@Weez Pretty much yes. And to prove my point further, you could actually use the same statements but replace "capitalism" with "communism" as well.

After all, when socialist states like Venezuela fails because the wealthy people take their money and leave before the communist dictator in power decides to simply steal their belongings and money, the socialists and communists all drone one about how "greedy" those wealthy people are, and that their greed is "sabotaging" the socialist project.

You could actually use the same statements but replace "capitalism" or "communism" with basically anything. Point being, it's a stupid point and bad argument.

Ideologies require change in peoples behaviour and thought so saying "if only people would to X" is pretty reasonable, because generally under their ideology they would be doing X.

That makes the ideology a fantasy, because as we all know: people don't conform to your ideology, regardless of what ideology that is.

You will always have specimens who think your ideology is shit. And thus your ideology will fail by default.

"That makes the ideology a fantasy" they all are, until put into practice.

"people don't conform to your ideology, regardless of what ideology that is." Under conditions they can.

Liberalism/libertarianism gets close to a certain degree, in the way that they both recognize the concept of rational self-interest being one of the primary motivations for all human behaviour.

But what they both fail at is realizing is that pursuit of rational self interests will lead to conflicts between people. Conflicts that do not stay civil or peaceful.

"Can" is not the same as "they will".

Under threat of violence, then they will.

Else be shot.

Just because you offer people the opportunity to conform to your ideology, it doesn't mean they will

Sorry, doesn't work either. They might just decide to shoot you first before you can make your threat a reality

Then they can pick between conforming or death.

Disarm them beforehand.. Make it harder for them to fight back.

These are all basic authoritarian things to do.

And we've got a long list of failed authoritarian states

Degrade their ability to fight back, using your supporter base and what power you have, then force them to conform or disappear.

And I've got a long list of working ones.

What's your point?

No you don't

The ones currently operating are hardly "successful".

China?

China is not successful. It's a bloated economy based purely on an export bubble

An economy which is soon to overtake the American one?

They're hurting like hell due to the economic sanctions imposed on them by the U:S

With nearly double the population?

The U.S could kill china with one single trading embargo

And a government with basically supreme control over every aspect they want.

*Right*

Yet they haven't, because they can't.

Now we're talking fantasy as you mentioned earlier.

They haven't because China is mostly a nuisance at the moment. Not an actual threat.

If you believe that, then you're deluded.

I see that you don't really have the insight of what the Chinese economy is built upon.

China is the biggest threat to A. America and B. The West.

They're spreading their influence around the world like wild-fire

Debt diplomacy is working for them very nicely in Africa.

Influence backed by the American economy, because the Chinese are still allowed to hawk their cheap crap to american customers. Therein lies their problem

They have a near monopoly on rare earth metals.

Good luck producing all those fancy phones when you can't buy the raw resources for them.

You can't pose a threat to the U.S if you're indirectly dependant on the U.S customer base