> I'd say the main problem with 20th Century Third World Revolution was the
United States.
Let's not have another discussion about whether the US should've played the role of counterrevolutionary in anything like the manner they did. As we've established before, I substantially agree with you, but for different reasons.
> The fact is that central planning does fabulously at
> the level of development that Third World countries
> are at -- much better than more or lesds free market
> capitalism.
Maybe. I'd like to see someone like Brad try to explain how, say, China could've industrialized under Chiang Kai Shek. Providing plausible counterfactual accounts of that sort is something I think a serious anti-communist has to do, but I can't.
> The successful capitalist nations that made it up from 3d world status --
Korea, Taiwan,
> Singapore, Homg Kong (treated as nation) -- all
> followed the classic Bismarkian route of heavy
> planning and protectionism, not free trade.
So what? I'm not a free marketeer. The point as I see it is that if there had been successful communist revolutions in the places you cite, South Korea would've resembled North Korea (huge minus), Taiwan and Hong would've resembled China (fairly big minuses), and Singapore would look like Vietnam at best (fairly big minus) or North Korea at worst.
> And when the issue of comparison arises with putting food on
> the table, educating people, eradicating disease, and
> extending life expectancy, the 3d world Stalinist
> nations beat the capitalist colonies in a walk by five
> hundred miles. There was Cambodoa, but that was an
> outlier --
Just an outlier? An overly dogmatic commitment to collectivization quite directly led to some pretty horrendous consequences in the SU and China as well.
-- Luke