Capitalism means competion, which means strong eat weak. If someone has what you need to survive, you eat them (figuratively speaking haha). On scale of state actors, this means war. Socialism, on the other hand, means rational and planned distribution of resources. I belive that slowly we are reaching that stage of culture as humans where we will collectively realize that this is the only way to survive without war famine etc, just as our relationship with nature and environment is beggining to take on forms of collective responsibility.
> Do you have actual examples where this happened recently or are you just talking general ideas here?
How about the GFC, which is still being felt today.
> Do you mean the gray long apartment blighting the cities across Eastern Europe? Ugly, unventilated and insulated and ready to fall at the first earthquake they would be simply illegal to build today. The only reason they still keep "their value" is that we managed to overregulated the housing market into an obvious supply-constrained corner.
While beauty is in the eye of the beholder (i personally find brutalist architecture aesthetically appealing), what you say about structural quality of socialist housing is very wrong. In fact, given the prevelance of reinforced concrete in socialist construction, structurally they are better and more earthquake resistant than many modern buildings. For socialist construction withstanding earthquakes see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Zagreb_earthquake
Anyway the point is, people in Eastern Europe can relax in ways that would make many people in the West jealous - ie they dont have to kiss their bosses' bums to pay off their mortgage and keep their homes. Or worst, kiss bank managers bums to get a home loan approved. Owning a home is as real a wealth as it comes.
> Eastern Europe's growth rate after the fall of communism beat the West's.
The economic growth rate of socialist block of countries was double that of the West, until 1980s. The difference being that socialist block excelled at heavy industry and strategic development. They had major problems with light industry (hence the shortages in convenience sotres). On the other hand, economic development in Eastern Europe today is driven largely by outsourcing of labour from the West, and many heavy industries had to be closed because Western bosses didn't want competition. The reason why companies from the West go to Eastern Europe has alot to do with the level of education of labour force in Eastern Europe. And guess what system is responsible for said levels of education ... :)
My belief is that socialism in eastern europe sucked big time. However to ignore some of its benefits is simply stupid. If we can learn well from history we are in a better place as humans to build a better world for all humans. Otherwise we will descend into war and barbarism, where we find ourselves at the moment. The key difference between the situation preceding WWI and today is the presence of nuclear weapons. Even trench warfare has made a comeback.
> They are nostalgic for their youth. Plus they are retirees and their work created little economic value during communism so their pensions are appropriately limited.
Maybe they also miss their generous anual leave, work rights, and 36 hour work week.