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> Sanctions on Cuba? This is not because Cuba or Castro is "bad". We have absolutely no problem propping up horrific dictators as "allies" when it suits us (eg Pinochet, MBS, Saddam Hussein until it didn't suit us, even Erdogan, arguably even Netanyahu). What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations.

Close, but not quite right. Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to various people all of whom now live in Florida and vote as a bloc. Note that Obama actually tried to end the Cuban embargo, but was stopped due to politicians afraid of upsetting the various people-who-hate-Cuba-for-this-specific-reason.

I wonder if they’ll be more willing to revisit sanctions now that Florida is all but a red state. Given that bloc isn’t in a swing state anymore it makes sense on the surface.

Florida is still too close for any party to take for granted. Also those anti-Castro Cubans in FL are single-issue voters, and also can’t be taken for granted.

There is also a small cluster of Venezuelans that will vote GOP because they have, historically, a harder stance on Cuba and the Dictatorship in Venezuela.

Funny how left leaning voters call out imperialism but forget that Cuba, Russia and China have been doing that in Venezuela the last 30 years

It's imperialism when US/West does, but it's spreading of love when Russia/USSR (and now China) does it... :/

Curious, how would a single state have a huge influence in DC?

Because it's still "sort of" a swing state, and there is a lot of money in Florida and they have a LOT of lobbyists in Congress handing out money to critical senators and reps for their votes. Also in general MAGAs don't like brown people so it's easy to convince them that "Cuba bad"

> Also in general MAGAs don't like brown people so it's easy to convince them that "Cuba bad"

The modern image of Cubans in the U.S. is effectively of white people, on account of the particular classes of Cubans which emigrated to the U.S. This also belies Cuba's own racial hierarchy, which mirrors that of most of the Americas.

Florida is 3rd largest state in terms of population. That means 3rd most electoral votes, third most house representatives. It’s also home to an important port of entry (Miami) numerous trade ports, offshore drilling, and many large companies have a significant presence there (Walt Disney World is its own county and Disney has special status to practically govern this county and provide its civil services like police, firefighters, etc).

While it’s only one state in the US it cannot be downplayed that it has an outsize influence compared to, say, Wyoming.

As another reply said, Florida is the third largest state, with the third largest number of electoral votes. Since electoral votes are winner-take-all (with a couple of exceptions), all you need is a tiny minority to make a huge impact on who wins the Presidency.

The two largest states reliably vote the same way in each election, but Florida is at least somewhat up for grabs. So Florida is one of the most important opportunities to make a big impact with a small advantage.

If this seems like an incredibly stupid way to run things... yes, we know.

> Close, but not quite right. Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to various people all of whom now live in Florida and vote as a bloc.

A bloc that resides in Florida is not responsible for the US policy against Cuba over the last 60+ years. Not to say it's not an element, but it's simply impractical as a flat reasoning. The nearby danger narrative is useful is another aspect. There are a few in aggregate.

Bingo. Well organised single-issue swing-state voting blocks are incredibly powerful. Particularly when they care strongly about an issue most Americans couldn’t give two fucks for.

A Democracy that listens to voters? That's terrifying!

Florida actually has voter propositions but these are routinely thwarted by the governor and the judiciary. Examples:

1. Florida has (3 times IIRC) voted to legalize recreational marijuana. All of those have been thrown on by a court on procedural grounds; and

2. In 2018, Floridians voted to restore the right to vote to the state's estimated 1.5 million felons, which would've been an amazing step forward. The response? DeSantis basically waited until the last possible moment of the next election and instituted a poll tax, that is that any felon would have to pay full restitution to the state. Not enough time to challenge this before the election. Felons tend to skew poor so having to pay several thousand dollars in, say, court costs and probation "costs" acted as an effective barrier to the will of the people.

One should remember that as horrible as almost every Republican state government is, most of them are minority governments that are kept in power by extreme gerrymandering. Wisconsin is a prime example, where Democrats lead by 10 points but the Republicans hold an unassailable super majority in the state legislature.

Fun fact: Texas has more registered Democrats than registered Republicans.

Change is inevitable. REpublican voters like to hold onto to the past (up to and including chattel slavery, sorry "state's rights"). These people skew older and religious. The former is dying off from old age (and Covid) and the latter is in historical decline.

I mention this because despite Florida's reputation, voting to restore voting rights to felons passed and is remarkably progressive for the US and we can draw some comfort from that.

