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Most of the great events in world history happened because people made decisions based on gut, and put personal negotiation above political correctness. It obviously has the possibility of causing instability — but the love of stability over significance and valor is the stuff of the neoliberal consensus, which is collapsing.
All things considered, I would prefer to live in interesting times to boring times, and I’d argue the revealed preferences of human beings are the same. Note the way veterans obsess about their service, or the way pledges go through humiliating rituals only to be bossed around and corralled by half-sober frat brothers, and then remember the situation fondly! And moreover: note how inside Russia there’s immense nostalgia for the rule of Stalin of all people, and note how pumped up the Chinese people are to take Taiwan. People would rather, especially in hindsight, live through a time that will go in the history books than one that will be forgotten. People would rather fly high, and end up too close to the sun, than swing low and drown in the deep. Would you rather be Abraham Lincoln, or James Garfield? Both were shot, but only one was shot because he was historically important.
There are a great many interesting places on Earth right now should you so desire an escape from the oppression of peace and stability.
The motte is "peace and stability" while the bailey is a smothering, devouring-mother managerial state where nothing happens too fast or slow and all the sharp corners have been sanded off of every political decision. There's a spectrum between the smothering hospice-care managerial state and biker gang anarchism, and just because someone would like to move a little further away from the former does not mean that they want to bring about the latter.
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Fair enough, it was a dumb comment.
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How much of this is stated vs revealed preferences? Would many modern day Russians actually go back to communist living standards?
Economists usually say it's 20-60-20: 20% of Russians have greatly improved their living standards, 20% of Russians have it much worse, 60% have about the same living standards. For the nitpickers, they are comparing extrapolated living standards, not 1975 with 2025.
So about 80% would not protest against switching to a planned economy.
Were living standards rising for the average Russian actually rising in the tail end of the soviet union? Like obviously factory workers in 1989 were much better off than in 1950 but were they better off than in 1980?
In the 80s? Not really, I'd say they stagnated. The oil glut really upset the economy, which relied on trading oil and gas for food.
The whole idea of perestroika was to reboot the industral sector and turn it into a profit center, but it backfired spectacularly.
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