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Comment by zpeti | Hacker News Reader

Yeah as is typical throughout history with communist regimes, the people always benefit greatly.

>Bolivia’s economy has undergone structural economic transformation during Evo Morales’s presidency. Real (inflation-adjusted) per capita GDP grew by more than 50 percent over these past 13 years. This was twice the rate of growth for the Latin American and Caribbean region. Even as the Latin American regional economy slowed over the past five years, Bolivia had the highest growth of per capita GDP in South America.

https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/bolivia-macro-2019-1...

Bolivia's GDP per capita is still one of the lowest in Latin America. It's also one of the lowest in the world excluding African nations. It's easier to grow when you're very poor.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted. It’s almost a tautology that it’s easier to double a two dollars than it is to double two trillion. Starting point makes a big difference, and growth alone is not an indication of comparative success.

If a capitalist friendly guy had been in charge, you would not have made this point though. When socialists have success people are always eager to find excuses and when capitalism utterly fails like the Russian shock therapy, people line up to make excuses.

Can’t we just accept that the devil is in the details. Quality of government matters more than you political ideology, with respect to economic growth.

I lived in South America and the amount of Bolivian emigrants, and people in general who leave the country temporarily to use other countries' resources (collecting welfare from other countries and taking advantage of public healthcare in some other South American countries, particularly Argentina) is enough proof for me that Bolivia is not doing very well, whether it is a socialist state or not.

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