Road on the edge of civilisation

So it turns out the hotel we are using in Ulaanbaatar is located on a road commonly referred to as the road on the edge of civilisation. It’s on the city limits and where the countryside should begin but for the numerous gers popping up covering the hillside beyond the road. Last winter had been a particularly harsh one with many rural herders having their livelihoods destroyed as the cold winter wiped out their livestock. With no livelihood left in the country they have moved here to find work in the city. Setting up their gers wherever they could find space – usually in the open spaces on the edge of town – just beyond our hotel. And so the road has come to be known – possibly rather disparagingly – the road on the edge of civilisation.

Unfortunately unemployment is very high here in the capital and opportunities are not much more than in the rural areas where people struggle to get by. Coming from our post-modern capitalistic society we often look down on communism from our self-righteous pedestal believing that we were proved right all along. Communism has declined and died out in much of the world and save for the North Korea’s of this world communism seems consigned to the history books. 

Now I’m not going to debate the pros and cons of communism and capitalism in detail but it seems Mongolia throws up a few examples that leaves me to question whether capitalism should triumph over communism. 

Mongolia was the second country in the world to become communist back in the 1920’s and by the 1960’s over 100,000 soviet troops had poured into Mongolia. These remained until the late 1980’s when the USSR started to collapse and eventually totalitarianism was brought to an end by protests and hunger strikes. Ironically the first democratic elections that followed in 1990 elected a communist government that ruled for the next 6 years. 

Speaking to lots of people here it seems that the benefits that were expected to materialise with the end of communism have not done so. In the free market economy that came about poverty and unemployment have risen drastically, people are apparently a lot more selfish only looking out for themselves and many have turned to drink in an attempt to soften the harsh reality. Many have started to look back on the days of communism through rose-tinted glasses. At least everyone had a job, a house to live in and heating to stay warm in the winter, people looked out for each other and there was more of a community spirit. There were not really any poor – but then again not really any rich either. The factory workers were able to survive just as well as the factory manager himself. 

Someone remarked to me this week that back in the days of communism “Nobody went hungry, but nobody felt full”. It left me wondering that if it was as simple as this – and I know it’s not – is it better to live in a world where we all just about get by, or in a world where some of us are incredibly wealthy at the expense of others who cannot always survive?

I think I know what those living on the other side of the road might suggest.