How We 'Won' In Vietnam--But Are Losing At Home
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Oct. 27, 2014, usatoday.com
So I guess we won that war after all. According to the Pew Global Poll, 95% of people in Vietnam agree that most people are better off under capitalism, even if there is inequality.
By contrast, only 70% of Americans believe the same thing. (America is out-performed by such other less developed countries as Nigeria, China, Turkey, Malaysia, the Philippines and India). Maybe, quipped an Internet commenter, the Vietnamese should send us some advisers.
But there are some lessons to be learned here, one of which is that history plays out slowly. (Though it's probably a myth, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai supposedly once said about the French Revolution, it's "too early to say" how it has turned out.) Had you asked people in 1974 about support for capitalism in Vietnam 40 years later, few would have predicted that 95% of Vietnamese would support capitalism today. The lower level of support in America might have surprised some folks, too, though maybe not.
Read more: www.usatoday.com
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| Photo via Flickr |
So I guess we won that war after all. According to the Pew Global Poll, 95% of people in Vietnam agree that most people are better off under capitalism, even if there is inequality.
By contrast, only 70% of Americans believe the same thing. (America is out-performed by such other less developed countries as Nigeria, China, Turkey, Malaysia, the Philippines and India). Maybe, quipped an Internet commenter, the Vietnamese should send us some advisers.
But there are some lessons to be learned here, one of which is that history plays out slowly. (Though it's probably a myth, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai supposedly once said about the French Revolution, it's "too early to say" how it has turned out.) Had you asked people in 1974 about support for capitalism in Vietnam 40 years later, few would have predicted that 95% of Vietnamese would support capitalism today. The lower level of support in America might have surprised some folks, too, though maybe not.
Read more: www.usatoday.com
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