My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land • Hacker News Board

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#211

Post by clarkmoody » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

honkhonkpants wrote: post #79

clarkmoody wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Crony capitalism constructs stadiums. Socialism means the state ("the people") owns the means of production. As far as I can tell, manufacturing is not owned by the government and construction workers are not employed by the state.

How about the interstate highway system then? As far as I can tell, it is pure socialism.

The interstate system is a tax and spend program. If you're equating government spending with socialism, then you should probably revisit your understanding of each.

Some classify roads as a public good[1]. Of course, there are private roads as well.

The government owns the interstates, but that is just property, not a means of production.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#212

Post by acd » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

Venezuela tries to impose price controls on items below market prices. According to the book Economics in one lesson chapter 17 government price fixing does not work in the long run and leads to shortages of goods.

Economics in one lesson is available for free from the Ludwig von Mises institute. https://mises.org/files/henry-hazlitt-economics-one-lessonpd...

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#213

Post by pastProlog » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 7:47 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #207

astrodust wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to draw parallels here, that sometimes shit happens. Russia's mismanagement of agriculture notwithstanding, sometimes you're up against forces you can't control.

There's a hell of a big difference between an inadvertent result of ill-considered agricultural practices and a deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation.

If there was a "deliberate campaign of genocide by starvation" happening, I'm sure I could look in the New York Times archives of the period and read about that. If I consult the archives, the reporters going through the Ukraine said reports of that were false.

Also, all of Europe had a bad crop that year, I guess the Soviets were controlling the weather?

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#214

Post by structorg » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #51

beloch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several countries that are fairly socialist have higher living standards than the U.S., where "socialism" is an epithet for some reason. McCarthy lives on I suppose. Venezuela's problem is totalitarianism . In a socialist country, it is possible for the government to be governed by law and have limits placed on its power. That is not what's been going in in Venezuala.

But what was totalitarian about it? All of the economically destructive measures (price controls, currency exchange rates, impositions on the rich/foreign investment) were immensely popular, right?

Subsidies were indeed popular and probably anything chavez did. Then, popular and orwellian totalitarian are not contradictory.

But lets first understand that "the poor" are not created by the rich in latin america as socialists love to say, its been more than half a century of socialist/socialdemocrat rule and its obvious that they create the poor by making them dependant on the governments' favour. The famous barrios, fabellas and asentamientos are the creation of a socialist elite that uses the filantropy masquerade to get easy money through corruption, currency exchanges, inflation, etc.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#215

Post by knowaveragejoe » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:19 PM UTC

pastProlog wrote: post #196

tptacek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, that is indeed one definition of a market. But the parent commenter is referring to markets in the free market sense, in which the markets perform price discovery.

You refer to a market in the US that sells radishes for dollars as "free", which presumably means the identical market selling radishes for rubles in the USSR is unfree, and I am the one playing around? I have trouble fathoming definitions so steeped in ideology, it reminds me of the US Congress cafeteria renaming French fries as Freedom fries when France chose not to join the US on some imperial venture. That's a mi…

The difference was already pointed out by tptacek - price discovery is an emergent phenomena in "free" markets, as opposed to set by some central authority. There's of course plenty of debate to be had about how "free" markets are in the West, as there are a variety of markets that are heavily regulated. But it is obvious which one is more "free" if we're comparing the USSR to the West, even if the difference is mostly symbolic.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#216

Post by SilasX » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:26 PM UTC

structorg wrote: post #214

SilasX wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what was totalitarian about it? All of the economically destructive measures (price controls, currency exchange rates, impositions on the rich/foreign investment) were immensely popular, right?

Subsidies were indeed popular and probably anything chavez did. Then, popular and orwellian totalitarian are not contradictory. But lets first understand that "the poor" are not created by the rich in latin america as socialists love to say, its been more than half a century of socialist/socialdemocrat rule and its obvious that they create the poor by making them dependant on the governments' favour. The famous barri…

I was addressing the comment's point about "checks on government". Specifically:

>>In a socialist country, it is possible for the government to be governed by law and have limits placed on its power. That is not what's been going in in [Venezuela].

My point is, there were in fact limits, and they went through the democratic process to have exceptions made to those limits. That's not totalitarianism, which would be "some figure saw the limits and bypassed them without approval anyway".

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#217

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:26 PM UTC

beloch wrote: post #34

tptacek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to be more careful with our terminology than using the terms "communist" and "socialist" interchangeably. Presumably, the real problem we're talking about is state-controlled economies, regardless of the ideologies that set them up.

Several countries that are fairly socialist have higher living standards than the U.S., where "socialism" is an epithet for some reason. McCarthy lives on I suppose. Venezuela's problem is totalitarianism . In a socialist country, it is possible for the government to be governed by law and have limits placed on its power. That is not what's been going in in Venezuala.

I think you're referring to European Social Democracies. That's a different type of regime than socialism -- for the most part they don't try to own the means of production. Venezuela is nothing like one of those countries. Chavez built a sort of hybrid of "Bolivarianism" and socialism. They rejected "imperialist" ties, nationalized many industries and tried to develop more self-sustainability.

End of the day, there seems to be a need for balance between capitalist striving and government administration based on something other than profit/loss.

Most of the people who cry "socialism" in the US are inspired/motivated by people who control access to natural resources.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#218

Post by willholloway » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:26 PM UTC

htaunay wrote: post #195

willholloway wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chavez was immensely popular. A coup by the army was overturned by mass protests. His government was very successful by most economic metrics during his time in his office. It is his successor that has dropped the ball with his bungling of the currency mess. And that's the root cause of all this suffering, a bad currency system, and low oil prices. You call them populist programs with little ROI, but they were invest…

Maybe I didn't express myself clearly. I am not against populist programs to aid humans in deplorable life conditions. But these have to be sustainable, and in 3rd world South American countries, this probably and unfortunately involves not being able to help everyone on the short term. Otherwise, you end up inflating government spending leaving little space for maneuvering when facing an economical crisis. My point…

I didn't express myself clearly, running on very low sleep, I was trying to agree with you and elaborate on your point, except for the one statement about the low ROI of the programs.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#219

Post by lightlyused » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:32 PM UTC

randiantech wrote: post #65

eudox wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venezuela elected Chavez in at least three internationally verified and observed elections (1998, 2000, 2006).

Having democrat elections is not the same of having a functional democracy.

Exactly what I pointed out, although it seems some didn't like my comment.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#220

Post by cgh » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 8:37 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #20

goombastic wrote: post #5

Sometimes I wonder if all of the online computers, internet, apps and other stuff makes any sense. We have complicated our lives unnecessarily and multiplied beyond the capacity of our plant to hold us meaningfully or have a life with any semblance of contemplation.

Isn't it inherent to your opinion that it doesn't necessarily apply to how other people feel, such that you can't actually use "we" in the way you used it? As a species, we're drastically better off today than we have ever been. That includes calorie counts globally. The human population of earth has far more food than it needs. There are radically fewer famines today, not more. The suffering that is happening in Ven…

You are of course correct. By any objective measure, humanity has never had it so good. We live in the safest and most peaceful time in human history, as measured by the deaths caused by famine, disease, warfare and poverty. This is often overlooked in the common narrative that modern times are unusually violent and unstable.

We do however face grave environmental issues so it's not all a feel-good story.