Which historical communist country would you like to live in?
None of the historically available communist countries would be my choice of living. In the same way, I would not be eager to live in any of the historical early pure capitalist countries, unless I am sure I would belong to the top 1-5% percent.
Good capitalism implementation borrowed quite a bit from communism/socialism, to make those systems bearable for an average citizen.
Given that capitalism exists at least a hundred-year longer, I suppose there's still possibility for a nice implementation of communism to come. It took capitalism at least 150 years to get to the somewhat liveable level.
I'd still rather live in a Star Trek like communist utopia/dystopia than in an Elysium like capitalist utopia/dystopia.
Capitalist societies experience famine, but that's not the same as causing famine, something which has happened numerous times in communist societies:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
Compare that with the following famines that were both experienced and caused by capitalism:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India
If you look at the full list of famines, you'll find the difference between capitalism and communism astonishing:
I had to search for “tankie”. Thanks for introducing a new word for me. For people who don't know what “tankie” is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
However, please keep in mind that not everyone who is not a priori against communism can be classified as hard core Stalinist. One should be able to criticize both systems, and wish a better one, without being labelled from one side as “tankie” and from the other side as “imperialistic capitalistic pig”, or another insult of the day.
In both cases, government actions were what drove crop failures to become widespread famines.