[Wow, four whole years, eh?
I understand that you are probably disappointed that Prague is no longer a workers' paradise, but it wasn't a shithole even then. Chicago, on the other hand has been a crime-infested and corrupt shithole almost since its founding.
Why do you guys pretend that Communism and Plutocracy are the only choices on the menu? And if you don't like Plutocracy (Mostly because you see what a wreck it's made of your country) then you must be a dirty stinking communist.
Frankly, I would like to go back to what we had in this country in the 1950's, what they had to bribe working folks with so they didn't start thinking Communism might be a good idea.
I put it on page one, but the short of it is that a third of the workforce was unionized, which raised wages for everyone else. The wealthy paid a fair share of their taxes, businesses were pretty strictly regulated as to what they could and couldn't do. Yes, the rich could still make money, but they didn't do so at the expense of their workers.
And this worked pretty well for America all the way up until the 1970's.
Then Ronald Reagan came along, and well, he decided that the bitter pill of Goldwater Plutocracy could be easily swallowed by working folks if you wrap it up in the bacon of religous bullshit. Those damned hippies are smoking dope and having abortions and making fun of your religion, dammit!
And the working class has been in decline every since. It got a little better in the 1990's when Clinton was in charge, but otherwise on a downward trajectory.
Romney tried to sell Plutocracy without Religion, (because his religion was extra-whacky) and we saw how that worked out.