[lbo-talk] 40th anniversary of end of Vietnam war

[Marv Gandall]

Next week marks the 40th anniversary of the liberation of South Vietnam by the the revolutionary forces of the National Liberation Front backed by the People’s Army of (North) Vietnam. The Guardian’s Nick Davies describes how the war against the US and its puppet government in Saigon was won and how the promise of an independent egalitarian, future was lost in the wake of the destruction caused by the war, the US trade embargo, and the pressures of an all-encompassing global capitalist economy on a poor and isolated country. As in China and the former Soviet Union, state enterprises have been sold off, the private sector and foreign investment have expanded dramatically, the once impressive health, education and welfare systems have been dismantled, and soaring inequality and corruption have accompanied higher growth and lower poverty rates.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/22/vietnam-40-years-on-how-communist-victory-gave-way-to-capitalist-corruption