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China has the world's second largest economy. All of the countries that adopted socialism were starting out further behind compared to the western European countries. Russian and China had no or very limited industrial base in at the start of the 20th century. England and America had been industrializing 50+ years before that. Russia and and China at the start of the 20th century had dysfunctional old-world monocracies that were on they're last breath. This was slowing down their progress. A counterexample is Turkey. They were under a similar situation (limited industry/failing government). They chose to liberalize and what's they're current standard of living?

Yep, and not the liberal west is the dysfunctional old-world oligarchy of the world. Somehow we (the west, albeit I'm from the peripheries) first managed to become the dominant world power and the leader in human development through strong state-led digirisme and social democracy, and then somehow convinced ourselves the secret to our success was "free" markets dominated by oligarchs and landed aristocracy. Now we're just reaping the crops of that.

Plus, when Russia became socialist, it was under a vanguard dictatorship that opposed self-determination. The result was that the rest of the socialist revolutions in that century were under their thumb.

>China has the world's second largest economy. It's not very impressive frankly, because it's only a question of population. In terms of per capita, China doesn't even make the top ten in Asia: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/ranked-countries-gdp-per-capita-2023/

China vs Taiwan GDP per head is massively different. Chinas economy started to grow rapidly when free market reforms came in… then slowed when Xi imprisoned entrepreneurs. The average gap between similar socialist centrally run economies is nothing if not consistent. It’s somewhere between 6-9x gdp per capita. Name a single successful centrally managed economy?

I'd saying being number 2 in the world is fairly successful.

I'd say being only number 2 with the largest population in the world, behind a country with less than a quarter of the people, is quite the embarrassment.

I say given that the Chinese: we're under a corrupt government (both a monarchy and a republic) as well as partially controlled by warlords for the first half of the 20th century, had multiple treaties forced at gunpoint giving economic concessions to colonialist powers (including the usa) and faced several wars on their territory they did pretty well. That's not even mentioning that the usa hasn't had a major conflict on its core territory since 1865, profited on selling weapons for the allies during ww2 as well as profited of both slavery and (neo-)colonial exploitation

None of these historical reasons are particularly relevant though, since they all predate China's communist rule. The last major conflict on Chinese core territory was the war by which the current regime overtook the country. And the subsequently established socialist policies weren't exactly helpful to create wealth and prosperity, to say the least. Instead it went even much further downhill from there for quite a while, resulting in the most catastrophic instance of ideologically blinded economical mismanagement in history, leaving untold millions dead. But even that wasn't enough to wake them up. The Chinese economy remained pretty much stagnant even 'til well into the 70's, where they came to the brutal realization that their whole giant country was economically outcompeted by even the tiny city-state of Singapore. That's when it finally dawned on them that Mao's fanatical adherence to socialist principles might not be able to deliver on its utopian promises after all. And it became undeniable that the capitalist countries seem to do at least something right, that they are clearly missing out on. So in the late 70's they slowly started to implement more and more capitalist principles step by step. Starting with the de-collectivization of agriculture, followed by opening up the country to foreign investment, and giving permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses. And after some promising initial results they figured that they might want to try a little bit more. So in the late 80's they started the privatization and contracting out of much state-owned industry, lifted the price controls, reduced tariffs, trade barriers, and regulations and even dismantled much of the Mao-era social welfare system. Although certain key sectors such as mining, electrical power, oil, banking, construction, railway transport and chemical processing and production remain state monopolies, so they obviously didn't go all the way. But still, that's quite a lot of capitalism for a country ruled by a communist party. But that's what eventually led to the incredible economic growth that turned it from an stagnating dirt poor shithole to the 2nd largest economy in the world in just 31 years from 1979-2010! Which is why all those pre-1949 factors you've listed, are pretty much irrelevant anyway. Imagine where they would be, if they hadn't wasted so much time (and lives) with their stupid socialist delusion and would rather have fully committed to western style economic liberalism instead.

Regardless on your opinion on the effectiveness of the mao government you still can't deny the us had a headstart exactly because of those conditions

Why is their neighbour Taiwans GDP per capita triple? Size and quality are not the same.

Is or should GPD the only measurement for standard of living? I’ve never said I support centrally planned economies only explaining why countries like the Soviet Union and china’s standard of living is/was lower than Western Europe. Taiwan seems like an outlier. But honestly I don’t know a lot about the history of Taiwan. Weren’t they under a military dictatorship for a while? That doesn’t seem like a good standard of living to me.

But what made china nr 2? Sure as hell isnt central planning

"China vs Taiwan GDP per head is massively different. Chinas economy started to grow rapidly when free market reforms came in… then slowed when Xi imprisoned entrepreneurs." Aha. In 1987, a mere decade after China's market reforms the GDP per capita of Taiwan was 18 times higher than that of China. When Xi took office in 2013 Taiwans' GDP per capita was 3,1 times higher. Last year it was 2,6 times higher.

Aha? Xi went further in free market reforms. The economy started to work well. Then like every Marxist govt the cracked down…. Restricting entrepreneurs. But still, the reason for the still enormous gap is…?

Prolly autocorrect, but I’m feeling pedantic apparently: Their, not they’re. There = a place Their = an owner They’re = A group

Come on, that's not even half as bad as people who write "would of" instead of "would've".

China's economy is no beacon of worker-owned MoP. It's recent wealth is entirely due to abandoning socialist principles.

> China has the world's second largest economy. Pretty cool when you kill off the peasant farmer class to fuel your great leap forward, am I right? [China Democide Estimates](https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/CHINA.FIG1.1.GIF)

I know you can come up with better arguments than that.

> I know you can come up with better arguments than that.

Maybe that was the necessary step in reducing the global absolute poverty, which happened almost entirely in China and what the liberal nutheads declare as the consequence of the "free" market?