>What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations... Sanctions on Venezuela? Again, Venezuela took the unacceptable step of nationalizing their oil assets.

Also set up one party states which ideologically align with every US enemy out there including USSR/Russia while completely ruining their own countries.

> We have absolutely no problem propping up horrific dictators as "allies" when it suits us (eg Pinochet, MBS, Saddam Hussein until it didn't suit us, even Erdogan, arguably even Netanyahu)

MBS doesn't even rule Saudi yet, despite having a lot of power. Erdogan is likely to lose the next election. Nethanyahu is out of office and facing charges. Leaders can suck without being dictators or preventing fair elections.

>And with Russia's unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine now threatening the energy sector, suddenly the Venezuelan sanctions aren't as important as we made out

Don't make too much of it. The admin will soon find out that Chaves/Maduro ruined the energy sector so thoroughly there isn't any oil to pump in the next decade.

You skipped Pinochet. Thoughts?

It's well known the US supported useful dictators during the Cold War, nothing new there. That should not imply simping for every anti-US regime out there, or badmouthing every country which has decent relations with US. It should be possible to oppose US policy without supporting one's own set of dictators.

Ever considered that you are projecting. That you are bad mouthing every country that doesn't have decent relationships with the US and simping for every pro US dictatorship out there!

> Also set up one party states which ideologically align with every US enemy out there including USSR/Russia while completely ruining their own countries.

It is unclear if you're referring to Cuba or to Venezuela or both. What exactly does "ideologically aligning" mean? Also does actions taken by a global superpower's military on behalf of elites in that superpower (I'm referencing the article here, "Invade Haiti, Wall Street urged, the US obliged") to steal, confiscate, block trade count towards "ruining their own countries"? My guess is that you're kind of trying to imply they caused their own ruin and deserved it by not being "ideologically aligned" with the US (does that mean Wall Street?), is that inaccurate?

Castro was aligned with USSR from day 1 and kept this alignment long after the Cold War. The consequent economic policies had the expected effect on Cuba. Chavez was also always aligned with the anti-Western bloc, and his policies led to 1 in 6 Venezuelans being a refugees. Both are unrelated to Haiti and as far as I know never cared much for it.

I'm not sure this is true. I recall from listening to the Blowback podcast that Castro initially tried to align with the US, and there was disagreement among US leaders about whether he was friend or foe. But we had a bunch of people in Florida, among them the dictator he ousted, offering to try and kill him, so we just went with that.

Think about the core idea that you’re defending: that nations do not have freedom of association if the choose to be friendly with regimes the United States doesn’t like, and it’s fine for the US to use it’s cultural and economic hegemonic power to crush those states for making the wrong friends or choosing the wrong ideology. Does that not strike you as an immoral thing for the US to do?

>it’s fine for the US to use it’s cultural and economic hegemonic power to crush those states for making the wrong friends or choosing the wrong ideology

There's making different choices and there's 'being friendly to the Soviets which were also very much into overthrowing the US' or 'Driving double digit percentage of your own population out to the point you're a foreign policy problem' or 'undermining neighbouring states due to your 'wrong' ideology'.

In the abstract, that sounds kind of right, but concretely, how about when that ideology is being actual Nazis? As in WWII and the Axis powers? Is the US wrong for lumping Italy along with Germany?

Nothing happened to the US after Paperclip.

No policy is going to be correct all the time, just as no policy is going to be incorrect all the time. Choosing to apply economic and military pressure against Italy was the right thing to do in that specific set of circumstances. Just because it was the right thing to do in that circumstance doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do in every other circumstance. I would posit that broadly, this kind of guilty-by-association economic harm is the wrong choice more often than not.

Cuba policy may have made sense in the 60s and even 70s but 80s and onward it makes zero sense, just like our Venezuela policy makes zero sense. Follow the money and you'll find out that it's just corps blocking it.

> ideologically align with every US enemy out there including USSR/Russia while completely ruining their own countries.

"Ideologically align" ==> Bequeath all ownership of a developing country's national resources from citizens to NATO corporations. You have to be really blind to not have realized what Ideological alignment with United states actually means. Hint: it's not democracy.

NATO places world wide economic sanctions on small countries that are "ideologically misaligned" with NATO to devastate their economy, reduce it to ruins while simultaneously organizing coups. They have no option to trade with the other block to survive. Its either gives us control over all of your natural resources OR trade with Russia to survive.

