Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 14 2021 01:07pm)
Did the US destablize Argentina during the 90s? Did the US force Mao to initiate the Great Leap Forward, which ended with mass starvation and 50m dead? Did the US force the Soviet Union to be aggressive, imperialist dickheads? In my previous post, I very intentionally left out Cuba, Chile and Central America because those are instances where your objection is valid - but it's not a carte blanche counterargument against all criticism of socialism/communism.
Communist regimes have typically been autarkic, at least with respect to countries outside their ideological bloc. The complaint that other nations are responsible for the failures of communism, and that its not inherently the fault of communism, doesn't hold up to serious scrutiny.
The United States and the Soviet Union had comparable populations at the end of the Second World War. One would expect that the Soviet Union would grow much faster, because it was in the midst of industrialization, but that never really materialized. Initial growth quickly leveled off, and the United States, despite being significantly more developed to start, continued to grow at a faster rate. China remains a staunch competitor to the West today, and yet it has leveraged its conversion to state capitalism into a dominant position on the world stage. Chinese leadership acknowledged the failures of the Mao era, and recognized that serious growth would only come if they actively emulated Western models, albeit within the confines of strict state control. Economic models in the national sense are tools, and it is indisputable that capitalism is the more effective tool.