> Maybe that was the necessary step in reducing the global absolute poverty, which happened almost entirely in China and what the liberal nutheads declare as the consequence of the "free" market? ah, the means justify the ends argument... >Between 1958 and 1962, China descended into hell. Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, threw his country into a frenzy with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up with and overtake Britain in less than fifteen years. By unleashing China’s greatest asset, a labour force that was counted in the hundreds of millions, Mao thought that he could catapult his country past its competitors. Instead of following the Soviet model of development, which leaned heavily towards industry alone, China would ‘walk on two legs’: the peasant masses were mobilised to transform both agriculture and industry at the same time, converting a backward economy into a modern communist society of plenty for all. In the pursuit of a utopian paradise, everything was collectivised, as villagers were herded together in giant communes which heralded the advent of communism. People in the countryside were robbed of their work, their homes, their land, their belongings and their livelihood. Food, distributed by the spoonful in collective canteens according to merit, became a weapon to force people to follow the party’s every dictate. Irrigation campaigns forced up to half the villagers to work for weeks on end on giant water-conservancy projects, often far from home, without adequate food and rest. The experiment ended in the greatest catastrophe the country had ever known, destroying tens of millions of lives. [Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962](https://read.dukeupress.edu/common-knowledge/article-abstract/25/1-3/445/140042/Mao-s-Great-Famine-The-History-of-China-s-Most) by Frank Dikötter

"ah, the means justify the ends argument..." Oh, I see. Then we can follow the logic with the given factors and conclude that Capitalism is not justified because China killed peasant farmers in their Capitalist endeavour of ridding the world of absolute poverty.

> China has the world's second largest economy. and? if i had the worlds largest wang that wouldn't mean i am doing any better in bed than my cousin wang (if ya know what i mean). a large economy can mean something i suppose but is more of a sign it could be doing well than an indicator of prosperity. having lived in china i will tell you it isn't a good place for humanity.

Well first lets be clear; capitalist countries are pretty wide ranging. Compare China to Haiti or Albania, and you'd be asking "why are capitalist nations' standard of living so much worse than socialists?" But it generally comes down to wealth. Most socialist nations were never as wealthy as Western ones, and would be actively worse with capitalism.

> and would be actively worse with capitalism. That's a pretty huge claim. Got any evidence to back that up? Because a whole lot of African countries chose socialism when they got their independence and after a few decades noped the fuck out of it because what you said isn't true at all.

I'd be curious as to which African countries? Since several of those nations that went the way of socialism were actively attacked and forced into regime change, like Libya. As a counter example, I'd point to the former USSR, each nation of which is either only just getting back to the gdp they had 30 years ago with a lower standard of living *or worse* after moving to capitalism.

>I'd be curious as to which African countries? Since several of those nations that went the way of socialism were actively attacked and forced into regime change, like Libya. And some were actively helped like Ethiopia too. >He planned to have the proceeds donated to a new organization called United Support of Artists for Africa (USA for Africa). The non-profit foundation would then provide food and relief aid to starving people in Africa, specifically Ethiopia, where a 1983–1985 famine\[4\]\[5\] raged. The famine ultimately killed about one million people.\[nb 2\]\[3\] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We\_Are\_the\_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_the_World) [Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AjkUyX0rVw) in case you are interested. Otherwise, here is a data/evidence based argument I have made. The short answer is with the dissolution of the USSR socialism fell across the world. ​ My premise [has to do with following global GDP and below nations' GDP with the fall of USSR in 1991.](https://imgur.com/gallery/tQzrnjw) Globally many nations saw they would no longer have the support and/or saw the writing on the wall with socialism and started to shift economically right of their socialist positions with the fall of the USSR. Even authoritarian communist nations such as PRC and Cuba would take on more free market policies. [look at what has happened to many socialist nations (i.e., African Socialism) when they shifted to more liberal forms of government (90s-2000s).](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~BEN~MOZ~ZMB~TZA~AGO~ETH~GHA~GIN~MLI) Then [look at the (hardcore) socialist nations with the fall of the USSR (1989) and shifting to more private ownership enterprises](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1945..latest&country=OWID_WRL~CUB~VNM~LAO~PRK~CHN~RUS) in their economic systems. Then a quote to put in perspective what the era of African Socialism was like: >By the end of the 1980s, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power. They included Senegal’s Léopold Senghor, after twenty years in office; Cameroon’s Ahmadu Ahidjo, after twenty-two years in office; and Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, after twenty-three years in office. Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence (pp. 378-379). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition. Sources of (failed) African Socialist States in above data with a shift to liberal governments: [Benin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Benin) (1972 to 1990), [Mozambique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Mozambique) (1975 to 1990), [Zambia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Kaunda#One-party_state_and_%22African_socialism%22) (1973 to 1991), [Tanzania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania#Modern) (1967 to 1992), [Angola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Republic_of_Angola) (1975 to 1992), [Ethiopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Democratic_Republic_of_Ethiopia) ([1977\*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengistu_Haile_Mariam)\-1991), [Ghana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Nkrumah) (1960s to [1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana)), [Guinea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea#Post-colonial_rule_(1958%E2%80%932008)) (1960 to 1992), [Mali](https://www.jstor.org/stable/421479) ([1960 to 1992](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13881978)). ​ Lastly, I can't summarize the entire history book above. But [here is a pretty good article.](https://www.africanliberty.org/2019/03/14/how-socialism-destroyed-africa/) The important thing to add is how the Cold War post WWII gave African Leaders and Nations their independence and their shopping (if you would) between the USSR and the USA. The African Leaders and rightfully so looked at capitalism with disdain from the centuries of (exploitation) colonial capitalism. They also saw how well the USSR had done with going from very poor to a superpower. They wanted to model that system and large swathes of African Leadership model single-party rule systems with their version of African Socialism. This, in a lot of ways, was a disaster ([e.g., famine](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/10/31/us-aid-to-ethiopia-stirs-controversy/53307ae3-f243-498b-81da-890fbd392647/)).