Erdogan isn't going to lose the next election. He has too much power and likes it too much. The only way he gives that up is he knows he has a terminal illness.

The US government works for the Bezoses, Gates, Buffetts and Musks of the world.

Yes they definitely work for three new-money tech billionaires and not the old money generational wealth families that nobody talks about.

What good would it have done for OP to list the names of "families that nobody talks about"? Listing Bezos/Musk is an easy way to just say, "richest mother fuckers in the world". You don't have the same impact if you list a name that nobody knows.

Because then it would be, "The US government works for the Clarks of the world," and we'd all be going, "Huh?".

It's oversimplification which can only lead you to the foggy world of conspiracy theories. Modern society is complex, and full of conflicting interests, and that's why two evil dictators may have different kind of favors from US, or whatever country. There's for example a significant voting block which supports sanctioning Cuba, and absolute majority of them are not billionaires. Taking Venezuela case: as potential Russian win would send an encouraging signal to other expansionist regimes, including some who are absolutely willing to be US enemies, and big enough to make troubles, it's becoming more important to deal with bigger problem (compared to Venezuelan regime). There's an obvious solution to these ugly choice of whom of all bad guys to pay more for oil: let domestic extraction industry to increase development. But it happened so that a significant voting block supports diminishing of domestic extraction, and the ruling party doesn't want to annoy them as they have enough troubles without it. So suddenly its not only a game of capitals, but also of ideologies, family roots, voting strategies, and a lot of other elements. Some people say that is how democracy works in every big society. Also, on a side note: Netanyahu may be good, or not, but he is most definitely not a dictator.

> ... absolute majority of them are not billionaires.

I see two big factors in play here:

1. The widespread belief in American exceptionalism, once characterized as every American thinks of themselves as a temporarily embarrassed millionaire [1]; and

2. The power of propaganda. The number of low-income people who will fight to the hilt that Jeff Bezos shouldn't pay slightly more taxes to pay for the society that made his wealth possible and continues to make it possible is astounding.

[1]: http://www.temporarilyembarrassedmillionaires.org/

I think 2 can be complicated as well. Increasing his tax liability along with many other very wealthy people basically requires taxing unrealized gains, which if applied to less wealthy people in the future could be very bad for them.

I’d like to see something that specifically targets the loophole of borrowing against stocks & repaying by taking additional loans and selling only assets which have declined in price.

[2] is only "astounding" if you don't take the time to understand peoples' political philosophies, and I can probably guess your political leanings if you believe [1] causes [2] or that "poor people" can only be intrinsically motivated. I don't know any millionaires but I know plenty of people who think it's wrong for the government to confiscate wealth, who you seem to classify as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires." I'm sure some people think they'll get rich (looking at you crypto bros) but a lot of people simply think it's none of your or the governments business how much money other people have and what they do with it.

>Netanyahu may be good, or not, but he is most definitely not a dictator

He's not a dictator for the israelis, but let's not forget that he rules over an apartheid state and for the palestinians (who don't get to vote, don't get to have their own country and yet get opressed by his rule) he is a dictator.

The fact that this is being downvoted is telling.

Sanctions against Cuba likely continue because those sanctions are popular with an influential demographic in a swing state, namely Cuban Americans in Florida. In 2020, 58% of Cuban Americans affiliated with the GOP, while only 32% of non-Cuban Hispanics did. Furthermore, Cuban Americans have high voter turnout relative to other Hispanic demographics in America.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/02/most-cuban-...

The problem with Cuba is Florida. It’s a politically powerful state and the Cuban community owns the GOP.

Ethnic voting blocs are truly powerful. Religious fanaticism waxes and wanes, but strong ethnic identity endured for a few generations. That’s why southern baptists are suddenly sucking up to Catholic judges - it’s seen as a way to connect to Hispanic voters as conservative boomers die off.

I don't disagree about the power of the Cuban voting bloc in Florida. Had they voted more in line with, say, other Hispanic voters we may well have avoided a 20 year water in Iraq and Afghanistan [1].

> Ethnic voting blocs are truly powerful.

I'd generalize this further. Any substantial voting bloc is powerful, ethnic or otherwise. The NRA and, anti-choice lobbies and the pro-Israel lobby, for example. There is generational voting patterns (as you mention) but this seems to a subset of single-issue voters.

