How did the job market work in the Soviet union?

Nah, m8. All party members are equally equal.
Non-members aren't people, though.

,,,wait

Was the Soviet Union just a modern version of Athenian Democracy/Roman Republic?

you might be onto something here

You don't get assigned to coal mines after getting a high education.
If it was a practical education (various industrial universities or PTU) you could get dumped on factory or become a plumber for a while. If it was something more theoretical like math or physics you could be dumped in one of the research institutes for government.
Humanities pretty much werent a thing in soviet union, you might have had an art education but that would make you a farmer or a janitor.
The worst thing that I've heard to happen was a guy with a chem degree being taken into some military research and getting early cancer.

Really offers parameters condusive to deep contemplation, fampire

so it isnt about helping yourself and those below you, but rather tearing down those above you?

how is having Paris Hilton picking some crops tearing her down? Is she supposed to be intrinsically better than the poor schlub that has to do it all his life?

nice mentality you have hierarchy cuck

>Me and my mate were promised to be sent to the space station, in addition to medals and housing, if we just sign on the dotted line that we agree to work in the particular "Box"

>source: Quora.com
can you try a little harder

If it's not tearing her down why do you care so much that she should be forced to do it?

because if everyone rotating two weeks a year to pick crops (including Paris Hilton) meant that a whole class of people could be liberated from doing that all 52 weeks of the year for their entire life, it would ultimately be a good thing. At least in my opinion.

>honestly if picking crops for two weeks out of the year meant that the Paris Hiltons and Jaden Smiths of the world had to do it too I'd be all for it. It's a small price to pay.
you clearly mean that you are willing to "pay" (doing it yourself) to force them to do it, when beforehand they were a class above and were elevated from such work.

>hierarchy cuck
the most beta fucking thing imaginable is subscribing to the fact that the hierarchy system disfavors you because you have resigned to being lowly. you decide you need to have no hierarchy in order to make it anywhere.

it didn't

After middle school you have a choice:

-- go for higher education at university (free, also you are paid [very little] if your marks are good enough). Degree diploma is usually required for professional areas, though people with 'blat' (connections) can circumvent that. University is also a great place to meet new people -- either professionally or romantically (lots of girls enroll just to meet a guy, marry him and drop out at 2-3rd year). Some universities also had clauses allowing to either shorten military draft period or forgo the draft completely with added bonus of giving you military rank by the end. Because it was free, higher education got devalued somewhat by the sheer masses who took it.

-- you can go for "specialised education" (which is considered lesser than high education) for jobs like wielder or crane operator and stuff. It usually takes 1-2 years and you will have guaranteed job out of it because wielders are ALWAYS in high demand no matter the regime. These types of professionals have semi-military type ranks, like wielder of x rank (from 1 -- your regular grunt to 6 -- true wielding master with personal brand he puts on all wielding jobs he takes). You are supposed to increase your rank with time as you take more courses and grow professionally.

-- you can try to find a job right after middle school. It's will be some kind manual labour type job like loader and stuff. Folks at collective farms would just complete a minimal course at middle school (8 years instead of 10) and go straight to farm.

-- if you go to army you can find job there. Like a driver or even an artist (to draw banners) or musician (military orchestra). And again -- connections.

Finding a job isn't really a problem. You ask around your friends and relatives or look at classifieds in newspapers.

Not working was a crime in SU, so if you spend too much time unemployed -- you will be given/forced into a job. Street cleaner if needed be, but you won't be unemployed

What happened when people got injured or sick? Was there any mobility or were you stuck with your career once you reached a certain level?

>What happened when people got injured or sick?
If you get sick (like got cold) you take a sick leave. It is paid provided you can confirm that you indeed were sick from your local clinic.

If you got trauma directly on the job, you will get compensation and medical care to fix you up. Many industries, like coal mining and metallurgic complexes had a wide network of medical resorts for both curing traumas and prophylactic.

If trauma resulted in you becoming invalid you will get bonuses to your social pay (pension).

> Was there any mobility or were you stuck with your career
Nothing stops from changing your career at any time, state doesn't give a crap about your choices as long as you keep employed. You need to inform your employee month in advance before you want to leave and you're free to go.

This is a thing I'm always curious about in different societies: What if you had some sort of disability, or developed one unrelated to your job that prevented you from working. MS or severe epilepsy, for example.

