Socialism is failing China. It wouldn't be the first time. After the Chinese Communist Party,

the CCP took over the country in 1949, party leader Mao Zedong set out to create a socialist paradise.

He forced farmers to sell their produce at fixed prices, nationalized industries, and abolished private property.

Things went from bad to very much worse.

Between 1958 and 1962, China experienced the worst famine in human history. Estimates range as high as 50 million dead. Throughout the mouse rain, many more were exiled, jailed or killed.

After Mao died in 1976, signs of a free market began appearing around the country.

Some brave farmers sold a portion of their produce at market prices.

In the cities, black markets emerged. Haircuts, shoe repairs and other other services were bothered for food.

Instead of cracking down as Mao would have gone,

his successor Deng Xiaoping realized

that for the CCP to survive, had to adapt it had to allow the Chinese people a

measure of freedom the free market is like a grapevine it thrives wherever

it is giving a little room to grow.

Farm yields quickly doubled and tripled.

Urban shops spread up everywhere.

The more freedom the party granted its citizens, the more the nation prospered.

Within three decades, China transformed itself from an impoverished nation

to the world's second largest economy. In that time, 800 million Chinese

lifted themselves out of poverty. One of them was Jack Ma. Born in 1964, Ma, like most Chinese, grew up poor.

He became an English teacher in 1988, making $12 a month. During a trip to the U.S. in 1995,

Ma used the internet for the first time and recognized its potential. Upon returning

to China, he funded an e-commerce company called

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