Lessons from the USSR Crisis – What brought down the second largest empire of modern times?
The collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, was seen in the West as a demonstration of the superiority of the Western economical and political system. In reality, the story was much more complex and the Soviet Union fell because of the same reasons which may cause the impending collapse of the West. This point was made forcefully by Dmitry Orlov, but he is not the only one who noted the similarities of the two systems. Here, a guest post by the Russian Scientist Svatoslav Zabelin. It is a revised and updated version of a piece that appeared in 1998. Zabelin is also a contributor of the book on the 50th anniversary of the publication of the 1972 book “The Limits to Growth,” expected to appear on the market in March 2022.
Lessons from the USSR Crisis
From “A time to seek, and a time to lose.” 1998.
by Sviatoslav Zabelin
…there are no limits to development, but there are limits to growth.
Meadows DH, Meadows DL, Randers Y. (Beyond limits to growth. Moscow, 1994)
From the book by Donella H. Meadows et al. The Limits to Growth. New York. Universe Books. 1972.
“The world community is developing without any major political changes for as long as possible. The number of people and industrial production increases as long as the state of the environment and natural resources does not limit the ability of the industrial capital sector to provide investment. Industrial capital begins to depreciate faster than new investment flows. As its reserves decrease, food production and health care also fall, leading to a reduction in life expectancy and an increase in mortality.”
- The collapse of the USSR
The ecological and socio-economic macro-crises we are seeing are in one way or another a kind of crisis of the limits of growth…
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