[lbo-talk] Civil Rights in South Asia

[Chris Doss]

It was amazing how long it took for some people to accept that, indeed, the Russian economy and average incomes were rapidly growing post-1998 crisis. It was like Russians needed to be punished by God for having turned away from socialism or something. It's only been in the past year and a half or so that the narrative of "the economy's not growing, and even if it is, it's only due to high oil prices, and when oil prices drop it will collapse. Ha!" has stopped. Probably because oil prices have been pretty low for the past year and a half and no giant calamity has ensued.

----- Original Message ----
From: Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com>

Somebody: Yeah, speaking of which, it never ceases to amaze me how statistics like this are so selectively used on both the left and right. So, for the left, if China's PPP GDP per capita or life expectancy is increasing - who cares, there's a growing class divide. And on the right, it doesn't really matter that Cuba provides good universal health care and education, because it's a society groaning under the despotic Castro brothers. It's hard to find anyone, aside from public health professionals perhaps, willing to say, yes both capitalist and socialist countries can do a good job providing life's basic essentials.

In dredmond's case, the rubric is a little different - instead of socialism versus capitalism, we have neo-liberalism versus developmental state capitalism. 

      
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