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

#161

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #110

mortenjorck wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is the difference between socialism in a free market and socialism in a command economy. While the former may try to influence the market (through social programs, state investment, money supply), it still must bend with the winds of market forces. The latter is an imposition of structure irrespective of the market: It might be seen more as a rigid body that can stand in certain conditions but begins to…

There's no such thing as Socialism in a free market, that's a contradiction in terms. Socialism means non-free market, and uses extreme violence to accomplish its ends of nationalizing wealth and production (which are inherently linked). And indeed, very liberal applications of force is the sole means to accomplish such a thing, which is why all attempts at Socialism throughout history always involved the equivalent…

> There's no such thing as Socialism in a free market

There's no such thing as a free market, either.

> Socialism means non-free market

Laissez-faire Capitalism ignores that the ideal efficiency of a free market requires the absence of externalities, which are present in the real world.

Socialism attempts to address the existence of externalities (though socialist theory often won't frame it in those terms) through compensatory mechanisms (which may involve outright government control and planned economy, or may, especially in many current strands of socialism, instead include mechanisms to internalize externalities so that the behavior of the imperfectly free market better approaches the efficiency of the ideal free market than an actually unregulated market would without effort to address externalities.)

> and uses extreme violence to accomplish its ends of nationalizing wealth and production (which are inherently linked).

Nationalizing means of production is not an end of socialism, though its a means of some forms of socialism in assuring that the means of production are harnessed to serve the common good of society. Other forms of socialism change (compared to capitalism) the balance of power in firms between labor and capital as a means of harnessing production to serve the common good, others adopt market regulations which serve to internalize externalities so that forces in the regulated market will naturally direct the means of production to serve the general good.

> Socialism requires at a minimum the nationalization of the means of production.

No, it doesn't, if you are referring to "socialism", the political philosophy. If you are referring to "socialism", a particular the phase on the road to communism in Marx's Communism (and thus the "socialism" of Leninsm and its descendants which, while abandoning much of Marx's theory, kept this part), then, yes, socialism does involve that, but note that Marx's Communism was one of many kinds of socialist philosophies of its time, and that the "socialism" phase in Marx's Communism (and, for that matter, Marx's Communism as a whole) is not representative of (though it may be one example of) socialism as a political viewpoint.

I think most socialists would agree that more democratic control of the means of production in general, as compared to laissez-faire capitalism, is a distinguishing feature of socialism. I do not think most socialists would agree that state ownership of the means of production is essential (and, indeed, many would argue that significantly revising the capitalist concept of ownership and property rights in the means of production are necessary to socialism, and that the nature of that revision of what ownership means is more important to socialism than where ownership is located. Socialism as simply state-ownership is a minimally challenging way for capitalists to approach socialism, because it avoids even discussion of the essential difference between socialism and capitalism, which is the challenge to the capitalist understanding of property and ownership.)

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

#162

Post by Aloha » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #132

rangibaby wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think I'd skip an industrialization like that. Then you could enjoy Holodomor every day thanks to the unfortunate fact that you happened to occupy some prime Lebensraum. Stalin was a mass murderer, but he ultimately made or allowed the correct strategy to put the USSR in a position to defeat Germany, which was a pretty good trick (to put it lightly).

As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE

Arguably the social policies of Nazi Germany likely would have kept the birthrate high for another 2-3 generations, after that.. its hard to say. Alternative histories of Germany winning the war are many, and interesting (and scary) though experiments.

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

#163

Post by pastProlog » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #124

pastProlog wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean that the government regulates the economy or large pieces of it The Federal Reserve, bank bailouts, the government spending and government-backed monopolies that created the Internet we're typing on etc. The US "government regulates the economy or large pieces of it".

No one had a monopoly on "creating the internet". The government pays for basic, fundamental research, and as a consequence of those investments a new technology we call The Internet was created. A good use of public money, but trying to use the invention of the internet to argue that the US government is controlling the economy is a total misunderstanding of basic facts.

Government backed monopolies like Bell created the transistor, and government purchases from Fairchild kickstarted transistors.

Also you attribute statements to me that I did not make, then say these statements you made up and attribute to me are wrong.

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

#164

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #159

TillE wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish we could call that "empathetic capitalism". OK, but the universally accepted term is democratic socialism, which is quite accurate. "Capitalism" implies a lot more than just free markets.

Wrong- the generally accepted term is "welfare state".

