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Past predictions of convergence between American capitalism and the Soviet planned economy optimistically assumed that advanced industrial society must also become democratic and pragmatic in its choice of economic policies. The Soviets had to become more capitalist. All such predictions proved only partially correct. Russia did become capitalist after a hugely destructive collapse, which obliterated the democratic demands of the 1960s in deindustrialization and enormous inequalities. Only ideological prejudices, reinforced in 1989, prevent most observers from seeing that America and Russia did in fact converge in a similar pattern of socioeconomic crisis. The outcomes of their crisis sequences could seem different in 2012, but these might not be the final outcomes.