

Socialism worked in Russia: it dragged hundreds of millions of people out of subsistence farming and turned the USSR into an economic powerhouse. Of course, the collapse of the USSR showed the failings of an aggressively socialist state, but the funny thing is that China already has the solution: a market-based economy with strong state control. Putin doesn’t dare piss off the oligarchs though, so we’re stuck with this crony bullshit.
I would actually love to see Saudi Arabia take the lead on food engineering. They might lack fresh water, but they have immense amounts of land and sun to play with.
The only alternative I can see is a mass reforestation project.