He just realizes that liberals swoon any time somebody bashes Bush, is all.

I wouldn't trust any of the numbers about Vzla. The stuff coming from the administration is mostly purposefully misleading and I can't imagine that anyone else is able to obtain accurate numbers.

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All western coutries are mixed economies, so there is no pure version of any economic system. So, I'm not sure about your point here.

We do know this: life under a fairly pure capitalist system was exactly like what someone like Charles Dickens wrote about. You can still see it in Latin America and places like the Dominican Republic where people live in literal holes dug in the ground like animals.

Western capitaists had to introduce communist elements into their system to protect their wealth, because it is the nature of Europeans to feed you your balls for lunch if pushed too far. This indicates that capitalism is a failure, and we know in no uncertain terms that it has been tried, repeatedly.

Exactly. But don't expect a reasonable accomodation of your argument.

I have an experiment. Let's take a small peninsula in Asia where the culture is closed and homogeneous (same race, language, values, etc.). Then, let's draw a line through the middle. Make sure both sides have similar natural resources. Now let's make one side a market-based economy and the other a communist dictatorship and see what happens. We can call the experiment "Korea."

I keep asking you for a country where communism works and you keep responding with attempts to shade the definition of capitalism.

Why can't you give me a country where communism has worked?

Although you've displayed a desire to define capitalism in a way that only you would recognize, most rational people would say The United States was a capitalistic country.

Please explain how the economic system in The United States is a failure and/or explain how the economic system in North Korea is a success.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

North and South Korea via satellite...

Sorry in case you can't figure it out. The white spots are lights.

The big white blob at top of South Korea on west side is Seoul. If you look very closely at North Korea you can see the dim lights of Pyongyang.

Are you suggesting that evasion and attempts to redifine the definitions of words don't bode well for constructive discourse?

Use google earth to look around "The Hermit Kingdom" and you'll notice the fourth largest city is the Yodok Concentration Camp.
Happy good times in "The Workers Paradise".
At least "Dear Leader" isn't forcing people through fear of bodily harm into working for him while he does little or nothing and then passing it off to his family.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Yes, but are we wage slaves really happier?

I'll think about that while I eat way too much for lunch and scan the internets.

You only have a "communist dictatorship" in a Leninist type of government. That is a place where true communism has not taken place yet, as the government is in war mode. There has never been a type of government like this that allowed itself out of war mode, thus there has never been a true communist government yet.

But capitalism is a failure and a type of governance/economy that's never existed is somehow good.

Gotcha.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1