Wherever socialism has been implemented with rigor, the result has been a disaster. Collapsing economies and penury for their people.
I remember China of the seventies. I lived there as a student then worker. In China's self-described socialist economy, food was rationed by coupons ("fan piao") and variety severely limited. In winter there were piles of cabbages on the streets. That was it. Just cabbages. The only clothing drab grey pants and cotton shoes.
Since opening up to capitalist forces China's economy has (mixed metaphor alert) rocketed by leaps and bounds, truly Great Leaps Forward. There are now vast choices and mountainous supply of every conceivable consumer good, unimaginable to those brought up under socialism. Moreover people are much happier now than they were when China was socialist. I know. I spoke to them over the years.
China's lurch to the right brought 500 million people out of poverty. Imagine that! Never before in the history of mankind have the conditions of so many people been so vastly improved in so short a time. All by abandoning the rigidities of socialist planning.
Yet here we have are the socialist thugs of Venezuela's Maduro regime, faced with reality and staunchly denying it.
It's one of the many things in life I just don't get.
Why are there so many hard-lefties in the west, pushing Marxist-Maoist-Maduran policies, despite the utter, complete, unarguable, abject, disastrous failure of such policies *everywhere* they've been tried? Policies which bring penury and pain to the people. Why?
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/21f3c746-a4dd-11e5-a91e-162b86790c58.html#axzz3v6QjOEZW
Sent from my iPhone
I remember China of the seventies. I lived there as a student then worker. In China's self-described socialist economy, food was rationed by coupons ("fan piao") and variety severely limited. In winter there were piles of cabbages on the streets. That was it. Just cabbages. The only clothing drab grey pants and cotton shoes.
Since opening up to capitalist forces China's economy has (mixed metaphor alert) rocketed by leaps and bounds, truly Great Leaps Forward. There are now vast choices and mountainous supply of every conceivable consumer good, unimaginable to those brought up under socialism. Moreover people are much happier now than they were when China was socialist. I know. I spoke to them over the years.
China's lurch to the right brought 500 million people out of poverty. Imagine that! Never before in the history of mankind have the conditions of so many people been so vastly improved in so short a time. All by abandoning the rigidities of socialist planning.
Yet here we have are the socialist thugs of Venezuela's Maduro regime, faced with reality and staunchly denying it.
It's one of the many things in life I just don't get.
Why are there so many hard-lefties in the west, pushing Marxist-Maoist-Maduran policies, despite the utter, complete, unarguable, abject, disastrous failure of such policies *everywhere* they've been tried? Policies which bring penury and pain to the people. Why?
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/21f3c746-a4dd-11e5-a91e-162b86790c58.html#axzz3v6QjOEZW
Sent from my iPhone
