The Soviets turned the Volga into a machine. Then the machine broke.
December 15, 2021 12:17 PM Subscribe
Olga Dobridova in MIT Technology Review writing about the environmental toll on the Volga River, the Volga matrushka of the Russian people, caused by Soviet-era dams and industrialization of the river, and the current Healthy Volga initiative to attempt to mitigate the damage.
I don't see how economic systems come into it. It's about man's desire to change and exploit nature. "The Soviets Americans turned the Volga Mississippi into a machine. Then the machine broke."
posted by kersplunk at 12:54 PM on December 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by kersplunk at 12:54 PM on December 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
It doesn't, but in recent years, when there's an article about environmental harm, you can almost set your watch by someone here commenting, effectively, "because capitalism lol."
posted by tclark at 1:01 PM on December 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by tclark at 1:01 PM on December 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Indeed, environmental devastation occurs independent of economic systems. But these days it is often framed as singularly linked to capitalism... and the implication is often present that if we could only move away from capitalism, we'd heal the planet. My point is merely that it ain't necessarily so.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:24 PM on December 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 1:24 PM on December 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I don't see how economic systems come into it.
They have different local reactions to the same problem. One system uses money and influence to decide the scope of a natural impact, but people can complain and report on it with opposing views, and sometimes vote on it or make some demands. The other system can do it without spending at all, because it uses absolute authority to decide the scope of the impact, and nobody local is publicly allowed to complain or question it, or vote on it.
posted by Brian B. at 1:29 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
They have different local reactions to the same problem. One system uses money and influence to decide the scope of a natural impact, but people can complain and report on it with opposing views, and sometimes vote on it or make some demands. The other system can do it without spending at all, because it uses absolute authority to decide the scope of the impact, and nobody local is publicly allowed to complain or question it, or vote on it.
posted by Brian B. at 1:29 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Paul Josephson says: “They’ve really turned both rivers into machines.”
Reminds me of this Heidegger passage:
The hydroelectric plant is set into the current of the Rhine. It sets the Rhine to supplying its hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbines turning. This turning sets those machines in motion whose thrust sets going the electric current for which the long-distance power station and its network of cables are set up to dispatch electricity. In the context of the interlocking processes pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy, even the Rhine itself appears to be something at our command. The hydroelectric plant is not built into the Rhine River as was the old wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather, the river is dammed up into the power plant. What the river is now, namely, a water-power supplier, derives from the essence of the power station. In order that we may even remotely consider the monstrousness that reigns here, let us ponder for a moment the contrast that is spoken by the two titles: "The Rhine," as dammed up into the power works, and "The Rhine," as uttered by the art work, in Hölderlin's hymn by that name. But, it will be replied, the Rhine is still a river in the landscape, is it not? Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry.
posted by doctornemo at 2:03 PM on December 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
Reminds me of this Heidegger passage:
The hydroelectric plant is set into the current of the Rhine. It sets the Rhine to supplying its hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbines turning. This turning sets those machines in motion whose thrust sets going the electric current for which the long-distance power station and its network of cables are set up to dispatch electricity. In the context of the interlocking processes pertaining to the orderly disposition of electrical energy, even the Rhine itself appears to be something at our command. The hydroelectric plant is not built into the Rhine River as was the old wooden bridge that joined bank with bank for hundreds of years. Rather, the river is dammed up into the power plant. What the river is now, namely, a water-power supplier, derives from the essence of the power station. In order that we may even remotely consider the monstrousness that reigns here, let us ponder for a moment the contrast that is spoken by the two titles: "The Rhine," as dammed up into the power works, and "The Rhine," as uttered by the art work, in Hölderlin's hymn by that name. But, it will be replied, the Rhine is still a river in the landscape, is it not? Perhaps. But how? In no other way than as an object on call for inspection by a tour group ordered there by the vacation industry.
posted by doctornemo at 2:03 PM on December 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
A sobering reminder that when it comes to environmental destruction, socialism does not have a notably better track record than capitalism.
Socialism and capitalism both have to be implemented by systems that are infested by Homo sapiens, and therefore succumb to similar failure modes.
posted by ocschwar at 2:26 PM on December 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
Socialism and capitalism both have to be implemented by systems that are infested by Homo sapiens, and therefore succumb to similar failure modes.
posted by ocschwar at 2:26 PM on December 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
In particular, both systems are designed to distill N-dimensional data into 1-dimensional decisions (and sometimes Boolean decisions), and sometimes the wrong data are filtered out.
posted by ocschwar at 2:28 PM on December 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ocschwar at 2:28 PM on December 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Capitalism is predicated on eternal growth, like a cancer, so the economy can never be scaled to the size of the resource limits, like the planet.
