World’S Worst Cars, North Korea, Biggest Man-Made Disaster In History, And Entrepreneurial Chinese Dna

The superiority of capitalism over alternative economic systems is so self-evident that it requires no explanation. For starters, the collapse of the Soviet Union and socialism has left the world with no alternative system for organizing the production of goods and services. The victory of capitalism over socialism in the Cold War was, in the final analysis, the triumph of a vastly superior economic system which delivered far superior living standards to the masses. The level of material comfort enjoyed by an average middle-class family in, say, New York City in 1980 far exceeded that of their counterparts in Moscow in 1980. In fact, the difference was night and day. For sure, there were a large number of non-economic factors which played a role in the defeat of socialism. These include growing popular resentment at stifling political repression, omnipresent intrusion of the government into daily life, and lack of individual freedom. But the failure of socialism was ultimately due to its utter flaw as an economic system…