LOS ANGELES — Under the communist system — as history has taught — you get to persecute potential opposition parties, warehouse political prisoners and pervert the country's patriotism with a noxious Orwellian poison of prickly but pervasive paranoia.
At the same time, you get a society without entrepreneurial energy, a workforce without productivity, and an economy with little wealth, except for that of the uncaring elite. What's not to like about communism if you're an autocrat?
The truth is, communism, as a way of organizing an economy, has such a bad track record, even die-hard communists are starting to disown it. In China they began "amending" it with the rise of the late Deng Xiao Ping, successor to the historic but mad Mao Zedong. Now the term of art for that communist country is "socialism with Chinese characteristics." Figure out what that means and I have a career opportunity for you with the Chinese Propaganda Ministry in the Central Propaganda Department.