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In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

nytimes.com

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Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#121

Post by intended »

gaius wrote: post #8
cdancette wrote: post #3

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?

India says hi?

And considering that the nation has no oil wealth, enough language and cultural diversity to make a single language impossible, massive poverty from independence, its achievements are nothing to sniff at.

And they passed Net Neutrality laws after people pushed for it against incumbent telcos having the upper hand at the start of the process.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#122

Post by foldr »

mmirate wrote: post #113
foldr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then Venezuela is a success too, by your definition. Its poor are not "producing value", and hence are poor.

That's only half of it; are the rich producing value? or stealing it instead?

Regardless, their poverty is not the problem, from your point of view.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#124

Post by sebcat »

whistlecrackers wrote: post #17
ekianjo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dictatorship is the only natural course of Socialism. Removing/alienating private property go hand in hand with the destruction of elementary freedoms.

Removing private property is the destruction of an elementary freedom.

Private property as ownership is unjust according to e.g., Proudhon. Growing a piece of land and reaping the fruits of your labor is different from having a piece of land(/shares of a company/...) and benefiting from the work others do on that land.

Not saying that I agree with that, just presenting a different point of view.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#125

Post by foldr »

mmirate wrote: post #123
foldr wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless, their poverty is not the problem, from your point of view.

Correct.

So in fact the problem with 'socialism' in Venezuela has nothing directly to do with the living conditions described in the article, but is just that the rich in Venezuela are not sufficiently rich, or are rich for the wrong reasons.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#126

Post by mmirate »

EGreg wrote: post #119
mmirate wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you seem to be saying that any warm body deserves to survive, at any cost to anyone, a priori , regardless of any other information whatsoever.

No, I didn't say "at any cost to anyone". I specifically outlined the system and the cost. You are again attacking straw men, this time by adding clauses. So can you stop beating around the bush and admit you don't think humans should survive if they don't have enough wealth, even if their society has more than enough wealth for them to do so? That's the fundamental point.

That is correct. It ought be no-one else's fault if someone cannot produce anything of value greater-than-or-equal-to that required to sustain their own life. Such people are as vestigial to society as an appendix is vestigial to the human body. (And yet, annoyingly, we still have appendices. sigh.)

Of course, I do believe it possible that the other person who was replying to you in this thread, may have different views than mine.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#127

Post by mmirate »

foldr wrote: post #125
mmirate wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct.

So in fact the problem with 'socialism' in Venezuela has nothing directly to do with the living conditions described in the article, but is just that the rich in Venezuela are not sufficiently rich, or are rich for the wrong reasons.

> rich for the wrong reasons

Bingo! I hear that being the state-appointed redistributors-of-wealth (or maybe their friends and relatives, too?) is important, and that actually doing or making anything of value ... isn't.

For instance, they otherwise wouldn't have shortages of price-controlled chicken. (It's apparently a very easy animal to raise; cf another comment-thread here.)

The living conditions are a consequence, not a root-cause.

EDIT since fuck you HN why can I not reply to my repliers anymore:

The poor being poor is indeed a consequence of their preference to queue-up for handouts rather than do anything productive e.g. raise their own chickens. Which is to say they are indeed getting exactly what they deserve. I'm puzzled at having to repeatedly state the obvious throughout this comment-section.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#128

Post by greeneggs »

friedButter wrote: post #97

How can inflation be so rampant when the army enforces price control? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/15/venezuela-army...

The price controls can't be enforced everywhere, or trade would just move to the black market. They are presumably only enforced on stores that are not politically connected, and that are large enough to draw notice. When they are forced to sell below cost, these stores won't stock anything, so the price controls have no positive effect.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#129

Post by cdancette »

Mary-Jane wrote: post #101
cdancette wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Serious comment. Help me understand the problem with economic inequality. If I can afford two cars, a nice house, plenty of food for my family, and all the other things we've become comfortably accustomed to in the first world, why should it matter that my boss can afford twice as much, and that her boss can afford 30, 300, or even 30000000 times more than that? Don't take this to mean I am ignorant if the poverty pr…

You're absolutely right.

I think inequality is fine as long as it's not hurting the economy (which it is when the inequality is large enough) and thus making things worse for the poorest people.

Moreover, someone that possess more resources than some countries in the world has a huge power over other individuals, sometimes more than governments. I think we want to avoid that if possible. Think of the majority of the press being possessed -in France at least, I'm not sure how it is in the US- by a few individuals. Do you like the idea that everything you see on TV or read on the news is decided by a few individuals ?

So I'd say poverty is not the unique issue here. Avoiding concentration of too much wealth also avoids concentration of too much power.

Re: In a Venezuela Ravaged by Inflation, ‘a Race for Survival’

#130

Post by foldr »

mmirate wrote: post #127
foldr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in fact the problem with 'socialism' in Venezuela has nothing directly to do with the living conditions described in the article, but is just that the rich in Venezuela are not sufficiently rich, or are rich for the wrong reasons.

> rich for the wrong reasons Bingo! I hear that being the state-appointed redistributors-of-wealth (or maybe their friends and relatives, too?) is important, and that actually doing or making anything of value ... isn't. For instance, they otherwise wouldn't have shortages of price-controlled chicken. (It's apparently a very easy animal to raise; cf another comment-thread here.) The living conditions are a consequenc…

The poor in Venezuela, then, are getting what they deserve in correspondence to the value they produce. The economic system is failing only the rich
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