Fighting communism -- a 1970s perspective

True story. In the 1970s, in left-coast California, I was a college student at a university where a strangely high percentage of professors were self-described Marxists. I had a hard time understanding the books (I was a clueless kid from the 'burbs), and was glad one time when the father of one of my fellow students (a successful businessman) was willing to explain to us why "communism" (a term generally thought of as synonymous with the word "China" at the time) was such a bad idea.

What he said is what was widely perceived as unquestionable fact. He said -- and I clearly remember this -- that what would happen under "communism" is all the small independent businesses would be replaced by a few big central government businesses... and they would offer almost no choice of what you could buy.

Fast forward to the 20teens.

Now, in the United States, a few big businesses have replaced, and are still replacing what's left of, all the smaller businesses. And those few businesses sell a huge variety of different products that's all made ...where? In China!

I think maybe what this means is that -- whether "liberal" or "conservative" -- all those college sociology, "political science," and econ classes that naive kids and their parents are forking over so much money for are just a wee bit of a waste of time.