>LOL
>
>The latest belief is that Sovietism was a Potemkin Village from the start and that the West's belief in the illusion until the "surprise" in 1991, helped to prop it up.

Western capitalisam is Potemkin village as well.

Everybody was poor back in 50ies when communist threat from east was looming. Then all of a sudden (within 10-15 years) everybody became well-off middle class (big cars, houses, new home applieances etc). Do you think al this came as result of real achievements through better management and better work by (arguably happier) workforce in the west ?
Were all those cars&houses really just fruits of superior economic system raining on society, or it was maybe result of nonexisting money (loans/debts) being used to finance direct consumption back then. ('Consumer society' comes from ?)

Simillarly as soon as Eastern block (communist threat) was finished off (1990), things started going south for that artificially inflated/enriched middle and working class. Life is bacoming more and more expensive, real wages are going down, well paid easy jobs slowly dissapearing. Factories moved far east while ago, are now being folowed by software / hi tech etc.
Soon enough there will be very little or no middle class left.

Truth is that there is no such economic system that can maintain that large numbers of people so well fed and housed as
it used to be the case back in 'prosperous' late 60 ies through late 70ies. West tried to 'fake it till they make it' but as it appears it does not really working.