71–80 of 143 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Chavez started as a proletariat leader. I believe some liberal leaders like Sean Penn publicly supported Chavez (? someone fact check me here).
Sean Penn is a movie actor, not a "liberal leader," what are you on?
This whole situation is so sad, because it is 100% human caused. This is not a natural disaster! Socialism does not work and it is not moral. Hundreds of millions of people have died and suffered under this economic and governmental system, and many more will die in Venezuela to re-learn this lesson. And yet, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, the appeal of socialism still somehow permeates to otherwise succe…
So you think that the huge inequalities we have today in developed countries are a "huge success"? When the richest man in the world has 100B$, and yet 12% of Americans live under the poverty line?
And yes I'm talking about value for their customers. You know, the people who paid for their products and thereby made them rich.
“Something so simple as taking money out of a bank machine or buying a coffee or taking a taxi has become a race for survival,” Mr. Sandoval said. How much of this race to the ATM etc. would be a problem if the money supply was digital and everyone could use their phone to make purchases. I would like to propose a thought experiment and solicit opinions on whether situations like this can be mitigated by using a LOCA…
This is called (hyper)inflation. They already have that, no new app required.
This whole situation is so sad, because it is 100% human caused. This is not a natural disaster! Socialism does not work and it is not moral. Hundreds of millions of people have died and suffered under this economic and governmental system, and many more will die in Venezuela to re-learn this lesson. And yet, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, the appeal of socialism still somehow permeates to otherwise succe…
So you think that the huge inequalities we have today in developed countries are a "huge success"? When the richest man in the world has 100B$, and yet 12% of Americans live under the poverty line?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not socialism. That's a dictatorship and corruption.
How many socialist regimes need to end in "dictatorship and corruption" before the world realises that the latter is the inevitable consequence of the former?
What is for sure true is that power corrupts and concentrating too much in too few hands is bad. Ignorant people like Chavez and Maduro who have simplistic ideas and too much power is really, really bad. Think Mao and Pol Pot.
When the cause becomes more important than the truth, whether it be communism, environmentalism, religion, free markets, etc., then people will suffer if policies are implemented simply to support the cause.
Just saying, “Socialsim is bad” is not helpful because then all one has to do is paint a particular policy as being socialistic to be defeated. There are countries that have what many Americans would call socialist policies that do great. Some do not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corruption can only harm you to the extent that corrupt organizations have power over you. e.g. You worry about the cops being corrupt; you don't worry much about a local restaurant owner being corrupt because you can just eat somewhere else. This is why small government, freedom and individualism are very simple and effective antidotes to corruption.
Small in size doesn't imply small in power to me. The smallest kind of government only governs the military and nothing else.
Unless, you mean to describe juntas as "small"? (I wouldn't, since in those cases the military takes on many more tasks than it normally would...)
I hate to also add to the cliche, but I think the description of one of the pictures in this article really emphasizes that perhaps it's not just a cliche: "Over 100 people lined up in Caracas to purchase price-controlled chicken. Chicken is highly sought after, yet very difficult to find for sale at affordable prices in Venezuela." Chickens are absurdly easy to farm. They're basically meat grass. Put them in a fence…
Well that's an easy one.
>price-controlled chicken
Price controls (caps) lead to shortages. It's an Econ 101 concept that's been proved out dozens of times - from the oil crises to the Great Depression.
The amount of comments on this thread decrying 'socialism' with very pithy comments is concerning. I guess the whole internet is infected with trolls now, especially political ones...
I am actually a bit concerned with how this reached the top page with so many low effort comments. Regardless of whether it is the case that socialist policies are responsible for this situation, it’s weird that there are a sudden upswing in the strange, almost sneering style of comment that is littering the comment area. I almost expect a list of Wikipedia links about Zimbabwe and other countries to follow.
If governments are invested in changing opinions on other Internet forums, why not here? These comments are very low quality and seem to me to be writen to stir up political screaming matches, not actual debate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny how socialism always seems to require the amount and kind of force provided by a dictatorship...
Not at all. Social democracies never needed this amount of force, nor current socialist regimes in Europe.
What you mean is that some European countries have a welfare system paid by a highly effective capitalist economy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Western European countries are social democracies - not in socialism as a transitional phase as defined by Marx and Engels.
I don't think e.g. wikipedia agrees with such a restrictive view (there are many form of socialism). Also many of those countries have their main left wing party named "socialist party". (I think it's cultural difference between US and rest of world where the US considers socialism ~= communism)