> socialism is bad, let's go for the polar opposite and make the poor poorer and the rich richer
The US free market moved scores of millions of dirt poor immigrants into the middle class and beyond.
Based on Pew's income band classification, China's middle class has been among the fastest growing in the world, swelling from 39.1 million people (3.1 percent of the population) in 2000 to roughly 707 million (50.8 percent of the population) in 2018.
Before China switched to free markets, they had an equal distribution of all income economy. You might want to check it out.
So, too, the USSR, Cambodia, Vietnam, Jamestown, Plymouth, etc.
Did you mean to say they moved from a planned economy to a market economy? A market economy yes they do have, but free? Boy oh boy that it is not. Plenty of western companies wanting to enter that market are finding that out the hard way
Socialism gets steadily worse the closer to "true" socialism it gets.
Hmmm I'm checking it out right now. Seems like life expectancy jumped massively under Mao, is that bad?
On its own merits, life expectancy is going to be difficult to evaluate China on during this period. Mao's government followed from both a disastrous Japanese invasion as well as a disastrous civil war. Wikipedia says Mao's policies were responsible for 40 to 80 million people dying. Do the life expectancy statistics account for that? How does that compare to the performance of Western governments during the same time period?
Seriously, do you think anybody will fall for cherry-picking like that, or was this more to convince yourself?