Theoretically, socialism could scale the economy properly, but historically, many socialist governments have also obsessed with needless growth, a kind of competition with the capitalists.
Society for Conservation Biology used to have a Steady State Economics Section. The Market people and the capitalist people have branded themselves advocates of "Natural Capitalism" at this point. But the problem with imagining that there could be a "Natural Capitalism" is that, if there are values and life-support functions that shouldn't be destroyed for the economy, who gets to evaluate and decide that? Jeff Bezos? Native Tribes? Thiel is doing a hell of a job.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12713
https://steadystate.org/wp-content/uploads/Czech_Ecological_Economics.pdf
But we still haven't delinked growth from resource exploitation, in practice. Even if we can't stop growth, it's worthwhile to at least think about an economics if resources mattered--steady state economics. No one has been able to achieve this, politically. The Club of Rome and them are explicitly against it, and the Economics textbooks still just talk about growth as good.
Critiques of capitalism just seem more predictive of our politics at this point in US history, at least, where the economic strategy seems to be "give all money to Jeff Bezos" and the political strategy seems to be "let's give the Presidency / Senate to people trying to become as rich as Jeff Bezos."
If we are ever going to stop accelerating the extinction of the human species, we are going to have to come up with a polity that can govern an economic system that does not depend on perpetual exploitation. Capitalism doesn't seem like such a candidate.
posted by eustatic at 3:48 PM on December 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Theoretically, socialism could scale the economy properly, but historically, many socialist governments have also obsessed with needless growth, a kind of competition with the capitalists.
Society for Conservation Biology used to have a Steady State Economics Section. The Market people and the capitalist people have branded themselves advocates of "Natural Capitalism" at this point. But the problem with imagining that there could be a "Natural Capitalism" is that, if there are values and life-support functions that shouldn't be destroyed for the economy, who gets to evaluate and decide that? Jeff Bezos? Native Tribes? Thiel is doing a hell of a job.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12713
https://steadystate.org/wp-content/uploads/Czech_Ecological_Economics.pdf
But we still haven't delinked growth from resource exploitation, in practice. Even if we can't stop growth, it's worthwhile to at least think about an economics if resources mattered--steady state economics. No one has been able to achieve this, politically. The Club of Rome and them are explicitly against it, and the Economics textbooks still just talk about growth as good.
Critiques of capitalism just seem more predictive of our politics at this point in US history, at least, where the economic strategy seems to be "give all money to Jeff Bezos" and the political strategy seems to be "let's give the Presidency / Senate to people trying to become as rich as Jeff Bezos."
If we are ever going to stop accelerating the extinction of the human species, we are going to have to come up with a polity that can govern an economic system that does not depend on perpetual exploitation. Capitalism doesn't seem like such a candidate.
posted by eustatic at 3:48 PM on December 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
You can't assume perfect spherical communism was taking place in a vacuum. IRL they had the choice of either
A) rapidly industrializing to compete with the west, with all the externalities that entails, or
B) giving up their social project immediately.
The environment impact was essentially locked in.
posted by StarkRoads at 3:54 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
A) rapidly industrializing to compete with the west, with all the externalities that entails, or
B) giving up their social project immediately.
The environment impact was essentially locked in.
posted by StarkRoads at 3:54 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
And thanks to the person who brought up the USACE regulation of the Mississippi and the dissident American scientists whose careers have been thrown in the gutter for daring to challenge the US Army Corps.
I would love to see an article on that.
posted by eustatic at 3:58 PM on December 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
I would love to see an article on that.
posted by eustatic at 3:58 PM on December 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
The environment impact was essentially locked in.
Everyone had/has their reasons why this type of exploitation "had/has to happen."
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:09 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Everyone had/has their reasons why this type of exploitation "had/has to happen."
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:09 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
There really is a Mississippi analogue for almost every part of this article. The feckless US Hypoxia task force, blue babies in Iowa; Dead Zones in the Gulf, the Dredge Cartel that the US Army Corps collaborates with; failed restoration compact after restoration compact; hopeless Wing Dam projects; the "zombie" Yazoo Pumps project that was too stupid even for George W Bush, and resurrected by Trump.
