Not gonna lie, state capitalism looks like it could be the least "bad" capitalism you could use while still remaining competitive on the international market. Maybe that's the missing link that's meant to go between late stage capitalism and the conversion to worldwide socialism? Idk.

There’s a special place in hell reserved for the footsoldiers of US imperialism who destroyed a country, only to return 40 years later and marry a Vietnamese citizen so they can stay and reap the benefits of the socialist government.

>"not free" countries
That number is provided by "Freedom House" which gets 90% of it's funding from the US government. 9 and 10 are almost certainly bullshit. The rest are due to increased accessibility of cheap fossil fuels.

It's a bit like someone who recently took up smoking meth going on about how they are now more happy, confident, energetic, and productive.

2 is bullshit, since it's probably based on the bullshit "1$ a day" metric.
1 is extremely questionable, since most of that "wealth" probably comes entirely from speculation.
There's also some fuckery with how this is attained for many societies. If a subsistence farmer doesn't earn a wage but grows everything he and his family needs, but is then forced to move to a city and get a $1/day job, this metric would say this is a huge success ($0/day to $1/day!) even if his quality of life is actually far worse.

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