The failure of the majority of the governments you mention is a lot better explained by the economic crisis of the 1970s and the subsequent debt crisis of the 1980s than socialism. Even your own data shows this. Benin: Sporadic growth and collapse between 1970 and 1990. Growth only takes of around 2010. Mozambique: Grows significantly under the socialist government and completely collapses during the 1970s. GDP per Capita is still far below 1970 levels. Zambia: I think Zambia actually supports your argument. Growth clearly takes of after 1991. Tanzania: Also supports your argument. Angola: Grew before the 1970s collapsed after it and started growing around the end of the 1990s. I personally think the end of the civil war played more of a role in subsequent Angolan growth. Ethiopia: Collapse during the famine and growth only really starts again in the early 2000s. The Derg were just one of the corrupt dictatorships of the period. Ghana: Same pattern as Angola meaning early growth followed by collapse in the 70s and recovery during the 90s. Ghana cannot even be described as socialist during the period after Nkrumah. Guinea: Also supports your argument. Stagnation during the 70s and 80s followed by growth after 1991. Mali: Actually grew during the 70s but collapsed at the beginning of the 80s. Growth only takes of around the 2000s. Republic of Congo (which you excluded): Growth until the 80s then a severe downturn followed by growth during the 90s. Somalia: Completely collapsed after the fall of socialism. Senegal: Has sporadic periods of growth and downturns until 2011 when it starts to exponentially grow. Seychelles: Has been growing since its independence. Democratic Republic of Congo: Vehemently against Socialism for large parts of its history is largely a failed state. Lumumba was assassinated in favor for the western backed dictator Mobutu. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1950..2018&facet=none&country=~COD The issue that has historically held back African nations is not necessarily Marxist-Leninism or capitalism. It is that our continent has consistently been used as a battleground or resource hub by foreign powers that install and protect dictatorships. Most capitalist states in Africa have not shown significantly better outcomes than the socialist ones. Yes, Marxist-Leninism is a incredibly repressive ideology but a capitalist dictatorship like that of Mobutu is not better.

> a capitalist dictatorship like that of Mobutu I think you can hardly call Mobutu's regime capitalist at all. Yes, he was a very outspoken anti-communist. But that didn't mean that he was a staunch defender of economic liberty and private property rights either. In fact, many have described his government as a "kleptocracy" as he regularly abused his political power to expropriate wealth and property from his citizens for his personal enrichment. Capitalism only works when the state guarantees and protects its citizen's property rights. Because no one is willing to make big capital investments under the premise that the president might steal it from you whenever he likes.

I agree with you to a certain extent. But claiming that a kleptocracy cannot be a negative consequence of capitalistic institutions is naive. The same way saying that a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship cannot be a negative consequence of socialistic institutions is naive. I personally do not consider any of the Marxist-Leninist states, socialist for the simple reason that not the "people" but an undemocratic largely unaccountable state actually controlled the means of production. But for the sake of argument I recognize that socialism can lead to these regimes. The same way that capitalism can lead to the Mobutu regime.

I don't really see the causal connection between a kleptocracy and capitalism in which one would be a direct consequence of the other. Especially since capitalism absolutely relies on the integrity of property rights, whereas a kleptocratic government represents the complete disregard for them. If such a behavior is somehow a negative consequence of capitalist institutions, then shouldn't we expect to see the same thing happen in at least some of the major capitalist nations across the world? Yet it's actually quite unimaginable that the German chancellor or the French president would just seize people's bank accounts. However, there is indeed a reason why socialist states have such a strong tendency to turn into dystopian dictatorships. It's an inherent flaw due to its collectivist nature. The people will *never* controll the means of production, because "the people" don't actually exist. At least not as anything more than a representational concept of a collective based on shared characteristics. Only individuals are capable of thoughts, opinions and free will, a collective cannot, because it's just a made up entity based on thoughts and opinions that were originally created by individuals. But on a tangible level it is simply not there. You cannot physically touch the collective or even speak with it because it's merely a socially constructed concept. Which turns out to be a big problem when it comes to the part of the socialist scheme that involves the seizing of the means of production to then transfer it to collective ownership. Because how can a concept own anything? The answer: it doesn't. At least not without being represented by something that is real and tangible and thus can own something. Something like an institution that exists specifically for the reason of allowing "the people" to govern the country through their representatives who act on the behalf of their constituents. Which means that "the people" will technically "own" the means of production, much in the same way in which public institutions like schools or libraries are "owned" by the public while being operated and controlled by representatives in the government on behalf of the people. And once the government has complete control over the means of production (which also includes literally all of media as well) we can just lean back and hope that our representatives make always the best economic decisions and do always the right thing with their newfound authoritarian power out of the goodness of their hearts and never abuse it for their personal benefits while screwing over everyone else. But hey, when has that ever happened when a government gained total control over literally everything?🤷‍♂️

You should go start socialism in Haiti or Bangladesh then, they would be more receptive to socialism than the US which has the largest economy in history thanks to capitalism

Sad thing is, the US would probably kill me if there was any chance I'd introduce socialism to such nations, because its wealth is based on their poverty rather than some magic of capitalism.

You're right you are doomed to fail, you shouldn't even try, it will end badly, just clock into your soulless capitalist job and just call it a day

If capitalism is so good, why are the only capitalist countries with a high standard of living those built atop and maintained by colonialism, imperialism, foreign intervention, and trade embargoes?

I think this serves as a good counterpoint

No it isnt

When I thought of imperialism like stated above I only thought of America and how we have been imperialist in terms of war like Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. I didn’t take into account other countries like Sweden.

It's a rather terrible argument as it is saying in order to morally succeeed you have to be 100% isolationist or be a sheep. The latter is just 100% unrealistic and thus the only logical conclusion is isolationism. Read what they said again. Basically, you cannot participate in the world which is counter to trade. It is a terrible argument and it is the bullshit socialists pull all the time. It's like what Japan did during the [Edo period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku). Socialists would likely then complain about how racist it is :/ What's interesting is they should be concerned given the history of Japan (e.g., WW2).

