[akytt]

Having lived in that country, no, it was not fine. Queues for basic foodstuff, severely limited access to services, blatant lack of any manfucatured goods, horrendous public infrastructure etc. are not the signs of a "fine" economy. When a world superpower has to carry out a "food programme" to feed the population in the 80s, it kinda speaks for itself.

[candiodari]

A significant part of the leftist worldview depends on the idea that communism/socialism only ever failed because the west sabotaged it. In fairness, of course the west sabotaged it (see the other thread here), but of course, they sabotaged the west as well, and as Nash pointed out, stability under adversarial conditions is not an optional part of an economic system.

Now of course this isn't true, as anyone who's seen those times will tell you. There's plenty of people who emigrated who aren't exactly shy about that matter, so this is well known.

But because half of the left thinks this reflects on the very core of their favored ideology, that the state should decide everything and make it just, fair and ... (they think that somehow includes them, despite the constant reminders to the opposite). And you can see why. On a deep level there's the fear it means that UN can never work, as it depends on state power overriding local power. That global warming is unsolvable. That capitalists will always win, that ...

So you'll never convince a decent percentage on this site. The others ? They don't need convincing. The big secret of course is that a pretty decent majority of this site is extremely capitalist (I believe the current American term is liberalist), but simply know better than to go against leftist viewpoints online, because the reactions are immediate and downvoting, insults and bans will follow soon.