On the express acceptance and rejection of beliefs

I recently wondered how the Soviet healthcare system worked. Initially, I thought, based on broad ideas about the USSR, that it wouldn't work very well. After a literature review, I confirmed that it was the case. But would it have been epistemically responsible to proclaim that it was awful without having done that literature review? Probably yes, but without much confidence. Before the review, I just had my opinion, based on background knowledge about how central planning works. Perhaps I was wrong on thi…

Why Ayn Rand is not, and ought not be, taken seriously

EDIT: Read beyond the first paragraph! Also, read this to understand how to reject something without reading it. I have never  read a piece of work from Ayn Rand, beyond some paragraphs and extracts here and there on the internet. I never gave Objectivism, her system of thought, much importance. But there are people -Objectivists- who think she is one of the greatest, or the greatest, philosopher ever (along with Aristotle, they'll add). Sometimes, Objectivists tell people who have not read Rand to read her…

Sobre el conflicto intergeneracional

A veces se dice que existen diferencias de preferencias insalvables entre los jóvenes y los mayores, lo que puede terminar traduciéndose en partidos que favorezcan más a unos o a otros. ¿Pero es esto cierto? Kiko Llaneras afirma aquíque los mayores votan más, que votan a los partidos clásicos, y que las pensiones han subido, y que la pobreza entre los mayores ha caído de forma apreciable, mientras que la general e infantil han subido algo. En este artículo, disputo la tesis principal: no existe un conflicto…

The Soviet Union: Work and retirement

[Part of the Soviet Union series] The Soviet Constitution said ARTICLE 119. Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people. (Soviet Constitution 1936) Article 41. Cit…

Russia without Stalin, Venezuela without Chávez, Cuba without Castro

What would have happened if Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba hadn't had the leaders mentioned in the title? There is one paper for each country that tries to address that really hard question. Spoiler: the countries would have been better off. Was Stalin necessary for Russia's economic development? (2013) by Anton Cheremukhin, Mikhail Golosov, Sergei Guriev, and Aleh Tsyvinski. (Full paper) Therefore our answer to the ‘Was Stalin Necessary?’ question is a definite ‘no’. Even though we do not consider the human …

The Soviet Union: Healthcare

[Part of the Soviet Union series] In a previous post, I talked about Soviet GDP growth. In this post, I will discuss the healthcare system in the Soviet Union. I went and looked for most of the papers written on soviet healthcare. Most, if not all of them present a negative view of the system. If you think I'm cherrypicking my evidence, because it's implausible that there are zero papers claiming the system worked relatively well, you can go to google scholar and search for such evidence. There were some pe…