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Comment by miyoji | Hacker News Reader

Past performance is no indication of future success. It doesn't matter what's been successful in the past, these things can change. Communism was considered more successful than capitalism for a large chunk of the 20th century (because it was), then that changed and so did the narrative.

None of this is settled, because it's a living system that changes over time. What may have been perfectly true in 1850 might not be remotely accurate in 2050.

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> Communism was considered more successful than capitalism for a large chunk of the 20th century (because it was), then that changed

The word you're looking for is "collapse". It's when something is stable at one point in time, but then later breaks down. That's what "changed". It wasn't random like weather or something. The economic systems collapsed.

> None of this is settled

The fact that it has happened numerous times in different parts of the world makes it pretty settled in my mind.

wait until capitalism collapses

Why do people arguing about communism always assume that the person they're arguing against thinks that capitalism is perfect. The world isn't binary.

> Communism was considered more successful than capitalism for a large chunk of the 20th century (because it was) According to whom?

Soviet Russia and early communist China both went from mostly-illiterate peasant economies to mostly-literate, partially industrialized, with home-grown heavy industry and weapons technology in the span of like 15-20 years.

Then the soviet system stagnated hard under Brezhnev while the Chinese pivoted under Deng. But those first gains definitely happened under full communism and no capitalist economy has modernized faster.

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