“So often in the past there has been a division between left and right, between capitalists and communists or socialists, and especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate. Those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it really fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory. You should just decide what works."
-- President Obama in Argentina this week and asked a question by university students.
Generally, I always emphasize that university lecture people (professors or pretender-professors) ought to be required at age thirty-five to go out into the world for one year and get a real job (barber, bartender, trucker, clerk, ditch-digger, etc). They'd all come back and their view of the world changed.
If you go with this logic.....ask yourself what communist country is a success? China and Russia, for this discussion....aren't really communists (no matter what their constitution says).....they are hybrid capitalist countries that hype up an occasional label for public speeches, but they've been capitalistic in nature for almost three decades now.
Cuba? Go look at the cars that the top three-hundred government 'representatives' drive. All modern and imported from capitalist countries. Ninety-eight percent of Cubans may follow some daily regiment leading to communism, but the top two percent area all tied to capitalism.
North Korea? It is about the most miserable place on the face of the earth and they will chat about their devotion to communism....but the vast group at the very top enjoy French wine, fine foods from Japan, drive nice cars from Malaysia, and chat on French-made smart-phones.
Anybody that went through the 1960s and 1970s with a heavy dose of communism (Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Czech, Poland).....have dumped it. They might chat a good bit on socialism but their brand of socialism doesn't survive or flourish without taxation on goods. They need capitalism.....almost admitting a handcuffed relationship to capitalism.....to survive in the wondrous world of socialism.
As much as anarchists get all hyped up on socialism and anti-capitalist behavior....look at their attire, their use of capitalistic tools like Facebook or YouTube, or the great smartphones they use. They need capitalism always in the background....otherwise, they'd be living in some tent or sleeping under some bridge.
So, I'd invite anyone who bought the President's comments.....go and spend a year without any attachment to capitalism. Go try to thrive and get ahead in a strictly communist country. Go and walk around hyped-up socialist countries....and ask who pays for all the 'gifts' that the government hands out.
After a year, come back and lay the cards on the table. Reality can be beaten, with enough imagination (quote from Mark Twain).
