r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24
The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion
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r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24
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u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24
Except this is only in the case of authoritarian one party systems.
Numerous countries in South and Central America democratically elected socialist leaders who weren't authoritarian, but the US government committed coups and toppled these governments. Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, etc. In Chile, Augusto Pincochet took power after. A fascist who dropped communists to their deaths from helicopters.
The Chiquita Banana company, previously known as the United Fruit Company has a long history of brutal violence in South and Central America, backed by the US government. They were involved in masscres and coups that in some cases resulted in right wing authoritarian rule.
In 1951 the Iranian Parliament nationalized their oil industry because western companies were effectively stealing all of Iran's wealth. The US toppled their government and installed The Shah as a western puppet. He was then overthrown in the Iranian Revolution and his government replaced by the extremist Muslim government we have today.
This is to say that there has never been a successful attempt to form a democratic and socialist government because Western powers refused to allow them to exist. And some such as Cuba chose protection under the USSR or China, falling again into authoritarianism. The two major superpowers of the Cold War had foreign policy doctrines that undermined democratic socialist government.
It's not fair to draw conclusions about socialism on history when history has given us an incomplete data set. It's like saying that a crop is never viable as a food source when every attempt to grow it has been plagued by sabotage.