How The Soviet Underground Economy Actually Works
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 лют 2025
- If you’ve ever wondered about what kind of society where the underground black market thrives best, then the answer would probably be the Soviet Union.
The underground market was an integral part of daily life for people living in socialist countries. In fact, it is what enables the Soviet Union to last for as long as 70 years, and the underground economies in these countries are sometimes larger than the real economy in capitalist countries.
It is estimated that the annual Soviet black market transaction amounts to $145 billion, with around 83% of people using the black market regularly to buy daily necessities and other goods, and around 20 million people were working either full-time or part-time to provide goods and services in the black market.
But why did the Soviet black market get so big in the first place?
Sources:
public.econ.duk... Berkeley-Duke 38 papers on USSR second economy
wp.towson.edu/... Soviet black market under Gorbachev - Brian Walsh
The Russian Underground Economy in Transition - Michael Alexeev, Indiana University (1995)
www.ucis.pitt.... The Second Economy In Consumer Goods and Services In The USSR - Dennis O'Hearn, UC Berkeley (1986)
Music by Epidemic Sound
Stock Footage by Storyblocks
#Soviet Union #Finance #Doverhill
about economics explained, about Finance and how money works, on Soviet underground ecoonomy and how it works, This is an economics/finance video
Gorbachev should have reintroduced Lenin's NEP instead of glasnost and perestroika
idk what you mean but you sound smart
if you have any sources that I can study to understand you better let me know. (i’m really interested in this field and want to learn more)
Lenin's NEP meant that some elements of capitalism were introduced (markets, some trading, small private industry, farmers could sell their own produce etc) to stimulate the economy without weakening the power of the state. Gorbachev made the mistake of choosing to weaken the state power at the same time as making sweeping economic reforms, which led to the downfall of the USSR. I believe Democracy could have been introduced smoothly a few years later, but both types of reform (economic and political) at the same time led to the collapse@@Dhruvpatel-jc1jq
It was probably too late by then. You mean open up the economy a little but carry on repression like china
@@Dhruvpatel-jc1jq Since you posted your comment, you might have already found what you were looking for, but I'll try to answer you if not.
The NEP (for novaya ekonomicheskaya politika - new economic policy) was an economical experiment made by Lenin in the 1920s, that basically introduced a temporary limited form of liberalism in the soviet economy. This was later cancelled by Stalin and other members of the Communist Party since it was deemed "uncommunist" (that is actually pretty fair.)
If at some point you dive into Marxist theory, you'll see that Marx himself didn't think that a nation like Russia (or China, for instance) could become communist, since it wasn't enough industrially developed. He would have preferred Germany to go first.
Marx believed that society must have had a strong factory workers class (proletariat) to overcome the capitalist society and ONLY THEN give place to a communist state. Thus, Lenin wanted to help the USSR reach this step before actually enforcing communism.
Gorbachev, the last real leader of the USSR, introduced glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding), which liberalized the USSR too fast by giving soviet freedom of speech (thus to criticize), and liberalism. The fact that at this point the soviet citizens stopped believing in their leaders as much as under Stalin's time made the USSR, an old and rusty machine, completely collapse, hence why the 90s were so bad for them.
I kinda agree with the first comment, from a soviet leader pov, bringing the NEP again (or following the example of mainland China) would have probably preserved best the old regime, even if that meant renouncing to some Marxist principles.
I hope that everything I said is clear ! :)
Awesome how life finds a way.
Long live capitalism!
Black market aka free market
Can you provide a source for the numbers in the beginning? I want to use them for a video of my own
Tldr
The ussr had a giant black market and 83% of the ussr's population had a second job in said market
@@cyber-7878 what kind of jobs? How could they all work there while accomplishing the insane demands the government asked them to perform at the same time?
@@disrael2101 all kinds of jobs, many people purposely chose low paying state jobs with short work hours and good stuff to steal and resell
@@cyber-7878 interesting but how come they didn't get caught, or how come the government allowed all this HUGE black market to thrive.. ??
@@disrael2101 they government let it thrive because it solved some horrible inefficiencies within the planned economy
черный рынок это незаконный рынок ) таковых в ссср небыло вообще
в ссср небыло рынка оружия или наркотиков или ворованных машин или порнографии
если автор этого дебильного видео называет продажу гражданами гражданам вещей
тогда получается черными рынками являются амазон ебей алиэкспрес и тд и вообще любой блошиный рынок где граждане продают свои старые туфли чайные сервизы и тд
идиотский видос
boo hoo go be mad somewhere else
Говорит человек который не знает?понимает что такое планированая экономика где весь "маркет" и вся не/государственноя економическая дейтельнось вне закона.