Russia is too new, and they just haven't had their Katrina yet? but the US Army Corps has destroyed New Orleans once, and tried to get rid of St Louis more recently.
There was an effort to remove the US' civil engineering away from the Department of Defense; it was at its height after Katrina, and 2006; but I fear that movement has been broken.
Are there any histories of the myth making around the Volga, like there are for the Mississippi? River of Dark Dreams is a pretty good one about the history of the Mississippi river in the formation of US white supremacy.
Is there a similar work for how the nation-making myth of the Volga has changed as the Russian state has changed?
posted by eustatic at 4:15 PM on December 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Russia is too new, and they just haven't had their Katrina yet? but the US Army Corps has destroyed New Orleans once, and tried to get rid of St Louis more recently.
There was an effort to remove the US' civil engineering away from the Department of Defense; it was at its height after Katrina, and 2006; but I fear that movement has been broken.
Are there any histories of the myth making around the Volga, like there are for the Mississippi? River of Dark Dreams is a pretty good one about the history of the Mississippi river in the formation of US white supremacy.
Is there a similar work for how the nation-making myth of the Volga has changed as the Russian state has changed?
posted by eustatic at 4:15 PM on December 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Everyone had/has their reasons why this type of exploitation "had/has to happen."
Everyone who? What could the actual actors who existed at the time have done differently?
posted by StarkRoads at 4:41 PM on December 15, 2021
Everyone who? What could the actual actors who existed at the time have done differently?
posted by StarkRoads at 4:41 PM on December 15, 2021
Again ignoring left/right economics, the two big hydro schemes in Ireland post-independence (the Shannon scheme and the Liffey scheme ) had twin purposes - to supply much-needed electricity and clean drinking water, and to stick it to Brits who still looked upon us as backwards. Most prestige projects have a mixture of both motivations.
On an unrelated note, I try to make it to the Alps once a year, and one of the first things you notice is that France is seriously into hydro. If you want to experience true fear, try cycling across a dam in a storm.
posted by kersplunk at 5:15 PM on December 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
On an unrelated note, I try to make it to the Alps once a year, and one of the first things you notice is that France is seriously into hydro. If you want to experience true fear, try cycling across a dam in a storm.
posted by kersplunk at 5:15 PM on December 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
Everyone who? What could the actual actors who existed at the time have done differently?
As the article points out, the case was made at the time that this was a bad bargain:
The report predicted that reservoirs would cause “swamp formation due to flooding, poor conditions for soil self-restoration, flooding of cellars in homes, changing microclimate, algae blooms and stale water, pollution, slowing down of water flow, and local risks of malaria.”
The Rybinskoe Reservoir destroyed thousands of square miles of arable land for a relatively small amount of electricity—after upgrades, the hydropower station now produces 376 megawatts, less than a fifth of what America’s Hoover Dam puts out.
It's not like the Soviet Union was short of other megalomaniacal forced-industrialization projects they could have put all that technical know-how and gulag labor to work on. Think of how many more Chernobyls they could have built!
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:34 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
As the article points out, the case was made at the time that this was a bad bargain:
The report predicted that reservoirs would cause “swamp formation due to flooding, poor conditions for soil self-restoration, flooding of cellars in homes, changing microclimate, algae blooms and stale water, pollution, slowing down of water flow, and local risks of malaria.”
The Rybinskoe Reservoir destroyed thousands of square miles of arable land for a relatively small amount of electricity—after upgrades, the hydropower station now produces 376 megawatts, less than a fifth of what America’s Hoover Dam puts out.
It's not like the Soviet Union was short of other megalomaniacal forced-industrialization projects they could have put all that technical know-how and gulag labor to work on. Think of how many more Chernobyls they could have built!
posted by AdamCSnider at 5:34 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Absolutely, they could make a different micro-level decision, the same macro level logic was at work regardless.
On one side of the family, the US took our family farm (and the whole rest of the town)to make bombs. They lived considerably poorer for the next few decades. To this day, and for thousands of years to come, the location of that town will be a radioactive wasteland. On the other side, an ancestor of mine was frozen to a mining job that eventually killed him. The rivers there are still choking with toxic runoff from those mines.
As long as you have zero sum competition driving everything, a lot of bad externalities are coming your way.
posted by StarkRoads at 5:45 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
On one side of the family, the US took our family farm (and the whole rest of the town)to make bombs. They lived considerably poorer for the next few decades. To this day, and for thousands of years to come, the location of that town will be a radioactive wasteland. On the other side, an ancestor of mine was frozen to a mining job that eventually killed him. The rivers there are still choking with toxic runoff from those mines.
