Re: Let's discuss
As I understand it, the Green Revolution, by which famine has been all but eliminated from the countries that adopted it, was primarily funded by not just Capitalist, but the stereotypical bad boss Capitalists with a capital C, for the purpose of proving they could do it better than the commies.
One big problem that the biggest communist governments in the 20th century had was a devotion to ideology over reallity. In China, this manifested as the redness vs expertees debates. Frankly, Chairman Mao had no idea how to manage either agriculture or industry, and tried to manage both from the top, and it was a complete and utter disaster. Deng's reforms turned things around dramatically, and the real question is why it took Mao dying before anyone tried Deng's solutions. You can see similar with Stalin and Kruschev, but Kruschev's style lasted until Stalin's old buddies got sick of his "actually making things better" crap and took his place.
The main thing making me distrust 21st century socialists is that everything I see from them reminds me more of Mao than Deng. Yea, even not-so-dramatically socialist armchair intellectuals who sound compelling still leave me skeptical, because prior to the Chinese Civil War and the Long March, Mao was also a compelling-sounding armchair intellectual.
The key difference between Capitalism and the failed 20th century implementations of Communism is that Capitalism is results-driven. Every single time Communism has been attempted, it immediately became totalitarians who refused to let policy be driven by reallity, rather than the decisions they already made before testing anything. Competition and Capitalism are terribly flawed as mechanisms for improvement, but they are mechanisms for improvement. The socialist answer to "what is your incentive for improvement?" seems to be something nebulous about no longer being bound to the capitalist grindstone, to which I say: look at this community, and all our SSI-powered free time, and ask yourself: where is the improvement? And how long has it taken?
(The improvement came from Aprone and Ian Rheed (who had 9-5 jobs and stable relationships at the time), and Nyanchan, whose strange powers of awesomeness I do not in any way understand. VGStorm.com, GMA games, PCS, L-Works ... do these have anything in common, which our crop of SSI-powered or parent-powered not-so-influential devs do not? The main trick I would pull with more money is to hire a producer, and I am not sure I'd know how to do that if I could afford it.)
I'm not saying that Capitalism is the best. I'm saying that Socialism is a broad and ill-confined concept whose primary representatives without massive humanitarian disasters are in Scandinavia, where the populations are small, culturally unified, and incidentally Sweeden has really high suicide rates (which I'm sure can be blamed on the lattitude and climate...). The Green New Deal is an excellent example of not even trying to be in touch with reallity. "We're going to fight Climate Change by giving everyone free stuff!" How do you get from point A to point Green? There's always a section labeled "and then, because we overthrew Satan and met everyone's basic needs (which we accomplished because of <mumble>), everyone magically does what's best and we all live happily ever after." Even Scandinavia, who is closest to this vision, is not in a happily ever after. And, hey, if you really think it is... why not move there? That is not a suggestion to leave; we have Scandinavians here, so I'd assume you'd report on the results every so often, and the conversation would continue. It's more "if this is the answer, why are you admiring it from afar rather than testing it up close?" Heck, talk to Scandinavian policy-makers, or read their work.
To summarize: Communists historically have struggled with ideology Vs pragmatism, and even though the latter has demonstrably worked better, 21st century socialists appear disturbingly more similar to Maoists than Dengists. Scandinavian socialism is great, but just how great is it, and where are all the socialists from Capitalist countries who can afford to emigrate, and why?
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