>What if you had some sort of disability, or developed one unrelated to your job that prevented you from working
You get classified as "invalid of X category" and you get a pension and various other privileges, like free rides in public transport.

One of the Ss in USSR stands for "social".

My grandpa was a coal miner in gommie Czechoslovakia and got badly hurt on the job

He ended up with a pension and was given a job as a primary school groundskeeper/custodian

>coal miner in gommie Czechoslovakia
fucking upper class kid here

>The worst thing that I've heard to happen was a guy with a chem degree being taken into some military research and getting early cancer.

I love the implication here. "Could have worked somewhere else and get the standard late cancer like most of people, instead got early cancer from shady military research."

Such is life in Soviet Union

Everybody gets cancer nowdays.

There was a joke to be made but you fucked it up kys

Yeah, but differing countries have differing policies. North Korea, for example, has a policy of just disappearing anyone disabled, especially dwarfs.

I wasn't sure if they had some kind of 'busy work' system that some countries employ.

>but differing countries have differing policies
OP asks about SU specifically

Yeah, which is why I asked about the Soviet Union. Different "Socialist" states have enacted different policies.

>North Korea, for example, has a policy of just disappearing anyone disabled, especially dwarfs
>especially dwarfs
That explains why the whole country is in isolation. They disappeared themselves.

Lol. Seriously though, it's horrifying. Kim Jong Il claimed to have cured dwarfism. And he either put them all in camps, or just pulled a literally Hitler.

WITNESS ME

You mean a literally Tojo

Wait, Tojo had a 'euthenasia' policy?

>As Home Minister, he ordered various eugenics measures (including the sterilization of the "mentally unfit").
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Tojo

He was semi-well known for killing off hafus. Pretty sure he's reached a terminal centrifugal velocity from spinning in his grave from all the American hafus in Japan.

there aren't that many haafu. most of the haafu are half chinese

I don't think there are more than 100k americans in all of japan. which would be, like 10% of the entire foreign population.

he's pretty cool for sending the children of GI's via rape to secret facilities where tehy were euthenized thoug.

can't reward rape.

>Was the Soviet Union just a modern version of Athenian Democracy/Roman Republic?

Russia considers itself as 3rd Rome.

Apparently for the most part from what I hear from Russians and such, work life in the USSR was comfy as fucking shit, you spent your time lazying around and you got fucking shittonnes of fully paid for vacations to places like the black sea, Crimea etc.

The hard part is when your factory boss goes full retard and promises something that is impossible, or you don't have supplies to meet demand so you have to head to the black market which is fraught with it's own risks is the authorities are out to make an example of someone that day.

amazon.com/Red-Plenty-Francis-Spufford/dp/1555976042

This book apparently goes very heavily into the day to day lives of ordinary Soviet workers. I've had it recommended to me numerous times and I even own a copy, but haven't read it yet because my Kindle is fucked.

how did artists work there? how about private manufacturers if there was somehting like that. Say you want to sell little statues what did you do? do the work you are assigned and then do your thing in the free time? There was some kind of coin right? It was only primary goods that were assigned to every people, right?

Can someone explain to me where the money spent at say a supermarket went? Like, was it just given back to Soviet Economic Ministry X and just recirculated back into the economy? How did they prevent grocery store owners from cooking the books and skimming a profit for themselves? Did Soviets pay rent? Utilities? Phone?

>how did artists work there?
You join union of artists/writers/sculptors/whatever.

You get orders to create this painting or mosaic (in socialist realistic style of course) to be placed on the wall of that or this building, for example. Or a statue in streets. Or building if you're an architect. You complete the work and get your pay.

> There was some kind of coin right?
Are you for real? Are you seriously asking if USSR had money?

>where the money spent at say a supermarket went? Like, was it just given back to Soviet Economic Ministry X
Yes, that's exactly it.

> How did they prevent grocery store owners from cooking the books and skimming a profit for themselves?

a) first of all they had a special agency to prevent just that:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBKhSS

b) if you get a lot of money: SU society was built so you can't actually use it (or you can but you will attract the attention of OBKHS). Random individual can't buy land, house or even a car -- all of those things go through employee.

> Did Soviets pay rent? Utilities? Phone?
citizens paid rather measly "flat" rate (kvartplata) which encompassed ALL of the bills: house rent, utilities, everything.

