“na levo” is literally translated as “on the left” but as a colloquial Russian saying it roughly translated as “on the side.” To the extent the consumer economy operated at all in the old USSR, it operated as an underground barter economy. Everything was “na levo.” You want to make sure you jump the line to see a particular doctor, or you want to have him see you after hours? Build him a deck for his house. To get the lumber for the deck, you give the guy at the lumber yard a couple bottles of vodka. Does someone want a concrete pad for a garage where they will work on cars? Maybe you know a guy who drives the concrete mixers, and you get him to go pour the guy a new floor with some “free” concrete. You get your cars repaired, you take care of the concrete truck driver by building him a deck....
None of it is reported to the government. In fact, it’s theft materials and time from the government that fuels it. But everyone does it just to get by. Nobody cares about money; money is worthless. It’s not “what does it cost?” but “what do you have?” Our economy will begin to operate the same way. It’s human nature.
The downside for the Soviet Union was the KGB/Russian mafia. The mafia tends to thrive in these arrangements, and in Russia it was mostly by not enforcing the laws against “na levo” arrangements, but by muscling their “cut.” It was no surprise that the Russian mafia appeared so quickly after the fall of the Soviet Union. It is composed of former KGB officers, who had been acting as the mafia in the “na levo” economy all along.
If we are going to be Soviets, we might as well learn to live like the Soviets.
I have fish and wood. Who has the bullets?