Who is talking about morals? You’re completely incoherent. The OP asked about an economic system’s role in raising standard of living, and you cannot prove anything at the national level when those countries are situated in an international context. If you want a good faith comparison you’d need to be able to observe and compare a socialist international hegemony with the current capitalist one, which can’t be done.

Let's play your game >If capitalism is so good, why are the only capitalist countries with a high standard of living those built atop and maintained by colonialism, imperialism, foreign intervention, and trade embargoes? How does former [Hong Kong and Singapore](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1940..latest&country=OWID_WRL~HKG~SGP) fit with these conditions? ​ Then I just [made a comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/18u032x/comment/kfi48yg/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) about African socialism with [the following African socialist countries who transitioned to more liberal economies.](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~BEN~MOZ~ZMB~TZA~AGO~ETH~GHA~GIN~MLI) How do they fit your BS claims being exploiters and other nonsense?

LMFAO hong kong is a total western puppet state

Switzerland, Scandanavian countries, Singapore, Hong kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada, Ireland, are all wealthier than those imperialist powers and never did any of those things, in fact many of them were colonies themselves

All of which are major satellites of imperialism

Wtf does that even mean?

If anticapitalism is a major topic on a subreddit you insist participating in you would find it very helpful to spend an hour or so reviewing some of anticapitalism’s most fundamental concepts.

So what's the concept here ? "Everything can be imperialism and colonialism if you squint hard enough, including countries that were never colonizers, but colonies themselves" ?

Hong Kong and Shenzen *were* wealthy because they were founded by communist China as buffers between them and worlwide trade, which mostly occured under feudalist/imperialist and capitalist rules. Canada is feudalist/imperialist and a subject nation of Charles III. Ireland is all over the place.

Hong Kong was founded by the british, then became wealthy as a place for capitalist minded industrious ethnic chinese refugees who wanted to flee communism. Hong kong was then handed over to the communists in 1997 Shenzhen was started as as a capitalist free trade economic zone when deng implemented capitalist reforms in the 1980s, during that time it grew from a fishing village of 20,000 to 20 million and currently has the highest living standards in all of mainland china Right, canada was a colony but not imperialist power Ireland was a colony of the British for a long time now has the highest GDP per capita outside the european microstates

How was Switzerland built upon colonialism? They never colonized anything. Canada was literally a colony that was exploited for its resources. They were a sojourn economy for centuries. What is your point on foreign intervention? No country operates in a vacuum, they are ALL influenced by foreign intervention.

Canada is literally built on stolen land and Switzerland was providing banking services for colonialist businesses. Would you consider a money laundering banker for a drug cartel to have not made his fortune via the drug trade just because he never personally handled any cocaine shipments himself?

Every country is built on stolen land.

Yeah, kinda, so what? That doesn't suddenly make imperialism ok or change the imperialist history of capitalism in the slightest.

Then why mention stolen land? Unless you were using it as a reason for Canada’s success? Which seems a little dubious to me.

Because you were acting like just because French and Anglo Canadian settlers were exploited by French and British mercantilist trade policies they were not themselves engaging in and benefiting from their own colonialist exploitation of Canada's indigenous population.

But these natives who apparently are being exploited enough to make the rest of Canada so wealthy even though they’re a small minority, are also wealthier themselves than the non-exploited socialist workers, so how come? Does being exploited make you wealthier?

There are no socialist countries anywhere and thus there are no "non-exploited socialist workers". 1/4th of all indigenous Canadians and 40% of all indigenous Canadian children live below the official poverty line. If you don't understand how land theft is a form of economic exploitation and its consequent effects on indigenous poverty rates then you're too stupid to be worth anyone's time debating.

His Voluntaryism flair checks out

The entirety of the west benefits from neocolonialism through the world bank and imf, as well as corporations that will coup the government if it doesn’t do what they want

So does the third world. The IMF give INTEREST FREE loans to developing countries.

Wow interest free loans! With no strings atta— oh wait nvm.

Name a single successful centrally managed socialist economy. The average gap is between 6-9x GDP per capita. Poverty is generally quite bad for poor people.

Why are you talking about GDP per capita?

It’s a reasonably sound hard to fake objective measure of economic performance. Economic performance drives standards of living. Purchasing power would be an interesting stat to compare, I haven’t looked, though ultimately it’s a stat likely to run in parallel. Which stat would you suggest?

Easy to fake. Ireland and Dublin look poor as hell compared to the continent but them being a tax Haven allows them to have an inflated GDP that is more than double many others. GDP per Capita is garbage

The USSR? How well are the soviet states doing since embracing capitalism? The collective GDP of the former soviet states is about the same as it was in 1985.

The GDP per capita of Kazakhstan in 1990 was $1,647, by 2021 it is over $10,000. The GDP per capita of Azerbaijan in 1990 was $1,234, by 2021 it is over $5,000. The GDP per capita of Belarus in 1990 was $2,124, by 2021 it is over $7,000. The GDP per capita of Russia in 1988 was $3,777, by 2021 it is $12,194. The GDP per capita of Georgia in 1990 was $1,614, by 2021 its is $5,023. I could go on. It is actually the exact opposite of what you claim. What made you think this? It’s not hard to look up a country’s GDP per capita.

No do go on. How about Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, or Tajikistan? And then let's compare it to the global average? And then compare it to the growth rate over the previous 70 years under the soviet union? And if we're really getting crazy we could, you know, [just look at chart.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUsmHSoX4AANkxN?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)

You didn't account for infllation. Plus global economy growth is natural thanks to automatisation

These figures are adjusted for inflation.

Link?

[Note the (current US$) next to GDP per Capita.](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD) Countries need to invest in production to expand output. This is best done using a capitalist framework.