In fact after the collapse people discovered thatthey have to have 100 times more for water, electricity and gas EACH because collapsed state was no longer footing the bill

thank you and yes i was rreally asking becuase i really have no knowledge on the matter.(i heard some communist places were half commuist and worked like i described, so i asked if usssr maybe worked that way too

Gulag

After you

>Apparently for the most part from what I hear from Russians and such, work life in the USSR was comfy as fucking shit, you spent your time lazying around and you got fucking shittonnes of fully paid for vacations to places like the black sea, Crimea etc.

The principle of the state capitalism of the period of transition to communism: the authorities pretend they are paying wages, workers pretend they are working.

I am genuinely startled by the lack of knowledge of - and I admit I am being perhaps a bit nasty & hasty here - what seems to me to be young Americans when it comes to the Soviet Union. Questions like "was there money" and so on. This is not the first time I have seen these people have wild and crazy misconceptions about the place.

Sure, it was a shithole, but for specific reasons, going by these internet comments I'm talking about, you'd think it was something straight out of 1984 with its uniform, non-descript, singular mass of barely-people rather than a vast nation comprising millions of individuals.

Like, it gets distilled into a startlingly inaccurate caricature, sort of reminiscent of the treatment alien races get in sci-fi shows - they all look and act and are the same and their world is pretty monolithic for all intents and purposes (whereas our heroes are all different). Bewildering stuff.

Nice old cliche meme. Soviets had the second largest economy until 1991. Clearly a great many people in USSR weren't merely pretending to work.

The very basic principles of the economy in USSR or the socialist bloc worked virtually exactly the same as in today's economy. I'm talking the lowest possible level, you work for an entity providing goods and services, you get paid, you exchange money for goods and services to another entity providing them. Ta-da. I hate to go into this wordplay bullshit but there was no 'communism' going on, it was all 'socialism'. (inb4 'real communism', that's not the point here, it's shit either way)

Of course, the higher you go in the economic system, the differences become much greater - such as the non-existent or extremely limited possibilities of private enterprise, the entities in question being state-owned, the direction of these being a top-to-bottom plan with limited (if any) feedback from the market and actual needs. Furthermore common services such as rent and utilities were heavily subsidized (and state/municipality-run).

>how about private manufacturers if there was somehting like that. Say you want to sell little statues what did you do?
Largely illegal. The only period private manufacturing any kind was allowed in soviet union was during NEP (new economic policy) of 1920s.
You could produce goods for profit at that point and even create small businesses. (and people found loopholes in it to run multiple shadowy businesses in essence becoming secret multi millionaires)

>Sure, it was a shithole, but for specific reasons, going by these internet comments I'm talking about, you'd think it was something straight out of 1984 with its uniform, non-descript, singular mass of barely-people rather than a vast nation comprising millions of individuals.
This is basically what we get taught in public school. I remember being surprised when I learned there was criminals in the USSR.

>I am genuinely startled by the lack of knowledge of Americans when it comes to X
are you really?..

> EVERYTHING gets distilled into a startlingly inaccurate caricature
welcome to the brave new world of internet where memery and intentional idiocy supplants actual knowledge

>welcome to the brave new world
Implying this isnt how its always been

>they all look and act and are the same and their world is pretty monolithic for all intents and purposes (whereas our heroes are all different). Bewildering stuff.

Welcome to someone who studied North Korea and has actually been there telling people that no, those thousands of people I saw every day living largely normal lives were not fucking actors sent by the Government to make me pretend I was in a wonderland.
Every single fucking time I have to say this, every single fucking time I'm told I'm "naieve". Yeah, the NK Government is going to harness thousands of people to present some fantasy wonderland for me, despite they did nothing to hide the poverty and I saw a lot of it, cool story.

There is something you pick up quickly about western media. It's racist and ignorant as fuck and has certain "memes" about certain nationalities or races. For example, Asians are generally presented in the media as a faceless hivemind like the Borg in Star Trek and this is essentially all Asians not only North Koreans. It's not even blatantly obvious, it's just the subtle language and implications that are used when talking about Asia.

I've thought this for years, it was interesting to have it confirmed in an article I read the other day by a former NYT journalist who wrote on his time at the NYT.

>"You learn, you internalize these little phrases that you apply to other countries, like Serbia is 'nationalist' or engaged in 'extremist policies,' but the United States is never doing those things, of course — and you wouldn't put them in a story,” Simpson explained.

