Capitalism is not the enemy. Capitalism has improved the Lives of millions.

[tama]

181. Depends how you define better

which of course leads to multi-dimensional comparison of various aspects, which is more helpful than broad brush statements.

Couple things which may be quite relevant at the moment or not so distant future, Soviet Union federal law gave states right to freely resign from the federation, which law Jeltsin was the first to use and which allowed Soviet Union to cease quite peacefully. US legal status and history makes similar peaceful development much more difficult.

As Soviet system was in reality never fully monetized and industrialized, ordinary people have always been relatively self sufficient and relied on small scale gardening and social capital of informal social networks, instead of being dependent from state and corporations. This "down to earth" independent status of ordinary Russian people has made their way of life very resistant and resilient against the continuous collapses of the state and financial systems.

In comparison, standard American way of life is much less independent and resilient, and as such much more fragile in relation to systemic collapses. That said, I've been positively surprised by American people in local systemic collapses of Detroit and other rust belt cities being able to behave much similarly to Russians, Cubans and develop quite quickly local relatively self-sufficient gardening communities.

But should go without saying that those Americans who put all their faith and hope in Federal State, Corporations and continuity of American imperialism and neocolonialism (and voting Democrats) are tragically mistaken, and sadly that seems to apply to many on this forum.