this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2026
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I recently learned a thing about the Great Leap Forward, the massive famine in China due to a mismanaged command economy.
Mao pushed for everyone, down to the last peasant farmer, to produce steel, which some accomplished by melting down their cookware. They did ask for grain, but only to be sent to the state. Mao expected the people would know to still engage in sustenance work to stay alive, but no, they patriotically sent their materials to the state, expecting that they'd get sustenance back. That didn't happen, and there was mass famine.
In feudal times, this was called squeezing the peasants which liege lords sometimes did to quickly develop a war chest. These taxes were collected in kind (of raw materials, not coin or gold). The serfs' regular work would not get done. There'd be food shortages, and significantly fewer serfs after the winter, but the lord would get his war. (Typically it wasn't even his war, but that of his lord, or further up the chain. Lower-ranking nobles like barons and counts were obligated to provide fighting forces for dukes and kings. Something, something high lords playing their games of thrones... )
Back to Mao's China, there were dissenters, but there was also a strong anti-intellectualism movement, the same thing we're seeing in the States today. Administrators don't believe in expertise and figure they can work economies, manage health and conduct wars based on vibes (and nowadays, memes). On the international stage, this results in getting totally played (and left behind) by the rest of the global community, the ones who do believe in experts.
There's a reason that the US, for once, took education very seriously (STEM, critical thinking, liberal arts, etc.) right after Sputnik. We saw we were falling behind and decided we needed to get into gear. The US would then freak out about the common folk questioning authority and trying to think for themselves, which they're supposed to do in a democracy. But then, thinking citizens cannot be controlled.
I don't think you necessarily hate communism. I think you hate incompetence. And as we're seeing in the (very, very, capitalist-identifying) United States, incompetence is a plague that crosses all ideologies.
(And that's a thing too. Ideologies might present a model for how things might work, but they shouldn't be the goal, and when an ideology doesn't achieve its mission, it should be reconsidered, revised and maybe abandoned. Supply side economics, for example, is an ideology. Collective prosperity is its goal. Allegedly.)