One Cooperating "System"

If only it were so simple as "two competing systems".

Socialist critics of the USSR and the Peoples' Republic of China call such countries "State Capitalism". I think that is partially what Quinny is referring to when he talks about "the Soviets" falling for the "higher living standards' dogma of Capitalism.

I'm not so sure that it was consumerism that toppled the "Soviet" Empire, although the old adage, "how ya' gonna' keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen the lights of the big city" was certainly a greed based propaganda weapon of the Capitalist "West".

The Soviets and the Chinese found that they had serious quality of life issues and that the reality of socialism was harder than the theory and they found themselves in an expensive arms race because they recognized that they needed to counter the Western economic and military hegemony (and the "West" (read USA and the wimps of NATO) recognized that the Communists seeked a worldwide (international) counter-hegemony).

Since the fall of the USSR, the USA led Capitalists have proven their worldwide hegemonic intentions.

Who knows what the Chinese are doing? Any and all information about that country needs to be filtered through the lens of Western propaganda. Maybe they are beating "US" at our own game.

Regardless, the future is not ours to see in China.

What the world needs is "one cooperating system". That is what socialism is, in theory.