[corimaith]

> I know you believe a priori the West is essentially Good and communism is essentially Bad, because that is what we are taught in school.

I think you're attacking a strawman here, what OP is pointing out for the faults of the West, it is still a preferable choice in comparison to the brutality the Communists performed on on their own people. It's ironic really because the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward very much is a difficult thing to ignore, if at all neccessary given that Asian Tigers that China modeled itself from, in Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan did not have to resort to such policies to achieve their wealth.