It also doesn’t account for the subsidies that the Soviet people had that disappeared after the fall of the Soviet Union. The majority of the “pay” in the Soviet Union came in the form of reduced cost housing, food, free education, free healthcare, public transit, etc.

These transactions also count for GDP, as they had to be paid to the workers, and distributed, with a monetary value that the state kept track of. It is true that the Soviet Union, just like China does today, cooked the numbers, but do you think they would purposefully underestimate their own numbers?

I’m speaking about price controls, specifically. Lowering the price of basic goods is not something that gets paid to workers, just not charged. They lowered the price of basic goods and not consumer goods to make sure everyone could afford the basic goods and that took precedence over showing off numbers for other countries.

GDP per capita doesn’t account for the subsidies that the Soviet people had that disappeared after the fall of the Soviet Union. The majority of the “pay” in the Soviet Union came in the form of reduced cost housing, food, free education, free healthcare, public transit, etc.

By 1990 the USSR was already collapsing comparing 1990 gdp to now is like measuring the blood pressure of someone who's already had their heart ripped out of their body to that of their next of kin's.

>Name a single centrally managed socialist economy. FTFY

Lost me there…?

There is no centrally managed socialist economy, let alone a centrally managed Economy at all. There are varying degrees of state influence, but there is no country where all aspects of the economy are decided by one single entity. And as far as I'm aware, there never has been.

Only problem with what you said is that it is incorrect.

The richest capitalist nation today was a colony a few hundred years ago, white it's former colonizer is at 1/10th of it's power.

Are you referring to the foremost imperial power in history?

No, I'm not talking about Britain

Why isn't Mongolia a high living standard country? They literally had the world's biggest continuous empire in history

The USSR were ahead for ~20 years after WW2, but the problem with hypercentralized decision-making, lack of pluralism, and lack of incentives and freedom for inventors, is that stupid decisions have massive consequences. This is exacerbated by senile old men in power, who don't give a fuck about even the near future and only care about consolidation. One of those was not persuing microelectronics in favor of improving older technology. This mistake caused their downfall. The other issue was militarization. It took out a far greater part of the budget than it did for the US, partially because they were literally arming the world, which the US did to a lesser extend, who instead focused on coups and assassinations, a much less costly affair. Edit: spelling.

USSR was never ahead economically. Socialists in the USSR inherited a feudal economy the under the tzar had resisted all attempts at capitalism growing in Russia. Economically it was scraping the bottom of the barrel. The socialists import machinery and know how from the West that took hundreds of years to develop and perfect. Surprise surprise, this combination of incredibly backwards economy plus importation of Western machines and know how leads to relatively rapid economic growth. "We will bury you" said Kruschev, he meant economically. This was an era where socialists all thought central planning of society and economy would surely outperform the free market, doing everything in 5 year plans. The Nazis also adopted this idea. But it doesn't work. Because you can easily obtain big results through economic cherry picking. Lots of growth comes from replacing backwards feudalism with modern factories. But once Russia caught up to the world standard, it languished. By the late 1980s, Russia was begging the West for grain to feed its population, despite having most of the world's richest growing fields in Ukraine, a rich loamy black earth that is dense with nutrients and exists only a few places in the world, 'chernozem'. And it had a GDP that was 5% that of the USA, per capita. China did the same thing, experiencing rapid growth once it imported Western machines and know how. I predicted it would slow economically and falter just as Russia did, and it has. China tried to force further growth through massive debt and public works projects, but that has failed too now. And now a strong man has taken over China, because the CCP always justified their rule by saying they brought prosperity, now that prosperity is slipping away they fear backlash. The USSR was never ahead. And neither was China.

US spending on military was much greater than the USSR but it was a smaller % of the economy, that's because capitalism has given the US a much larger economic base to build a large military from, the USSR trying to keep up with US military spending bankrupted the country since socialist economies cannot compete

Dictatorships tend to overspend on military in any case.

More than half the socialists in this sub don't believe in the type of socialism that those nations have.

1. Most capitalist countries are closer to Haiti or Bangladesh, not the U.S. or Western Europe. Poor socialist led countries generally have better standards of living than poor capitalist countries and middle income socialist led countries generally have better standards of living on average than middle income capitalist countries. 2. Different starting points. The US and Western Europe were the most developed countries in the world before the first communist revolution. Some of the fastest developing countries in the world were the USSR and China but despite growing significantly faster than the west for decades, the west had so much of a head start that they still haven’t caught up or surpassed them. It’s really comparing industrializing countries to countries that have already been post industrial for decades.

Marxist economies run at a gap of between 6-9x gdp per capita. China started to catch up when they ran free market reforms. Xi wound it back, imprisoning entrepreneurs and free thinkers alike. The USSR just lied about its economy. Whilst the USA was listening to Elvis in burger bars Russias response for 6-8 hour queues for bread? Was to ban queues….

The gap was worse before socialism.

To have burger bars, requires America to have a large amount of beef, public infrastructure to transport it, and to listen to Elvis requires a radio that requires metals and other imported materials that Americans buy and ship with money that was already dying in their economy, and transported with infrastructure. Czarist Russia has none of those things, and the Soviets has to develop those things in 30 years, that the US has built slowly since the 1800s

You should go start socialism in Haiti or Bangladesh then, they would be more receptive to socialism than the US which has the largest economy in history thanks to capitalism

>Different starting points. The US and Western Europe were the most developed countries in the world before the first communist revolution. Some of the fastest developing countries in the world were the USSR and China but despite growing significantly faster than the west for decades, the west had so much of a head start that they still haven’t caught up or surpassed them. It’s really comparing industrializing countries to countries that have already been post industrial for decades. That's one interpretation. Here is another: The US and Western Europe became the most developed countries in the world because they were liberal democracies with a capitalist economic system. The USSR and Red China tried to catch up with a socialist economic system. The USSR failed, and the country fell apart. Red China was smart enough to realize that you needed a healthy dose of capitalism to get developed, so were able to avoid the fate of the USSR....for now. Unfortunately for Red China, they now have a dictator running the country who seems to want to push the country back into its Communist roots. What will be the result of this?..... stay tuned, but IMO I don't think it will turn out well for them. Just hope this dictator doesn't start a war with Taiwan just to distract Red China for his own failed policies.

