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Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

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Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#31

Post by tomjakubowski »

rayiner wrote: post #19
prolikewh0a wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What underlying ideology? Socialism? There's nothing that says socialism or some form of it can't work.

There's little-s socialism and big-s socialism. Social democracies like Sweden, etc., have social welfare systems bankrolled by an underlying market economy. A company in Sweden may pay high taxes, but it doesn't have to worry about being nationalized, price controls, or central planning: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2012/10/13/the-new-... . Capital will put up with high taxes. It won't put up with those…

> Capital will put up with high taxes. It won't put up with those other things. And without capital generating surplus to bankroll social welfare programs, your system collapses.

Using "capital" here to mean "private capital" is confusing at best, considering we are discussing socialism in general -- where the _entire point_ is that capital tends to be owned publicly -- and the Nordics in particular, where a massive amount of capital is public.

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/08/19/nordic-gover...

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#32

Post by stale2002 »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #29
tartuffe78 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times do countries have to collapse before we can be sure?

Clock's been ticking for a long while now on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. When will you give up waiting for these socialist states to collapse?

Those aren't socialist countries. They don't even call themselves that. I feel like a country has to at least call itself socialist, for it to count.

A socialist country is one in which the means of production aren't privately owned. If most private businesses are illegal, that's socialism.

The Nordic countries aren't even attempting to ban private businesses, or claiming that as their goal.

The track record for countries that call themselves socialist is pretty grim, on the other hand.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#33

Post by scythe »

crocal wrote: post #13
LarryDarrell wrote: post #5

The situation in Venezuela makes my heart hurt. Reading about how Hugo Chavez destroyed PDVSA through ignorance and incompetence is a real life example of how much damage a populist strongman can do.

Me too. I worked on some good projects there a few years ago and now this. Is there somewhere a “for dummies” analysis / explanation of the chain of events and decisions that led to the current situation in Venezuela? I can’t fathom how it is possible even in the most corrupt place in the world to reach such a sorry state.

The crucial mistake was the firing of tens of thousands of employees of the state oil company, PDVSA. Eviscerating the state oil business in an economy that depends on oil exports is, um, bad. With half of their employees replaced by Chavez yes-men, PDVSA made poor strategic decisions that left them with (almost) no new oil wells when the ones they had been using ran dry. To be specific, money that should have been used to dig new oil wells was diverted to poverty-reduction initiatives by the central government. Venezuela today has the world's largest proven oil reserves (thanks to recent offshore discoveries) and yet ranks low by exports.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#34

Post by Maybestring »

cryptonector wrote: post #25
prolikewh0a wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not one system/ideaology that's lasted throughout history. Capitalism is deemed to fail at some point, and it like it may well fairly soon. Also, you can take Cuba out of your list as it's doing very well in fact.

Capitalism isn't a theory. It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor. Thus capitalism is freedom. To replace capitalism with any theory requires identifying which freedoms you mean to constrain or abandon altogether.

>Thus capitalism is freedom.

Capitalism is absolutely compatible with slavery. If you eat seafood, you almost certainly have eaten food harvested by a slave.

Not to mention the numerous historical examples.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#35

Post by jose_zap »

csomar wrote: post #27

How come the society has yet to collapse if the salaries can't cover a few days of spending. I mean this reaches a critical point, as far as I see it: At some wage, the employee will bail out. Because it cost more to do the job (transportation/food) than the job pays. Apparently, this is not the case. As the workers are still going for work. The equation is certainly bad (I have no doubt about that) but it has not re…

The one thing that I learned being a Venezuelan is that things can always get worse. It is easy to thing that there is a bottom for how bad things can go, but clearly that was just hopeful thinking.

The situation is a thousand times worse than when I left 6 years ago, an I would certainly consider what they are living now as a total collapse of society, yet I'm also sure that it could get even worse.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#36

Post by yongjik »

stale2002 wrote: post #32
tomjakubowski wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clock's been ticking for a long while now on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. When will you give up waiting for these socialist states to collapse?

Those aren't socialist countries. They don't even call themselves that. I feel like a country has to at least call itself socialist, for it to count. A socialist country is one in which the means of production aren't privately owned. If most private businesses are illegal, that's socialism. The Nordic countries aren't even attempting to ban private businesses, or claiming that as their goal. The track record for coun…

That's all fine and dandy, but then so many Americans turn around and call universal healthcare socialism, never mind that it's implemented in pretty much every West European Country that are decidedly non-socialist according to your criterion.

You can't use "socialism" to mean "Venezuela, and only Venezuela (well, maybe Cuba)" and then "anything that gives more power to the US federal government". Choose one. (I'm not saying you do, but so many people do.)

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#37

Post by jose_zap »

stale2002 wrote: post #32
tomjakubowski wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clock's been ticking for a long while now on Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. When will you give up waiting for these socialist states to collapse?

Those aren't socialist countries. They don't even call themselves that. I feel like a country has to at least call itself socialist, for it to count. A socialist country is one in which the means of production aren't privately owned. If most private businesses are illegal, that's socialism. The Nordic countries aren't even attempting to ban private businesses, or claiming that as their goal. The track record for coun…

> A socialist country is one in which the means of production aren't privately owned. If most private businesses are illegal, that's socialism.

By that account Venezuela was certainly not a socialist country.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#38

Post by Zhenya »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #5

The situation in Venezuela makes my heart hurt. Reading about how Hugo Chavez destroyed PDVSA through ignorance and incompetence is a real life example of how much damage a populist strongman can do.

Populism isn't the problem here. Socialist /fascist policies of govt control of the means of production and the removal of the profit motive is what you see at play.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#39

Post by lucio »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's little-s socialism and big-s socialism. Social democracies like Sweden, etc., have social welfare systems bankrolled by an underlying market economy. A company in Sweden may pay high taxes, but it doesn't have to worry about being nationalized, price controls, or central planning: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2012/10/13/the-new-... . Capital will put up with high taxes. It won't put up with those…

Social Democracy != Socialism. Socialism moves to take full ownership of the means of production, and Social Democracy only places regulations on business that are often demolished years down the line and workers get screwed at the benefit of the few. Every system has failed throughout history, so there's no reason a Capitalistic system cannot fail as well, and we see the global collapse of Capitalism happening right…

Have you seen the Hans Rosling talks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4k0Q8e8Y There's a few on TED talks. It's a must see.

Re: Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy

#40

Post by eschevarria »

Maybestring wrote: post #34
cryptonector wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism isn't a theory. It's an emergent result of letting people own themselves, property, and the fruits of their own labor while also letting them trade their property and labor. Thus capitalism is freedom. To replace capitalism with any theory requires identifying which freedoms you mean to constrain or abandon altogether.

>Thus capitalism is freedom. Capitalism is absolutely compatible with slavery. If you eat seafood, you almost certainly have eaten food harvested by a slave. Not to mention the numerous historical examples.

Capitalism is not compatible with forced labor. It may be compatible with slavery if you define slavery in a way that includes consensual labor. Systems that are partly capitalist may be compatible with forced labor, but in this case the part that allows the forced labor is not the capitalist part of the system and the blame should rest on the system not being capitalist enough.

For example, Resolution No. 9855 in Venezuela allows the government to force workers to move from their current jobs to work in farm fields or elsewhere in the agricultural sector for periods of 60 days. That is forced labor. But it is not to be blamed on capitalism; in fact, it would have been prevented by capitalism.

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