I think there were complaints about the quality of consumer goods. Castro once said in an interview with an Indian jounalist that the Soviets could send spacecrafts to the moon, but couldn't produce good quality shoes ! Btw, is there an English translation of Segrillo?
-But these consumer goods are not subjected to technology transfer from the military. Unfortuntely I didn´t find a translation from Segrillo. I will tell you.
In what way?
-Because we´re willing to open our markets to foreign industry and services in exchange for lifting agricultural barriers. Seems to be a bad business. We are begging for the "right" of being a half colony.
Not many, but that's my view. It's a controversial subject. Indian Maoists think India is semi-feudal/semi-colonial etc. But they simply apply Chinese schemas. They believed India was a semi-colony of the Soviet Social Imperialism ! They even had a slogan for a time: "China's Chairman is our Chairman.!" You can judge for yourself, the quality of some of our vanguards.
-Well....
People talk about the decline of the US. It may be true in some epochal sense, but my experience is just the opposite.
-The USA suffered a sharp decline (in relative terms) from 1950-73, having won the cold war due to the impressive economic performance of W Europe and Japan. From 1990 onwards, they experienced an impressive recovery, but at the cost of significant imbalances in their economy. What will be the consequences of those imbalances I don´t know, but I agree with you that the USA is not in decline. Actually they have significant demographic and geopolitical advantages over Europe and Japan, the main chellenge to their hegemony being China (and in the future, maybe, India, Russia and Brazil)
Alexandre
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