>Times employees are expected to tout the agenda no matter how hypocritical. “You'd never frame a story that said the United States has started a war of aggression, but it's instead engaged in a 'foreign policy project,'” Simpson added. “Or you would talk about 'harsh interrogation techniques' as opposed to torture. These are things that people just learn to do."

Western Media is propaganda perfected

>are you really?..
Yes, honestly, I am. Well maybe not as much now but certainly still to a degree. I first saw it in a >reddit post someone linked on /int/, I think, a couple years ago or thereabouts.

They were asking absolutely crazy questions. Did everyone wear the same clothes (not as a brand, but as in a uniform). Did they have theaters and movies. Concerts. Stuff like that. It wasn't just one guy, I've seen these kinds of questions pop up every now and then. And then they are surprised that yes, the average commie lad would go out for a swim and then hop on a bike and go out with his friends and go to a cinema or play football and take out his girl somewhere and attend school and then get a job and maybe get a promotion or retire or whatever. Again, with the caveat of the political and (especially) economic system of the USSR at the time.

Or take the Iron Curtain. There's folks who were surprised to learn that people travelled across it. That "western" books, movies, music, fashion etc. all found its way behind it (regulated, yes, but not impenetrable). I was like, holy shit, are they for real? Unless it was a conspiracy of dozens of people to make me believe there are people so unaware of relatively recent history - or rather, which is worse, with such a warped pseudo-knowledge of it.

Their image of the USSR was two parts 1984, and one part some absolutely extreme slice of the most hardcore communist policies (I'm talking the zaniest, Mao-and-agriculture/biology tier of stupidity). Mindless waves of drones with no free will working in a dystopic terror, not people but robots slaving away under the watchful eye of the party, same clothes, same food, same everything. Like I said, the scifi alien race cliche.

I don't know if it's some sort of low level racism/xenophobia/remains of Cold War propaganda going on, or if it's just these people being stupid, or a failure of the education system or whatever.

This post makes a good point.

modern mass media are by definition targeting masses

And simple masses want simple (read: retarded) things, easy to digest and understand.

Complex understanding of the world as it is has no place here -- no everything has to be appropriated into simple re-used memes

It's not even an agenda of some secret council, but merelt an invisible hand of mass masket dictating entire viewpoint of everything to be kept as simple as possible for LCD.

Latent racism for ethnicities that are present in US is checked by lawsuits and actual physical presence of such minorities.

Soviets or North Koreans are however might as well be Martian in how remote they are (infinitely remote for SU -- considering soviet society literally doesn't exist anymore). These types of scieties are silent unrepresented targets of being simplified into reductionary terms and memes that are easy to consume, repeat and eventually -- be made into history.

>quora

Hmmm

>Athenian Democracy
>Roman Republic
Pick one.

Athenian Democracy was direct democracy whereas the Roman Republic was an elected oligarchy.

I really don't think it's simple simplification. There's something silly going on in the details or in how the issue is presented in schools, and I don't mean that it's dumbed down. This is akin to thinking that in ancient Rome/Greece everyone wore a purple toga, ate grapes, and philosophized while watching gladiators fight in the colosseum, and that that is literally how everything was. I.e. blatant nonsense and a failure to understand very simple facts of life and society and everyday human life. I don't think even the middle ages get such a warped treatment, and they get it pretty bad in mass media.

Refer to
>Leninism

are you fucking retarded? The soviet union had exactly zero democratic elements, you dork. And why did you even imply Athenian democracy had any semblance to the Roman Republic? Nothing to do with each other.

>The soviet union had exactly zero democratic elements, you dork.

Not entirely true, while the elections were completely rigged (you voted for what Communist Party fucktard you wanted), people generally just used the ballots to write things that they want for their community, like new playground, new theater, better utilities or whatever.

There is one story of a neighbourhood wanting a pool, so they wrote all on their ballots "we want a pool" and after the election, they got their pool.

The Soviet Authorities wanted to keep their citizens happy, for both security reasons and they themselves lived in those communities.

>meant that a whole class of people could be liberated from doing that all 52 weeks of the year for their entire life, it would ultimately be a good thing.

Retroactive justification. The first thought you had was the glee in seeing the rich and wealthy brought low. Admit it, the thought brought you joy. There is no shame in saying that. Just don't lie to the world and yourself what your real reasons are.