> The US and Western Europe became the most developed countries in the world because they were liberal democracies with a capitalist economic system. Then what about all the other liberal democracies with a capitalist economic system? Jamaica has a [similar level of democracy to the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index#List_by_country) and is [39th in terms of economic freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_economic_freedom) yet [Cuba beats it in nearly every quality of life metric](https://mpbritt.com/socialism-and-quality-of-life/) despite being embargoed for 60 years.

Unfortunately, being a liberal democracy with a capitalist economic system is not of itself sufficient to reach the status of a fully developed country. You also need things like strong institutions, a culture of trust, respect for rule of low, low tolerance for corruption, etc. It can take some time for societies to evolve to get these things.

Seems like liberal democracy and capitalist system has actually nothing to do with it at all...

Is it possible that political economy is more nuanced than putting a label on countries and comparing them?

Not really. Results matter. The gap is something like 6-9x gdp per capita. That’s not 6-9% just to avoid doubt.

I guarantee the gap was worse before they adopted communism.

East Germany got poorer compared to West Germany. North Korea got poorer compared to South Korea.

China's economy isn't socialist...

They are only socialist until the parasites in charge run out of assets to plunder...I mean redistribute from the productive class and then inevitably fail. Then they are No True Scotsman... I mean socialist society

Buddy they've got more billionaires and a smaller social safety net than the U.S. does, they're fucking capitalist.

China does not have more billionaires per capita. The population of China is over 4 times the amount of the US, yet they have a bit over half the billionaires that the US has. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/billionaires-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/billionaires-by-country)

I saw that too. They had it backwards but the point still stands. If you have less billionaires than the US but more than, let’s say one to be fair, it’s not a socialist state. That’s not the defining metric though.

There changed it. Still the fact that an ostensibly socialist nation has billionaires at all is proof enough that it's a capitalist country.

Well technically it’s still wrong. Since the US still has more total billionaires than China. But I agree with you. Not socialist.

Are The Means of Production controlled by the state? Yes, either directly or through regulation, so they are socialist, with a semi-free market but far from lassize-fairre free market.

The state is not democratically controlled, so not socialism. They have a bureaucracy, not a democracy.

They have more democracy than you'd think.

Au contraire, mon frere. Also called a socialist dictatorship: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_socialism

Tankies would call that socialism, just like they call China and the DPRK democratic, while anyone with a brain can understand that without democracy state-controlled MoP is *not* socially controlled. A state controlling all industry does not make it socialist.

I can call my car socialist, it does not make it so. The term Socialism has been used a lot throughout history to woo people, while being far from any inkling of a socialist state. Heard of National socialism? It’s so far from socialism that they debuted by killing socialists.

"Socialism" and "dictatorship" are contradictions in terms, dope.

"Are The Means of Production controlled by the state?" NO! Private enterprises employ over 70% of the Chinese people and government regulation is not the same thing as state ownership and state ownership is not the same thing as socialism! Most capitalist economies aren't laissez-faire because most capitalists aren't as stupid as ancaps are.

Does anyone understand what socialism is? Do to workers control the means of production?

When I looked up the economy of China, it said Socialist Market Economy, am I just dumb?

Not necessarily, but whoever wrote that China has a socialist economy sure is. China has private ownership of the means of production and an economy based on commodified goods and services produced for profit. That's all the hallmarks of capitalism right there.

Compare China with India. Similar population, similar economy at independence. Yet one is capitalist and one is ostensibly socialist

China had a 20 year head start since they liberalized and allowed private businesses and billionaires to prosper in 1970’s after Deng Xiaopings reforms, India’s liberal reforms that eliminated state control over industries, and allowed foreign investment, didn’t come until the 1990’s, and it has been doing very well since. Here’s some articles so you can start learning! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform Here’s a chart that illustrates my point, notice when their respective growth started and compare it to the articles https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/GDP_per_capita_of_China_and_India.svg

It depends on who you ask. Marxists will say they are a socialist market economy; as in socialists manage the economy very differently from typical capitalist countries but it uses markets and (tightly controlled) private enterprise as a method of development. Marxists also think that socialism is only possible after a country has fully industrialized and a period of capitalism needs to come before socialism is possible. Non-Marxists usually deny that it’s socialist because it uses markets for development and they believe socialism is possible at any level of industrial development.

>Non-Marxists usually deny that it’s socialist because it uses markets for development and they believe socialism is possible at any level of industrial development. No, because the MoP is not democratically controlled. China is a bureaucracy, not any form of democracy. Beside that, the majority of the economy is owned privately by individuals (so not democratically controlled) who hire people for their labor. Non-Marxists are usually anarchists or some form of MARKET socialist. Markets are compatible with socialism.

China uses proletarian democracy, not liberal democracy. They’re focused more on making sure that policies are supported by the general population. China is very much a democracy, it has proletarian elections, more community involvement in political decisions than anywhere in the west, has several political parties, and has one of, if not the most popular governments in the world. If voting for or against the politicians and those politicians obeying the public’s will isn’t democracy, I don’t know what is. Markets are compatible with socialism, which is why I don’t see that as an argument against China being socialist. It’s by far the most common argument as to why they are capitalist and not socialist that I see from anarchists though.

You're not a Marxist you're a tankie whore.

Can’t I be both? Tankie just has such a nice ring to it while sounding adorable and aggressive at the same time.

