m 1970 to 1975, the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979, and the Cambodia-Vietnam War from 1978 to 1979 virtually destroyed Cambodia's economy. By 1974, under wartime conditions, rice had to be imported, and production of Cambodia's most profitable export crop, rubber, fell off sharply. The civil unrest also disrupted Cambodia's fledgling manufacturing industry and severely damaged road and rail networks. In 1975 the newly installed Khmer Rouge government nationalized all means of production in Cambodia. Money and private property were abolished, and agriculture was collectivized (ownership was transferred to the people as a group, represented by the state). The Khmer Rouge Four-Year Plan, a utopian document drafted in 1976, the plan aimed to increase income from exports of rice and other products and to use this income to buy machinery with which to industrialize the country. The Four-Year Plan was poorly thought out, brutally enforced, and unsuccessful. I believe the Khmer Rouge executed hundreds of thousands more people whom they judged to be enemie
             ...