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this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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As someone from a post-soviet country, and had to live in one of those.. there's plenty of reasons to shit on them.
Indeed. There is a hierarchy.
Commie blocks are better than tents.
But proper social housing is better than commie blocks.
And proper social housing mixed with middle class owner-occupied housing in the same neighborhoods and even within the same buildings is the best.
Honestly if I wasn't busy at work I'd make a whole list of why commie blocks are bad, including why they hardly make good social housing
For anyone interested, there are multitudes of videos on YouTube showing commie blocks and why they are bad, so don't feel bad for focusing on work.
Anyone interested can find the information with an easy search.
Are they better than nothing?
In the same way being shot in the liver is better than being shot in the back of the head, sure. But if I saw someone saying victims of shootings that got bodyshot are "shitting on it for no reason" and "they only hate that their bullet scar is ugly" I'd call them out too.
Just cause something is better than the absolute worst doesn't mean it's immune from all criticism. There's probably a fallacy name for this, but I don't know it off the top of my head.. I shall call it "the starving kid fallacy" for now after the classic example of "there are starving kids in africa so you should eat your vegetables" that parents do.. and it the same way OP is doing by saying "there are homeless people, so you should be content with living in a commie block". It's just guilt tripping people for being dissatisfied with their situation for no particular gain other than a perceived moral high ground
Privileged people that have never known suffering should not be allowed to have an opinion on this.
If we got rid of all zoning this would occur naturally. Its our distortion of the free market that's ruined our cities.
Look, the post clearly states "No real reason". You, you gotta learn to read.
(I lived in one of these and it was absolute hell)
The history of these countries cannot be seen in a vacuum. Socialist countries were historically enemies of the United States. The U.S. did everything in its power to weaken them (including economic policy and assassinations) in the USSR, South America, and Asia. And then people knowingly proclaim that socialism can never work.
Yes there was corruption, bureaucracy, oversight, and abuse. Of course, there were missteps and injustices. The same can be said, however, for the U.S. today. At least the communist countries have the excuse of having to stand against the richest and most powerful country in the history of the earth. They did not have the luxury of developing an alternative system in peace.
If history were different, we would still live under the "divine right of kings" and people would argue that parliamentarianism is an untenable mob rule. So we surfs should just continue to work the land and suffer the abuses of the king and his vassals. But our course of history has proven this a lie; we know that the status quo only serves the interests of those who exploit the labor of others.
Ok im gonna try typing out some of the observations of living in commie blocks from personal experience as well as some stories from my friends. Im also spoilering it for anyone who doesn't want to read the list.. also also.. not a comprehensive list of everything, just what I can think of on my lunch break
here goes
Just to name a few :3.. im gonna go eat now
The roof. If yours flat. And even modern housing doesn't have two sets of stairs per entrance(?).
Got it. You are talking about very old 4-5 story buildings.
EDIT:
Wierd. It is much easier to get 50%+1 in "small" 60-appartments building, than in same in new housing with over 10k people living in 3708 flats.
Hey there, also lived in commie block (ground floor of the 10 level (+ground) one), wanna add few things!
Also, bonus point for specifically my neighbourhood - it was built on cementary. We had a lot of weird phenomena, I learnt where it was built much later after moving out.
Now, miracle happened as they renovated these! Got proper insulation and paint, and they look nice now. They also moved down some green space outside the circle and made more parking, leaving inner greenery intact.
My small addition to the list is that the surrounding green spaces were usually poorly lit and created lots of opportunities for muggers to hide once it got dark. In winters it gets dark early, so winters were a dangerous time.
Woah! Thanks for this, interesting hearing a firsthand account. Very similar to trailer park life in the US, in my experience. Public housing/the projects are also similar but I never spent much time in them, strong racial divide in most of the US between trailer parks and projects.
I'm assuming a fair amount of drugs/addiction, small scale petty crime, and domestic violence? Cookouts and parties? Is there pride in being from a commie block? Is there a culture and music? Also, while I'm blasting you with questions, any chance you know a good documentary or book/article?
Although it does appear that living in them was better than living in a tent and perhaps led to living in a better housing situation? Unless the place was demolished after you moved out, it would be better than a tent for someone else.
Bad housing is better than no housing, largely in part that it helps people get out of the inertia and deathspiral of homelessness.
There's a minimum a society should provide, and public housing at least can satisfy that.
The issue is that you presume the options are either public housing or a tent. You are missing the other option, which is simply allowing developers to build more housing on their own and removing the ability to speculate on land value, forcing land owners to earn an income only by the benefit their land provides to others. Zoning reform, good urban infrastructure, and Georgist tax policy do this without necessitating terrible concrete commie blocks everywhere
That has failed everywhere it's been tried. Capitalists will never intentionally make less money. They don't have souls.
They will always just build cheaply built 'luxury' apartments/condos destined to be demolished in 20 years so another developer can do the same thing.
Please tell me where this has been tried. I know of no major government entity which has enacted Georgist tax policy.
If you hate capitalism, you are missing the big picture - the enemy of the average person isn't the accumulation of money and respurces, but the accumulation of power - money and resources being but one aspect of this. Capitalism is good because it mostly occupies the psychopaths with becoming rich, rather than seeking seats of power in government. Capitalism is the best form of innovation and resource distribution we have yet devised, and works well for people with proper safeguards in place preventing accumulation of too much wealth and ensuring the welfare of the average citizen.
You're partially right, dengism has caused the single largest improvement to the quality of life for its adherents in history compared to all other economic ideologies, and part of dengism is capitalism exclusively for luxury items. But all other forms of capitalism have objectively failed society. Capitalism itself is the evil factor, it is a poison.
Poisons can be used as medicine when you're sick, but taking that moderate amount of poison too long will kill you the same as an acute dose.
You cannot easily fight back against those with capital, so the accumulation of capital will always result in the accumulation of power. There is not amount of guardrails that help forever. The goal must always be to eliminate capitalism and the private ownership of capital entirely.