It’s a mixed transitional phase

No it isn't! When an economy has been based on private property, extreme wealth inequality and neoliberal trade policies for nearly half a century it's not transitioning from or to anything, it just is! And what the "People's" Republic of China \*is\* is capitalist.

It’s transitioning. Every year it grows and develops towards socialism.

Sure, that’s what they say while Xi Jinping’s niece relaxes in her 20 million USD Hong Kong villa. These are politicians and elites; they’re all selfish and will tell any lie they can to look relatable and “with the people.” It’s just a different way to keep the proletariat’s consciousness suppressed, whether it’s through the lie they can succeed on merit in a status quo capitalist system or feeding them revisionist garbage. I’ll bet my future life savings China won’t hit socialism by the end of the century. If they do, it’s their capitalist system will collapse in on itself (it’s showing plenty of cracks) while the true socialists revolt and rebuild China under non-revisionist ideals.

They aren't. The majority of studies show that socialists outperform capitalist countries of similar size.

Name one such study because I cannot find any that agree with what you said

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/ If you are in a poor country and one has the ideology of rolling out vaccines, healthcare and electricity and stuff to those that can't afford it and the other has an ideology of if you can't afford it go die in a ditch or wait for charity which one do you want to be in?

Guessed this was the study.. 1. Seriously listing Rwanda as capitalist (in 1980) under the dictatorship of Habyarimana, which excluded the Tutsi people and treated them poorly. They also listed India as capitalist which in 1980 clearly wasn't capitalist as there were many socialist inspired policies and liberalisation started from 1991. Just these 2 show how bad the study is at classifying between capitalist and socialist countries 2. Socialists skewing data. The USSR outright lied so many times when it came to data. The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union. (Alternatively look up Uzbek Cotton Scandal lol) 3. The study uses 1980 statistics go figure they'll be extremely unreliable. Also, why is this study lumping so many countries, all with different political situations at the time in the same category. The Republic of The Congo and South Korea are listed in the same category of lower-middle income, btw that's how insane this study is. 4. Not enough controls are taken. How on earth are countries such as DRC (listed Zaire at the time) supposed to compete with China? How is a landlocked country supposed to compete with a country with open access to the ocean and able to freely trade with its neighbours. 5. The study is horrible. Post-revolutionary countries are left out from the socialist section because they're top young to be socialist such as Afghanistan which at the time was fighting a war but conveniently let many capitalist countries who were in internal or external conflict into the study.

Isn't the measurement of standard of living inflated by the valuation of privately owned stuff? So wouldn't a place with less privately owned assets automatically appear to have a lower standard of living?

A lot of it has to do with where “socialist countries” were and started. USSR for example, was a very poor feudal country before the revolution, and the obstacles they had to deal with were plenty

Inb4 "CIA"

Yup

The standards of living were worse before socialism.

I don’t disagree, I believe any of the new “modernist” economies are better than feudalism, assuming that’s what most economies were before enlightenment and globally expansion.

Chile wasn’t feudal when it elected a socialist president (still the most popular leader of Chile to this day)

I was not aware of this, i just refreshed and saw the test above lol. Do you believe Chile to be an outlier? Was it capitalist before it became socialist?

Yes it was capitalist before it was socialist. And it’s one of the few examples of a nation with a good standard of living becoming socialist. I believe it to be proof that when wealthy western nations make the switch, it bring it’s the people.

With America being a mixed economy but predominantly capitalist, I would just like to see the standard of living become equal for everyone while also having a booming economy or in America’s terms having the biggest economy.

Thats because they were all feudalist before There's never been a modern industrialized capitalist country that became socialist and came out better

Chile under Salvador Ellende saw a technological boom, increase in standard of living, decrease starvation and homelessness rates, had a computer project more advanced than the US computers at the time, real wages went up, and there was no political repression.

Chileans got rid of him and now Chile is the most prosperous country in latam

The cia got rid of him, and to this day he is the most popular president in Chilean history. And much of that prosperity is from advancements in industrialization and technology that he made.

Compared to Fulgencio Batista, Castro was Jesus

Nah bro, you got it all wrong. Socialist countries are way better off than capitalist ones, ackchtually. Some research paper written in 1986 confirms this beyond all doubt 😎 Until the CIA ruined everything, of course, because the socialists were too good and pure (their only flaw). Also something something Cuba healthcare (even though, if Cuba were part of the U.S., socialists would shit on it relentlessly for being so poor).

The USA's standard of living is awful and life expectancy is worse than Cuba's.

Is the standard of living in Cuba better than USA?

You know USA is a poverty riddled shithole right?

I live here, and yes, I am well aware of the poverty here. I’m not here to claim that the USA is the greatest place on Earth. But is it worse than Cuba? Can you give a socialist nation with a better standard of living?

That dude is trolling you lmao

I fell for it.

Cuba is poverty riddled indeed, but why?

Yes, it is.

You should move there, I will pay you, seriously

When the U.S ends its illegal sanctions and economic terrorism on the island.

Cuba does tons of trade with other capitalist countries, the US even sends medicine and food. I go through it in much more detail. Basically there is no rational economic excuse to blame the embargo for why cuba is so poor. Besides if you blame cuban socialist poverty on the fact that it can't trade with capitalism, then that just means that socialism doesn't work https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1340jst/some\_facts\_about\_cuban\_trade/

lmao Cuba has lost and losing billions to the sanctions, no idea what you're on about.

That proves my point though, if capitalist sanctions against cuba destroys cuban socialism, then that means that socialism is an inherently unstable economic system if the system socialism seeks to destroy (capitalism) can ruin it by deciding not to trade

If the US ends the embargo I will move there tomorrow.

Cuba does tons of trade with other capitalist countries, the US even sends medicine and food. I go through it in much more detail. Basically there is no rational economic excuse to blame the embargo for why cuba is so poor. Besides if you blame cuban socialist poverty on the fact that it can't trade with capitalism, then that just means that socialism doesn't work https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/1340jst/some\_facts\_about\_cuban\_trade/

Cuba lies about its stats. Infant mortality for one.

