World’s Best Tweet about Communism and Capitalism

May 28, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I shared a very clever tweet back in 2018 that highlighted the huge gap between “almost capitalism” and “almost socialism.”

That column was entitled the “World’s Best Tweet about Socialism and Capitalism.” And capitalism won the comparison (needless to say).

Let’s do the same thing today, but we’ll replace socialism with communism. And our “Best Tweet” comes from Youseef Kazembe, who shared this gem.

I don’t know this person, but the profile lists Austrian economics and bitcoin, so obviously a sensible libertarian.

And the assertions in the tweet almost certainly are correct.

Here’s a chart, based on the Maddison database, showing inflation-adjusted per-capita GDP in the world’s most capitalist nations and the world’s most communist nations.

Compared to Cuba and North Korea, there’s probably no genuine poverty in Switzerland and Singapore.

But those two rich nations do have some redistribution spending. And they definitely are rich enough to have private charity. So Youseef Kazembe is basically right.

And there is hunger (and even starvation) in Cuba and North Korea, as well as a fear of murder-by-government. So Youseef Kazembe once again is basically right.

My two cents, after looking at this data, is that the dupes and apologists for communism are terrible people.

P.S. Technically, communism is socialist economics (government ownership, central planning, and price controls) combined with political dictatorship.