I touched on this the other day when I was writing about Biden’s inexcusable decision to appoint Elliott Abrams to a position in international relations, but the history of the last century has made it very clear that capitalists do not believe they can beat socialism, communism, or any other non-capitalist system without using authoritarian violence. Propaganda works, but the people can make their own propaganda and back it up with reality. That means that in the end, they always come back to violence. They assassinate leaders, they invade countries, they fund death squads and assist in genocides, they use debt traps backed by the threat of violence to keep the “former” colonies in line, and they use the full force of the government to suppress left-wing thought and political power within their own borders, all while claiming to value freedom: