How about some relief from reading? Cinema!
Where shall I start my Cold War movie list? How about some of the events prior to the end of WWII:
Stalin's purge in the interval between the Wars:
Burnt by the Sun
Someone mentioned the Coca-colization of the Soviets, well then, see "1 2 3 America! made in 1961.
To get ready for Cuba prior to the missile crisis see "Soy Cuba"
I have been quite struck recently as I consider the films that show how the Cold War did loom large in people's lives, even when it wasn't the film's topic - the 1971 film "Little Murders" the protagonist speaks of an FBI man reading his mail while he attended college. The 1967 farce, "The President's Analysist" has the whole spy vs. spy sequence long before Seller in the Pink Panther series.
Here is a quote from the Soviet spy, V.I. Kydor Kropotkin: "Logic is on our side: this isn't a case of a world struggle between two divergent ideologies, of different economic systems. Every day your country becomes more socialistic and mine becomes more capitalistic. Pretty soon we will meet in the middle and join hands."
posted by Mr. Dillon @ 7:27 PM
6 Comments:
'Every day your country becomes more socialistic and mine becomes more capitalistic. Pretty soon we will meet in the middle and join hands'
As always, an idea is only a idea if someone gives it the name 'theory'. This one was called Convergency Theory :-). Some theorists believed that it led us to the 'end of history'.
OB,
Your broad reading background sets me on my heels every time. I really believe that convergence theory has something to it. The US could have never become what it has become without controls on the market economy... without supporting the military-industrial complex with its huge budget. There would be no Lockheed Missiles and Space, no Boeing, no Ratheon, no Silicon Valley... these were largely dependent on the Defense Department's budget. But as far as I can tell, Convergence Theory was not given much thought in the mainstream and really wasn't discussed in more detail until the early mid-seventies... is that right? That's why I thought to have a comedy bring it up in 1967 is great.
Wellll ... there's a small problem with the Convergence Theory, in that it didn't happen. Starting in 1981, the US became less socialist rather than more; and starting in 1991, the USSR took a rather dramatic turn toward the gangster-capitalist Russia we know and love today. We didn't meet in the middle at all!
My favorite Cold War movie will always be Dr Strangelove. (What genius can do to a story is shown by watching it in sequence with Failsafe, which I believe was based on the same book.) Thirty years later, I was privileged to sit in the the underground auditorium in Omaha where the former SAC (by then with a different name) did its work. Quite took my breath away. Just as spooky in the 1990s as it was in the 1960s.
Dan,
Dr. Strangelove is also a favorite of mine. I like how one aspect of it is the incorporating of a former Nazi... As we did with the Japanese as well to develop our chemical weapons program.
I concede that you are right that Convergence didn't happen, but as I said to Olaf, many of the companies that provide us with our safety by developing ICBMs such as General Dynamics, Hughes, Lockheed, etc. would not have existed without the massive patronage of the US military.
But let's use the PRC today, as an example. The PLA has these phony companies that look like independent companies... "Red Chip" companies since they are now traded on the Chinese Stock exchange they look capitalistic, to boot, but are in fact pouring their profits into the People's Liberation Army coffers. Oddly, that is the exact reverse of the situation in the US where the tax dollars go to the Defense Department who in turn give the money to these civilian corporations that are defense contractors. The innovations they achieved would have taken forever to develop in a socialist system without spies...
Sadly these same companies have also sold out American security by selling or giving this missile technology illegally to China, not through spies, but by the corporation's greed. Simply because China promised a cheaper platform to launch satellites, (no environmenatl laws in China with which to comply,) the technology these American companies gave to China to more cheaply launch the satellites have obvious application to ICBMs, a technology China was struggling with on its own. But now, thanks to Loral Space Systems, and others they have the technology for delivery systems, and to put a man in space. So there is where they meet. I agree it is not command economy per se, but is certainly well subsidized by the government.
But what were the consequences of this treason by American corporations? Not a thing, as the companies that gave away this technology have lobbyists who keep donating to our Congressional representatives. This corruption is unfortunately not a new twist on the checks and balances system.
It always depends on how large we think the ‘middle ground’ is. I do not believe in convergence theory, in a sense that an osmotic effect would eventually change the economic systems from the margins. But there are still institutional influences: Can anybody tell me what world HongKong or Shanghai belong to, nowadays? Politics matter in this context. On the other hand – a free market economy is fiction as well. There is hardly any state without working protecting laws (except Russia?) regarding labour conditions, or trade regulations. If there is some time left have a look at Polanyi’s ‘Great Transformation’, a book from 1946, which shows what ‘the market’ can do to systems on either end of the range.
I was in Hong Kong from 1985 to December of 1986. I don't think I'd even recognize it now... the Chinese-British debate and how the free-marketeers were trying to teach them how not to kill the goose laying the golden eggs. But Shanghai is utterly out of control.
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