No, Vietnam’s triumph over Covid-19 isn’t because of Socialism
There is a popular myth among the Left that Vietnam hasn’t suffered as badly from Coronavirus because of socialist policies and measures. This is laughable for many reasons, the most glaring one being that Vietnam is a thoroughly capitalist state. The other being that the measures implemented by the “Socialist” Republic Vietnam are not socialist. The one exceptional thing about the precautions taken by Vietnam were that they were implemented early. The country was familiar with deadly diseases, having experienced many others in just the past two decades, so it acted quickly to mitigate the effects of this one. The fact that it was mysterious and only just began killing people in Wuhan likely influenced this. Social distancing and quarantines were thus implemented in hot spots faster than you could say “Ðộc lập, Tự do, Hạnh phúc”. While nice from the viewpoint of a capitalist, from a Marxist perspective this is not special. In fact, this strategy of strong measures implemented qui...