There's a reason we can precisely draw Congressional maps to gerrymander the electorate: voting patterns are highly predictable.

But a voting bloc can be a double edged sword. Cubans in Florida only hold power because they're the difference between the state being red and blue. It's why certain states are completely ignored in the election. One party or the other will comfortably win. Nothing will change that.

Disproportionate power only comes when you're the balance of power.

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.te...

To borrow an (apocryphal) line from Paul Revere (with apologies): “The Puerto Ricans are coming, the Puerto Ricans are coming!”

This is a great post about the open and obvious actions the US government has done to protect capital’s interest, but to truly go down the rabbit hole and understand the evil we have done in service of profit, check out what the CIA did in Central and South America, fighting “land reform”

>The US government works for the Bezoses, Gates, Buffetts and Musks of the world

the tax department maybe but America's billionaire tech entrepreneurs have barely any relationship with America's foreign policy establishment. It's not clear to me what Bill Gates gains out of subduing Latin American countries and Musk and Cook seem to be pretty positive on China given that they make and sell a lot of their stuff there.

America's foreign policy establishment consists of think tanks, intellectuals, politicians, paperbelt types, ideologues and so forth but America's tech sector is to a large extent disconnected from this stuff if not straight up an alternative power center which routinely makes foreign policy hawks very mad.

I think he was using those examples because they're billionaires that everyone knows.

The energy/construction/resource extraction sector is very closely tied with US foreign policy.

The US has been an oligarchy for a good bit now. Politicians have shifted from discussing how to make our country better and replaced it with why you should hate their political opponents (both sides - ever wonder why it seems like neither political party has a message aside from “at least I’m not the other guy”?). Democracy ends in oligarchy.

It’s not like this is new. John Bagot Glubb talks about this in “The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival”. Our ruling class is showing the same patterns of those ruling an empire at the end of its days. Squabbling over the riches earned by those who came before with no regard for their people or the future.

> both sides - ever wonder why it seems like neither political party has a message aside from “at least I’m not the other guy”?

This is pure cynicism. It is both lazy and false.

Democratic goals: - address climate change - extend the social insurance programs that are foundational to the welfare state: social security, the ACA, medicare, etc. - election integrity: ensure equal access to the ballot, eliminate gerrymandering, eliminate the electoral college - legislative reform: eliminate the filibuster - education: address educational debt - address inequality through tax measures and public expenditures - appoint liberal judges - preserve access to abortion and contraception - reform policing, making it more community based, less punitive, more accountable in the case of police wrongdoing, etc. - etc.

Republican goals: - facilitate resource extraction - privatize public assets - roll back environmental protections and regulations of all sorts - roll back the social insurance programs that are foundational to the welfare state: social security, the ACA, medicare, etc. - reduce taxes, particularly on the wealthy - roll back commitments to international agreements and organizations - enshrine Christian morality and customs in law - roll back protections for historically disadvantaged groups - reduce ballot access for constituencies that tend not to vote Republican - preserve the electoral college and gerrymandering (see previous point) - prevent the teaching of anything touching on diversity or historical prejudices or injustice - appoint conservative judges - prevent access to abortion and contraception - reform policing, making it more lethal, more punitive, less accountable in the case of police wrongdoing, etc. - etc.

This lists could be much longer. There are thousands of passionate politicians and activists for both parties who work on these things all the time. However, people are more motivated by negative partisanship than anything else. It turns out listing good stuff you intend to do on behalf of your voters is much less motivating than detailing the perfidy, real or imagined, of the other party and promising to punish it.

False equivalence is the way you create oligarchy, not how you fight it.

I generally agree with criticizing of "bothsidesing" the US poltical climate. That is intellectually lazy and simply not true. Conservatives mainstream Nazi propaganda [1] and the liberals are really just an inefective center right party that likes the aesthetics of social causes without having to do anything.

> Democratic goals: ...

This is propaganda I'm afraid. The goals of the Democratic Party are to systematically erase any progressive element from the party (eg Bernie, AOC) while positioning themselves as being not as bad as the Republicans for pure fundraising reasons without ever actually having to do anything.

