You got on the one hand, the Open Free Market System in America, you have on the other hand, the exact opposite, the closed, controlled, command economy of the Soviet Union…
The Chinese tried the Communist model, with their own modifications, and it failed! And they have admitted that it failed.
The kids today talk as if these things have never happened. They haven’t learned!
I agree that the last thing we should do is to go back to the Soviet Union, but its relationship to many of the alternatives available today is a common misunderstanding. The Soviet Union was described as "socialist" simply to cover up the awful inequality and abuse of power that was at the centre of it. The Soviet Union was basically the opposite of socialism, and this is easy to understand if you compare it to the most basic tenets of socialism, such as socioeconomic inequality.
I think that there are a lot of alternatives to both our current Western economic system and the Soviet Union, and I think that if you try to look a bit closer at many of the systems "the kids today" are talking about, in particular the principles and values behind them, without getting caught up in the labels, you'll be pleasantly surprised!
My response was a bit - tongue in cheek as that's a quote from Singapore's PM during an election campaign. His point was if you remove the competitive aspects - the individualistic ones, the system grinds to a halt.
The USSR and China were abusive because you need to be abusive to force people to give over labour for which they don't own the proceeds of. Small time farmers in Vietnam had riots over the collectivization of their land into communes (and the "Communists" there dropped it in favor of capitalism). These are subsistence-level farms who can't read or write - yet they understood the injustice of taking away one's freedom to live of the fruits of your own labour.
A far better solution is to separate the economic system with the political one (which communism tries to meld). There is nothing that says you can't have a capitalist system that protects worker rights, or that heavily taxes and redistributes.
Rather than killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, figure out how best to use the eggs to the benefit of everyone.
Thank you for expanding on your point! I understand what you meant a lot better now. If you had any resources that expand on your views, I'd be happy to read them.
The Chinese tried the Communist model, with their own modifications, and it failed! And they have admitted that it failed.
The kids today talk as if these things have never happened. They haven’t learned!
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