As long as you have zero sum competition driving everything, a lot of bad externalities are coming your way.
posted by StarkRoads at 5:45 PM on December 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Capitalism is predicated on eternal growth,
And socialism is predicated on perpetually improving living standards. Socialism wins here (since "growth" can send Bezos into space without doing a damned thing for you and me.) But both ideologies justify themselves with notions of perpetual progress. It makes sense, since both emerged at a time when progress was happening and just about certain to happen. But it means neither of them are ready for Hubbert's Peak, nor for climate change. And both are as likely to sacrifice environmental resources when push comes to shove.
posted by ocschwar at 6:17 PM on December 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
And socialism is predicated on perpetually improving living standards. Socialism wins here (since "growth" can send Bezos into space without doing a damned thing for you and me.) But both ideologies justify themselves with notions of perpetual progress. It makes sense, since both emerged at a time when progress was happening and just about certain to happen. But it means neither of them are ready for Hubbert's Peak, nor for climate change. And both are as likely to sacrifice environmental resources when push comes to shove.
posted by ocschwar at 6:17 PM on December 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
we still haven't delinked growth from resource exploitation
It sort of looks like that's not going to happen anyway.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:49 PM on December 15, 2021
It sort of looks like that's not going to happen anyway.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 7:49 PM on December 15, 2021
Destruction of nature seems the natural consequence of any financial system, I don't see it as a Capital/Socialist split; money facilitates a decoupling from the real world, especially as most money seems to be based on nothing so it increases near-exponentially.
Unfortunately this nothing money buys real things and people have been conned into thinking this represents wealth / economic growth / 'progress', and it just inflates money further. Financial offsets against nature are another aspect of this. This is happening in NZ right now and we have a mad housing bubble, a farm debt pit of ~$40Billion, and an increasingly dead nature as a result.
As an aside Stoyan Vassev's (the article's photographer) site is well-worth going to. I originally got into design because of a fascination with Russian design, clothing, buildings, art, propaganda so this is a great find, thanks briank.
posted by unearthed at 11:02 PM on December 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Unfortunately this nothing money buys real things and people have been conned into thinking this represents wealth / economic growth / 'progress', and it just inflates money further. Financial offsets against nature are another aspect of this. This is happening in NZ right now and we have a mad housing bubble, a farm debt pit of ~$40Billion, and an increasingly dead nature as a result.
As an aside Stoyan Vassev's (the article's photographer) site is well-worth going to. I originally got into design because of a fascination with Russian design, clothing, buildings, art, propaganda so this is a great find, thanks briank.
posted by unearthed at 11:02 PM on December 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
myth making around the Volga
The Song of the Volga Boatmen
There's also what happened to the Aral Sea.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:02 PM on December 16, 2021
The Song of the Volga Boatmen
There's also what happened to the Aral Sea.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:02 PM on December 16, 2021
I was just reading a story about Soviet nuclear engineers using a precision nuclear explosion to jump-start the construction of a dam. After the dam was built, the head of the nuclear energy department (or the rough equivalent) took a swim in the reservoir to demonstrate how safe the water is. This anecdote seems apropos here.
posted by of strange foe at 6:41 PM on December 17, 2021
posted by of strange foe at 6:41 PM on December 17, 2021
Capitalism is predicated on eternal growth,
And socialism is predicated on perpetually improving living standards.
I would suggest that capitalism and socialism do not exist as independent theories, but communism does, as centrally planned economics. Ironically, capitalism was improved upon in order to avoid communism, and the result was commonly called socialism, as in Denmark. Ecology was often a reason to avoid communism, since communism lacked important checks and balances to environmental damage, especially democratic ones, economically competitive ones (such as tourism or fisheries), and the force of lawsuits and boycotts (because money and civil law were not integral to communism).
posted by Brian B. at 8:56 AM on December 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
And socialism is predicated on perpetually improving living standards.
I would suggest that capitalism and socialism do not exist as independent theories, but communism does, as centrally planned economics. Ironically, capitalism was improved upon in order to avoid communism, and the result was commonly called socialism, as in Denmark. Ecology was often a reason to avoid communism, since communism lacked important checks and balances to environmental damage, especially democratic ones, economically competitive ones (such as tourism or fisheries), and the force of lawsuits and boycotts (because money and civil law were not integral to communism).
posted by Brian B. at 8:56 AM on December 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
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