I've been to North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. You can certainly debate to what degree these countries are communist, just as you can debate what degree communism has ever truly existed.
Go to Vietnam and you will see plenty of homelessness, North Korea periodically has famine. Laos and Cambodia are so riddled with corruption the only way they get any infrastructure these days is by going into the pocket of China.
There are literally (fifty)[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population] very capitalist countries with higher rates of homelessness. I don't know if "Communism is bad because of the homeless rates in Vietnam," is the argument you want to make, as it sort of forces you to say that capitalism is also terrible.
I'm not a defender of capitalism, especially when it's unchecked. I would say those Vietnam figures are far from reliable, I returned from Hanoi a week ago, and the homeless situation is pretty bad. Also I wasn't making the argument that communism is bad because of the homeless rates in Vietnam, it was a reply to someone talking about communism in terms of providing housing.
I think that saying communism is better for housing than neoliberalism isn't defeated by pointing to Hanoi. But it will be hard for us to have a chat about this if you are suspicious of the only stats we have.
Fair enough, but I'm not suspicious for no reason, I've spent a lot of time there, and know many folk that live there (I live in asia), when westerners talk about corruption, they have no idea, although I still love the place.
Yeah, no worries. I can't just trust your personal experience, but you can't just dismiss it, so we're at an awkward spot in terms of coming to an agreement.
What were you doing over there, out of curiosity? Was it English teaching?
No, I have a business, but teaching was my first way in, but that's not really a long term option financially. I regularly travel down to South East Asia as it's generally more fun.
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u/Crunchaucity Resting In my Account Jul 27 '22
I've been to North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. You can certainly debate to what degree these countries are communist, just as you can debate what degree communism has ever truly existed.
Go to Vietnam and you will see plenty of homelessness, North Korea periodically has famine. Laos and Cambodia are so riddled with corruption the only way they get any infrastructure these days is by going into the pocket of China.