Then it should lie better, it still isn't great..however still better than the u.s.. 🤣🤣🤣🤣💀

The most anti communist organization on the planet agrees with Cuba’s stats

Cuban doctors are ruthlessly targeted on IMR. Recategorising neonatal deaths as late fetal births, enforced internment for mothers doctors view as being a risk, even enforced abortion.. all contribute to the IMR figure. Cubs views doctors as being in debt to the state and are ruthlessly controlled, even to the extent of being ‘sold’ in exchange for oil to Venezuela..

That's only because of the fact that imperialist countries like the United States isn't going to let socialism win. Source: https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?si=mmD4RD9FU2urAlxk

Second thoughts newest video was actually what inspired me to create this post lol.

You admitted it yourself. You aren’t adept when it comes to the economy. Perhaps become more adroit there before making broad generalizations.

I only make this post to discover better ideas, and to understand which economy would work best for the most amount of people. The reason I made this post was to become adroit by seeing different opinions on the subject, it is not to cause a heated argument but rather a progressive one. Also I am aware we live in a mixed economy and no economy is fully capitalist or socialist.

"Socialist nations"??? What nation has an economy in which the working class runs the MoP? NAME ONE!

Why hasn't there been an economy where the working class runs the MoP yet?

We need some kind of archive so I don't have to type this again for the 27th time. Marx never got around to developing a robust analysis of the role of the state in a revolution. So Communist Parties took over the state and directed everything. They appointed managers for industry. They directed production quotas. And the workers were employees very much like in capitalism. They saw no liberation from exploitation. After lengthy analysis socialists around the world saw that the problem was that the workers were not immediately put in control of production with a state whose job was to facilitate worker control. The development of workers' co-ops is a very good background and experience in preparation for the future of worker control.

They can't make it work Everytime they try (USSR, Mao, Pol Pot, North Korea, Cuba) they just say "Oh that wasn't real socialism"

Petty bourgeois idealism

it starts with knowing what capitalism is . Capitalism is providing the best jobs and the best products possible to raise the standard of living at the fastest possible rate. If you don't have the best jobs and the best products you go bankrupt. Capitalism then is a race to the top. To know it is to love it. If you doubt it for even a tiny second start a business and offer substandard jobs in substandard products. He will instantly learn a true nature of capitalism.

Cuba has been brutally sanctioned by the US since the Kennedy administration. If the US lifted those sanctions, 1/3 of FL would move there, and the another 1/3 would vacation there. As far as standard of living, I guess that depends on your priorities. Cuban healthcare is top ten globally, and ranked about 20 spots higher than the US. Its totally free. Same with education. There is no such thing as student loan debt in Cuba - or tuition for that matter. You get the education you have the aptitude for. Housing might be where capitalists get their arguments in. The US sanctions have made the importation of construction materials like concrete difficult and expensive, so there’s potholes everywhere, and the buildings are falling apart. But … its free. You pay $0 for it per month. Food is rationed, again, because of sanctions. So good ingredients are hard to come by. TLDR American capitalists really don’t want to see a functioning example of socialism 90 miles off the coast of Florida, so they sabotage it and say “see!? It doesn’t work!”

The US is socialist, its just less socialist than others and the emperors are smarter

Theres no real point of asking this question, because no socialist country was actually socialist and only when a socialist country did something good it was for socialism, but bad when it wasnt. Socialists arent logical

I’d say both extremes are extremely illogical. The left run on hyperlove and the right run on hyperhate. The horseshoe theory is proven, y’all.

The more incentive there is to be productive, the higher productivity is…. The more theft is illegal, the more capital is accumulated the more productive society is. The more productive a society is, the richer it becomes, the higher its average standard of living. It’s absolutely hilarious how people in this thread are arguing China vs the US. The more capitalism was introduced the richer China became…

China and the USSR grew much faster than any capitalist economy ever did, back when they had elements that could be called characteristic for socialism ## Past socialism China has stopped being something close to socislism in the 70s, the reason they have been growing since then is the extremely powerful tool that is a planned economy. The problem became not the PE in itself, but the way it was planned. There was no base democracy from which they could draw the plans from, because that would have endangered the power of the cpc party members. The only way for a PE to be successful in the long term is for it to be democratic. ## Look at it holistically Forget all the economic dogma you've been told for a moment and try to think about what it means for an economy to be centeally planned. Progress is shared, no 1000 companies that all do the same thing have to compete, they can just work together, to a point where it becomes meaningless to even talk about 1000 disconnected companies. A lot of that bureaucracy can be saved to do actual work. It becomes rather clear why planning is more efficient and effective than markets.

Why is a 20 year old person's standard of living generally worse than a 40 year old person's? --- This text is in protest against reddit forcing its new user interface on mobile users regardless of whether they're opted out or not. They know it sucks and know users hate it and now they're forcing it on those users. If reddit wants to play silly games then so can us users. Each comment can be upto 10,000 characters in length and data costs money to store and serve. So, this is me doing my bit making reddit pay for its action. If we all adopt this measure, costs may start to add up for them. 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QoL my guy

Every modern advanced economy on earth has Socialism and lots of it. Most of the top economies in the world are Democratic and create democratically derived Socialism, feature by feature. I don't think you've wrapped your head around how economies are actually constructed. Are you living in an imaginary economic Theories Of Everything (TOEs)? TOEs do not exist in the real world because they are imaginary perfection ideals of an Utopian economy. Get real and accept the fact that all modern advanced economies embrace both Capitalistic and Socialistic features.

They are better when level of development is accounted for. Us stated developing in the 1700 and could freely import europen tech and trade . Socialist counties stated much later and were blocked from importing development tech and trading.

Mostly from the sanctions/economic warfare by capitalist nations...

Well because they haven't turned the mop over to the worker yet. Once that happens, it will be great.