Can you even believe this? From an American president. Speaking to “young leaders” in Argentina, he suggested that there wasn’t much difference between Marxism and capitalism, and that nations should “choose what works.”
Really. He said it.
First, he speaks about a kind of blended economy that he thinks is taking hold in the United States.
But one of the things that’s interesting that’s happening in the United States is that you’re starting to see organizations that are kind of a blend of for-profit and non-for-profit. So they might have a business component that, let’s say, sells handcrafts and artwork that’s made by a community for profit, but then the money goes into financing the social programs that help give people these opportunities. And how they’re treated in terms of taxes and the corporate organization — that’s going to change by country. Each country is going to have a different model. But more and more, I believe that that’s going to be the wave of the future if we want to make progress on these problems.
And then he gets to the meat of his argument, which is that all this capitalism vs. communism stuff is a bunch of mumbo jumbo as it relates to Latin America.
I guess to make a broader point, so often in the past there’s been a sharp division between left and right, between capitalist and communist or socialist. And especially in the Americas, that’s been a big debate, right? Oh, you know, you’re a capitalist Yankee dog, and oh, you know, you’re some crazy communist that’s going to take away everybody’s property. And I mean, those are interesting intellectual arguments, but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works. You don’t have to worry about whether it neatly fits into socialist theory or capitalist theory — you should just decide what works.
That is, the essential battleground of the Cold War, the effort to keep communism from taking hold in our backyard, was silliness. And maybe market economies just aren’t for everybody.
Extraordinary. And he’ll be president for ten more months.
17 thoughts on “Obama: Capitalism vs. Communism – Not Much Difference”
Heresy!
But don’t you DARE suggest he’s a Socialist.
Again, he’s speaking to young people.
He’s a dork.
He’s never even run a corner grocery store in his life, yet he is dictating economic policies ?
Talk to the people in Venezuela who wait in lines to get toilet paper.
And they have all of the oil.
This man is an embarrassment.
He is an idiot and the people that allow him to continue his charade are nothing more than his acolytes.
Let the truth telling begin…
I have noticed that he and his fab fam are not giving up anything.
And the economic model he described is called communism.
People work and someone else gets the money – mainly the government and the government officials.
That is the point that is never explained – and it is a simple explanation.
Tsk tsk tsk–Harvard must not be what it used to me.
Used to be…you know…smart.
Thomas Sowell wrote a very interesting article on this subject today.
Just as I thought….permanent, irreversible brain damage. Too bad we can’t invalidate his entire presidency and force him to make restitution for his personal expenses over the last 8 years. Did we pay for is drug stash???
HA!!! yes he is delusional and I want my money back.
I wouldn’t mind having my sanity back either.
Video: The real face of Jesus from The Shroud of Turin:
http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-real-face-of-jesus-from-shroud-of.html
ps. Would you consider adding CC to your blogroll?
He’s just so damned smarter than the rest of us./
Obama needs help? Possible there are some secret nips of the fermentation? His body is present, but wondering if the mind is really sober? Or, sober enough?
Obama’s legacy is going to be as The Most Clueless and Useless POTUS Ever.
His Presidential Library consist of nothing but copies of Dreams of My Father and selfies from wherever the taxpayers paid for him to go spout his utter gibberish.
I wish I had heard this lecture before I talk economics for a few decades…. I would have been able to tell them that markets don’t work without Obama.
This is like a police officer watching a 3 year old put on a gun safety class with a loaded revolver.
1-20-17 cannot arrive soon enough
I wish I had heard this lecture before I taught economics for a few decades…. I would have been able to tell them that markets don’t work without Obama.
This is like a police officer watching a 3 year old put on a gun safety class with a loaded revolver.
1-20-17 cannot arrive soon enough
First things first — California ( supposedly) is flirting with OR has passed the $ 15/hour minimum wage legislation.
Accordingly, I personally have STOPPED doing business with ANY entity or business LOCATED in California, and have SPECIFICALLY made it clear to anyone that the reason I am refusing, is that California has LOST IT’S FCKU-ING MIND…
MUST I EXPLAIN my position ????
HELL NO…
STOP DOING BUSINESS WITH THESE FCKU-ING IDIOTS…
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