Roe v. Wade was handed down 49 years ago. There have been multiple opportunities since then to codify this in Federal law. Most recently Obama the candidate campaigned on doing this as his #1 priority. Obama the new president, who had a super-majority in the Senate and thus didn't even need to repeal the filibuster (which he should've anyway) decided it wasn't that important. To the contrary, Obama actually made abortion less accessible [2].

The Democrats are absolutely feckless and are quite happy to do so as long as they can maintain office. The Republicans are straight up monsters but they are effective in that they give their base what they want.

Example: compare whipping efforts by the GOP and disciplining its members (eg Kevin McCarthy and Madison Cawthorn) vs the Democrats. If the GOP was faced with a Manchin or Sinema they would be primaried and stripped of key committee positions (most notably Manchin's on Energy) to bring them into line.

Don't for a second think the Democrats actually want to do anything.

[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fox-news-g...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13535

> If the GOP was faced with a Manchin or Sinema they would be primaried and stripped of key committee positions (most notably Manchin's on Energy) to bring them into line.

The Democrats have 50 seats in the Senate. The Republicans have 50 seats. The Democrats have control only because Kamala Harris provides a tie-breaking vote. Sinema and Manchin are actively being courted by the Republicans ceaselessly. So if the Democrats try to whip them into line they can just withdraw their support from the Democratic caucus and then Mitch McConnell has the power. This isn't to say that the everything the Democrats have done to try to control the situation has been perfect, but these are the parameters they're working with. The story that the Democrats are feckless and happy to achieve nothing is the propaganda. It is spread both by idealists working with a fantasy notion of US politics and agents provocateurs who prefer the left stay cynical and demoralized.

Another element of this fantasy version of politics: the "Obama had a super majority" story, which echoes endlessly. Obama had this super majority for a number of weeks. First Republicans prevented the seating of Al Franken for months. Finally he was seated. Several weeks later Ted Kennedy has to withdraw entirely from his job because he was dying of a brain tumor. Then he died. During this time the legislative priority was passing the ACA. They wasted vast amounts of time with the Republicans playing a Lucy-and-the-football delaying tactic. But ever since defeatists trot this out as though Obama could have passed virtually everything during this brief window and the fact that he didn't proves his fecklessness. This is the propaganda. The Democrats have failed to achieve more not because they as a party don't want to achieve anything but because they are a relatively disunited party with different people pulling in different directions and they have only had very brief moments when they could exercise significant power. This is why everyone but Sinema and Manchin want to reform or abolish the filibuster: they realize that it prevents their ever achieving anything because at this point the Republicans will never work with them except on trivial matters.

Use Occam's Razor. It isn't secret cabals and epicycles that govern the political universe. It is exactly what you see: disunited people, some of whom are corrupt (Sinema and Manchin, e.g.) or stupid (Sinema and Manchin, e.g.), working with brief windows of opportunity within the campaign cycle. If you actually want leftist ideas enacted, working with a fantasy version of politics is worst way to go about it. It may make you feel individually virtuous and important, which is a great temptation for everyone, but it doesn't get anything done.

P.S. Obama could not abolish the filibuster. This is something the Senate has to do by amending the rules they are organized by. They can do it with a simple majority, but it has to be a majority of senators. And Obama's chief priorities when he came in were the ACA and enacting carbon pricing, not codifying Roe v. Wade into law. He managed to achieve one of these things largely because Nancy Pelosi gave up the House's more progressive plans when Ted Kennedy was gone and she realized further negotiation was fruitless. And despite herculean efforts on the part of all the Democrats in power at the time (well, except certain assholes), the circular firing squad devotees paint them all as feckless.

> Obama had this super majority for a number of weeks

Even that is an exaggeration. There was never a Democratic supermajority.

He was able to cobble together a super majority on one issue. One of the Senators making up the supermajority that passed ACA literally spoke at the RNC convention and endorsed Obama's opponent[1].

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-WB-4176

Right. In his brief window of opportunity Obama could only achieve what the most conservative/deluded member of his caucus would agree to.

So why didn't the US impose sanctions on the Saudis after they nationalized US oil companies in Saudi Arabia? Or (checks notes [1]) Sri Lanka, Turkey, Bolivia, Bahrain, etc.?

The problem with this theory is that it doesn't account for all of the nationalizations that the US didn't respond to with sanctions or invasions. Which is, I believe, larger in number than the reverse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nationalizations_by_co...

For Saudi Arabia, it seems they didn’t nationalize anything but demanded 50 % of profits, which is not too far off from being considered a tax. They then bought the other 50 % decades later.

