specifically to recommend you. Vysotsky’s songs? It’s just everything you read that will communicate some idea of how it all worked.
Soviet “militia” (it was called that, but in fact it was police, of course) was quite similar to all three things you’ve mentioned.
Also NKVD was both what later became KGB and what later became MVD (after Stalin and Beria USSR had sort of a moment of epiphany, not complete, but hundreds of thousands of people were released from prison camps, hundreds of thousands rehabilitated postmortem, and it was said publicly and officially that such things shouldn’t happen again), so it included both people in black leather coats who’d come at night and people in white coats who’d regulate road traffic and catch small time thieves at day. With pretty similar methods between them.
Imagine if German police under Nazis and Gestapo were one and the same organization administratively. There’d be more “cultural exchange” than there was in reality.
I will, but my knowledge of Stalinism is closer to the root, and Russian is my first language, so I don’t think this will be useful for that kind of example.
Since USSR came into this discussion, official unions in USSR made that difference very small. Their main activities were about organizing demonstrations on all the important days, though. And also the usual Soviet organization stuff - distribution of some goods via that organization to its members (like some fruit which would rarely be seen in some specific area due to Soviet logistics being not very good), sending children of some members to some kinda better summer camps or some competitions, all that.
Internal Affairs. Yes. Internal to the Russian Communist Party.
The NKVD weren’t Jew-hunters, engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing.
You could say the same thing about Ayn Rand.
You definitely sound very knowledgeable