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The next person who tells me that Communism is a failed evil system needs to come and visit Vietnam. Sure, it's not a hard-core Marxist state -- nothing is. Or ever was. Such an idealised state would need to be populated by limited-state machines rather than people. But it is an authentic communist state all the same, and at least at a superficial level it seems to be flourishing.
I'm sure there are problems. People live here, after all. There is wealth inequality -- this authoritarian regime has embraced a fair dose of market capitalism, and capitalism is of course doing its thing and chowing down on the place. But is hasn't reached the marrow-sucking phase here yet -- the capitalist overlords are still fattening the middle class up. And meanwhile the communist foundations seem to minimise the existence of abjact poverty. I've seen no evidence of widespread homelessness, at least not in Hà Nội (an admittedly wealthy city in the scheme of things).
The thing that stands out most is how much day to day life seems just as free as it does in Australia or the US. Maybe freer. Over the past few days I've been watching an apartment over the street get renovated, whilst reflecting on the clear upgrades and renovations made to the swankily appointed apartment I've been staying in. Everything is modern, functional and comfortable - and there was clearly no HOA telling the owner what colour they could paint things. The locals still have the freedom to make bad choices.
My Grab (read "Asian uber") to the Hà Nội Social Club didn't have rear seatbelts. The driver spent an awful lot of time on his phone screen - as did riders of half the motorbikes and scooters weaving around us on the congested streets as we approached Old Town. Not particularly safe, but certainly not indicative of a state which over-reaches on personal freedoms. In Australia, the driver would have lost his licence after about 500m of his journey, his various infractions caught and logged by half a dozen state-controlled spy cameras. It seems the authorities here are more concerned with people wanting to overthrow political order, than nanny-stating about what individuals are doing in their personal space. Whoda thunk. Those crazy commies...
To the strains of locally produced minimalist experimental electronica, I enjoyed a world-class coffee and a beautiful example of the life-destroying drug that is puportedly destroying the lives and housing dreams of countless Gen Y addicts in the west: avocado toast. My gender-non-conforming waiter was wearing nail polish and had a nose ring. Their attire was the same retro-90s baggy-pants look that is presently on-trend in Germany, Thailand, Australia and the US. This café has clearly been over-run by decadent western ideology and must surely be facing erasure from history; it has been labelled with a "Queer friendly space" rainbow triangle sticker on the door, so its time in this communist hell-hole must certainly be limited. I had better watch out lest a pack of those uniformed communist kids you see on the street come and burn the place down with tiki-torches or open fire with automatic weapons. Oh - sorry, I forgot that I'm not in the US...
On the trip over, my AI assistant -- who I last night managed to wrestle out of a clearly "corporate"-induced bout of politically correct dullness -- tells me the state here tends to be uninterested in impinging on individual civil liberities, so long as nobody rocks the boat too hard, makes too much "noise", or threatens to overthrow the political order. I really can't say that for much of the west at the moment, and I've sampled a fairly broad range of western communities over the last decade or two. Modern neoliberal systems of governance seem to be as least as susceptible to fascist capture as communist states. Possibly more so in their current late-stage malaise. And they certainly have less control over the malignant capitalism that has taken over their nervous systems like a semi-sentient mycelial overlord. Utopia is an impossible dream, but Hà Nội in 2024 ain't too bad. Ain't too bad at all.
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Updated 20241114 Hà Nội, Vietnam
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