Chairman Mao - hero or Villain ?

Is China where it is now due to Mao Mian ? Was communism at its best(or worst) the need of the hour in "them" days or did China miss a trick?

Is it possible to have a "benign" dictator ( think Singapore and UAE) Versus the traditional bad guy ( Tito, Stalin, Saddam or even our own Mush !!)

Oxy will certainly speak words for praise for Mao...

I'd have him as our China Mod if it were possible.

World needs more Maos'.

The World doesn't need any more great leaps forward or cultural revolutions

Tell you what the best indicator would be to look at Chine pre-Mao and then post-Mao. You tell me which period is\was better.

Are we sure ? Is the world done with all revolutionary ideas ? Have we found that the original religious ideas and capitalism is all the world needs in term of political thought ?

Capitalism is the most deseased and enslaving idea that we as humans could have created.

Communism wasn't exactly a winner either (not that it ever existed anywhere properly, but hey)

The ideas aren't the problem - it's the millions of deaths that are the problem.

China's current healthy situation (despite severe repression and ethnic cleansing) is nothing to do with Mao. Try Deng Xiaoping for that

But the idea is a problem if it cant be implemented without deaths ! and what about Capitalism ? Has that not also caused untold misery on the people of the world as well ?

I agree.
Last year I was reading this book called "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and the author argued that the globalised capitalism present these days is very similar in nature to the slave trade. Just like the slave drivers has convinced themselves that the slaves were better off now that they were Christian, the capitalists seem to have convinced themselves that people living on a dollar a day are still better off than they would have been without them

Comparing an idea with a much worst idea does not make the original idea any better.
Mao was the one with the vision, idealogy and the goals. Xia carried out the vision. You cant just dismiss Mao's contributions just because he wasnt around to see hsi vision to its end.

The whole idea of capitalism and free market is based on diseased principles. You have third world nations that are being used to produce cheap raw materials for the rest of us. You have one third of world resources being consumed by one nation. You have nations throwing their food away to keep prices high while people are dying of hunger in the third world.

The third world nations such as India are slowly realizing their own potential - Look at IT - India used to be a place to get cheap developers - not any more...thanks to Monster.com and others where people can check up on their true worth on an international scale, people in India are now demanding similar wages as in the West - how long is it before cheap Third World will be no more ?

MIG workers in India still have a long way to go. China is the same. Then you have South America, Africa, and far east. There is a long way to go.