CMV: socialist capitalist societies provide a better quality of life for their citizens compared to communist societies

based on research and observation, it appears that the worst off class of people under socialist capitalism (capitalist societies with some social welfare programs) will still be better off than the worst off under communism.

in critiques of capitalism we talk a lot about wealth disparity, and while i agree this needs to be curbed, i'd argue that the engine of competition and profit drives members of capitalist societies to create innovations which (while disproportionately enriching them) still lift up the worst off members of a society and give them a better quality of life compared to communist nations. ex. americans had a much higher quality of life than soviet russians, many of whom didn't own a fridge or car well into the 1980's. before you say 'owning things doesn't mean a better quality of life'... well, death by pollution and preventable disease was also way higher. i speak both from research and experience- my family grew up in soviet russia (i live in the US now). don't even get me started on china- Mao's failed attempts to make command economy work (spoiler alert: it literally never works) killed millions of Chinese people by famine.

in an attempt to better understand how even a fictional communist society could function, i've been reading 'the disposessed' by ursula le guin. while i'm loving the book as a piece of art, i don't find it to be a compelling fictionalized example of functioning communism/anarchism. it seems like le guin avoids grappling with the sort of interpersonal and intertribal violence, physical and mental illness, and environmental pressure that would make a society like this collapse in the real world. i think her values (mutual aid, community, creation v. consumption) are all more likely to be achieved in a socialist capitalist society.