For Sri Lanka, it seems it wasn’t oil production but merely the domestic petrol distribution? Also unclear how much of it was British and not American.

For Turkey I can’t find the company at issue, but it apparently happened before the Second World War and I’d guess American interests just weren’t very substantial at the time? The article suggests the US was supporting Turkey in getting out from under existing relationships with the old powers of Europe.

“I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”

It's fun to demonize, isn't? But in the glare of attention we all say stupid things at point or another. In her own words (per WP):

Albright later criticized Stahl's segment as "amount[ing] to Iraqi propaganda", saying that her question was a loaded question.“I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” She wrote, "I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean",[127] and that she regretted coming "across as cold-blooded and cruel".[121] She apologized for her remarks in a 2020 interview with The New York Times, calling them "totally stupid".[128][122]

There is a lot of speculation in the replies here that the US strategy towards Cuba revolves mainly around electoral posturing.

Here is the actual strategy laid out in an official government document: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/10/20/2017-22...

This policy was released in 2017. In 2021, there was a brief and ineffective attempt at a color revolution in Cuba.

> Sanctions on Cuba? This is not because Cuba or Castro is "bad". ... What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations.

It is not surprising that US reacts more harshly when a foreign country violates human rights of US citizens than when it 'just' opresses their own citizens.

Sanctions on Cuba could also be due to the Cuban missile crisis. That was a pretty big deal.

Agree with everything but the last line.

They work for banks and resource mining corporations. They don't work for software technology new money titans.

The sanctions on Venezuela have nothing to do with nationalization. Our oil industry was nationalized in 1976.

> The sanctions on Venezuela have nothing to do with nationalization.

> Section 1. Purpose: The United States recognizes the need for more freedom and democracy, improved respect for human rights, and increased free enterprise in Cuba

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/10/20/2017-22...

Are you responding to the right comment? Venezuela does not appear in the document you linked.

> What's the real issue with Cuba? Castro nationalized assets and resources that belonged to US corporations.

> Sanctions on Venezuela? Again, Venezuela took the unacceptable step of nationalizing their oil assets.

But is this not saying that the real issue with Cuba is [actual] communism? This requires no conspiracy, it is the root of publicly-cited reasons for US policy towards the island.

I think the reason these statements have the allure of revelation despite not being so is an unresolved dissonance in the American civic religion.

Capitalism and property have displaced most other rights of the liberal pantheon, old and new. Merely to discover the once unremarkable fact that capitalism in inherently unjust, and that neither property nor free enterprise are actually its synonyms, is lamentably revelatory.

I suppose the deliberate destruction of any rational, shared understanding of what communism actually entails, enacted by demagogues attacking Democratic politicians and policy, has also helped break the prior clarity of these embargoes' official justification.

Cuba does treat their people in horrible ways, oppressing anyone who resists. But yes, we support plenty of countries that do that - like Turkey! Cuba comes into the 'legacy countries we hated in the past', communism division.

> Nothing has changed.

China?

Fair is fair: capital is what builds economies, capital wins wars, capital allows culture to form, capital makes resources available. And capital will go where it is best protected.

So a country that lets it's capital get destroyed is pretty much fucked.

This is the fundamental issue with most forms of communism, socialism and theocracy: they're perpetually short of capital.

Places like Northern Europe work very hard to simultaneously protect capital and human assets. And that's good. And we should emulate that. But all to often people try to down grade capital instead of upgrading people.

The places people so often think of as alternatives (Venezuela as a recent example) all too often fall for this error and doom themselves.

The most notable theocracies - Iran and Saudi Arabia, do fairly well compared to the other two forms of government. I wonder why they're do better than one might expect.

Oil.

Do fairly well for whom?

Having billions of dollars of black gold gush out of the ground makes many things easy. What happens to them post oil?

Saudi Arabia is not a theocracy, it's a regular old monarchist dictatorship with some window dressing, and on pretty much any measure they do worse than their capitalist competitors like the UAE or Qatar.

Iran, Afghanistan and the Vatican are the only modern theocracies.

I think you are conflating capital with "the capital-owning class" but they are not the same thing.

Not really. If you can keep your capital from fleeing but do away with them then good for you. Cuba and Russia have both made a good stab at that. Saudi too. But again, it's very difficult.