Socialism and Its Discontents—Has communism ever worked?

Caleb's chats are the ideal tool for those who wish to acquire a solid understanding of contemporary history in an easy, accessible manner. In this episode Caleb tackles one of the oldest lies about socialism/communism—their supposed inability to literally deliver the goods. Caleb notes that it was socialism that industrialized the Soviet Union, wiped out illiteracy, provided running water to every household, brought electricity to city and country, and built an economy resilient enough to defeat and outproduce the Nazis. That it was communism that invented the first LED lights, and the first mobile phone, launched the first spacecraft into orbit, and made women the equal of men, from medicine to the arts and sciences. And it was socialism that took China, the "sick man of Asia," and made it what it is today, the second (although many would say the first) largest economy in the world. It was China's socialism that raised 800 million out of poverty, a deed unparalleled in history.  It was socialism that built the world's greatest hydroelectric plant on earth. Indeed socialism has accomplished much, its achievements are numerous and astonishing, but you would never know it, listening to the corporate system's constant lies and denigrations.

An informal chat with Caleb Maupin as guide to the multitude of news, lies, distortions, rumors, idiocies, hypocrisies, and ideologies that shape our world.