Technocratic_Utilitarian said:
This is an excellent example of Post Hoc, ergo Propter Hoc logic.
1. You honestly want to think that SuperRegan took down teh Soviet Union instead of the vast coruption, inept politicians, starving, unhappy populatin, and inefficient, crumbling economy intrinsic to Communism is not waht did it? I would hate to rain on your Regan Parade, but Regan didn't "end" the soviet union. It ended itself. He merely catalysed it some.
2. Secondly, it was not a war between Communism and Democracy to determine which was better, since both aren't even the same concept. The former is an economic system whilst the second is a political system. It's not a war between Democracy and Communism, rather Capitalism and Communism. Capitalism is not synonomous with democracy. Most of the Communist states fall apart easily enough on ther own, because it's a crappy system.
Ronald Regan "supastar" didn't do it. That's a pipe dream people tell their children so they can sleep at night to fight those eeeeeeeevil godless commies who gobble up children who don't listen to their mommies.
True, however, the reason why communism failed was due to the lack of competition in their economy which led to massive inflation. Remember when people were using Rubles as toilet paper because it was worth less than toilet paper? This forced them to open up their markets and Democracy was the result. Capitalism won the cold war not Democracy, however, Democracy is the natural progression of a free market; I believe if you give people a free market then Democracy will almost assuredly be the direct result.
I've actually done a little thinking into this and at the risk of straying off topic I feel that this following editorial by me has bearing on the subject:
I've got a good reason for exporting capitalism but I don't feel like writing it all over again so I'm just going to copy and paste:
I have recently started studying about Latin America and particularly the Brazilian Auto industry which is a good case study for what has happened through most of South America that is an economic boom and their arrival on the global market as a strong competitor.
To put this in perspective I've recently been studying the Brazilian automobile industry.
Recently their economy was tanking so they set up a tripartite system in which the representatives from the labor, capital, and state agencies set up a forum in 1992 (called the Sequotor forum).
In this forum they discussed matters of the economy instead of just allowing the market to solve its own problems.
It gave everyone a voice but also the state legalized monopolys for bussinesses.
This system was very similar to European socialism and FDR's New Deal it brought them out of there economic depression, however, the lack of competition, which is the engine that makes an economy run, caused stagnation of the economy. This in turn caused serious inflation (which simply put decreases the value of currency like in the Soviet Union just before their economy collapsed)
In 1993 they realized that reform was necessary so they deregulated the market to allow for competition, since then their economy has stabalized and their real GDP growth is up to 5.6% as of 2004.
Since then they have embraced the free market and are competitive on a global scale.
Brazil along with Argentina led the way in the formation of the Mercosur (common market of the south) trading block under the treaty of Ascuncion along with Paraguay Uraguay and now Venezuela.
Since then other countries, such as Mexico, and other trading blocks, such as the EU, have been allowed to have associate member status under the Orarau Preto treaty of 1995.
These trading blocks are finally tearing down the provincional borders which Latin America resulted to following their independence from Spain. It seems that finally after 200 years Bolivarios dream of a Unified Latin America is becoming a reality.
It's a very exciting time for Latin America, their economies are booming and Democracy is flourishing in a region that has long been plagued by tyranical militant regimes.
This is why I believe that if you give people a free market, Democracy will be the natural progression, so, when people critisize China as being communist I say just give it time.
Now my question is should we enter into a major trading agreement b/w all the nation of the Americas both North, South and Central, as well as major economic powers in Asia, such as, Japan, and much of South East Asia and Australia?
It seems to me that if this this major trading agreement could be reached our economies would soon come to dwarf by comparison the EU (and hay while we're at it we could give them assosiate status) and this would, also, force China to allow for even more economic and political reforms to compete.
It's been said that the major obstacle to an FTAA (Foriegn trade of the Americas Agreement) has been the American people and Washington themselves, because they are skeptical of the stability of the members economies, however, I feel that the EU as a model, that in such an agreement the benefits would outway the disadvantages.
So hopefully after the success of NAFTA and hopefully CAFTA (knock on Wood) the American people will realize that it will be good for all parties involved, especially the U.S..