I think you will have a hard time generating conclusive evidence for this argument. Doing so will force you to argue that well-known people who describe themselves as philosophically socialist are wrong about that.

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

#165

Post by rangibaby » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #132

rangibaby wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think I'd skip an industrialization like that. Then you could enjoy Holodomor every day thanks to the unfortunate fact that you happened to occupy some prime Lebensraum. Stalin was a mass murderer, but he ultimately made or allowed the correct strategy to put the USSR in a position to defeat Germany, which was a pretty good trick (to put it lightly).

As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE

Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present.

I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.

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

#166

Post by nickff » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #121

jdblair wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Socialism" has a clear, simple definition. Socialism is the ownership and control of the means of production by the government for the people. Its the mis-use of the term socialism and the details of actually implementing government ownership of the means of production that makes discussions so confusing. To pick a few examples, Obamacare is not socialism. Government assistance, as implemented in the US, is not soci…

It's more complicated even than this, and, unfortunately, that means your argument isn't dispositive. There is, for instance, "market socialism", which describes public/private cooperatives. Sweden would call itself a "social democracy", rather than a "socialist country", but Sweden does some things that clearly cross the line in ownership and control of the means of production for some industries . Moreover: most co…

Obamacare is socialist in the sense that it enabled a great deal of government control over the healthcare market, which is a rather large sector of the economy, almost indisputably one of the 'commanding heights'.

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

#167

Post by tptacek » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #166

tptacek wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more complicated even than this, and, unfortunately, that means your argument isn't dispositive. There is, for instance, "market socialism", which describes public/private cooperatives. Sweden would call itself a "social democracy", rather than a "socialist country", but Sweden does some things that clearly cross the line in ownership and control of the means of production for some industries . Moreover: most co…

Obamacare is socialist in the sense that it enabled a great deal of government control over the healthcare market, which is a rather large sector of the economy, almost indisputably one of the 'commanding heights'.

This is logic that suggests that any regulation of any major market is intrinsically "socialist".

Perhaps that's true, but if it's true it's only true in the sense that it illustrates how treacherous the word "socialism" is.

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

#168

Post by chiph » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #138

chiph wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can find a copy, read Steeltown USSR https://www.amazon.com/Steeltown-USSR-Soviet-Society-Gorbach... The factory was producing substandard steel. Often they'd ship it to customers and it would arrive in an unusable condition because it had been stored outside and was more rust than steel. But they'd try and use it anyway, because if they complained the bureaucrats in Moscow would brand them troublemakers and r…

About Yeltsin: "During a visit to the United States in 1989 he became more convinced than ever that Russia had been ruinously damaged by its centralized, state-run economic system, where people stood in long lines to buy the most basic needs of life and more often than not found the shelves bare. He was overwhelmed by what he saw at a Houston supermarket, by the kaleidoscopic variety of meats and vegetables available…

Yeltsin was definitely a patriot and wanted the best for his country. But his education and experience prior to the 1991 attempted coup meant that there were a lot of stumbles as he struggled to change the direction of Russia. I don't think anyone could have been more successful at it than he was.

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

#169

Post by elbasti » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #109

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.

Just because a country has high taxes and a social safety net doesn't mean its socialist. Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. Which always has significant societal drawbacks.

In Norway, the means of production of petroleum is state-owned (majority at least), well managed, and will provide for the social safety of Norwegians for many, many, many years.

So there _are_ countries with genuine socialist policies that--while contentious and somewhat controversial--are nothing like the Venezuelan catastrophe.

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

#170

Post by adventured » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

andrewjl wrote: post #152

adventured wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> countries that are fairly socialist Please describe the ways in which some countries are "fairly" socialist but aren't actually socialist. I'm not aware of a single example of a socialist nation succeeding in any regard towards creating prosperity for its people. Nor am I aware of a successful national experiment in socialism in the last two centuries of various attempts. Every historical attempt has ended extraord…

Is this why IKEA, which is one of the largest non-state owned Swedish companies is set up as Netherlands-based entity (INGKA Holding), ostensibly for tax evasion purposes? Sweden does have a lower corporate tax rate than the U.S., though the U.S. tax code offsets this by providing a multitude of different deductions for business expenses. Among other things, government imposed fines are tax deductible as per the U.S.…

I never argued that Sweden was more economically free than the US (although frankly they may be at this point, US federal regulations have increased drastically in the last 40 years, the regulatory burden is far larger than it used to be). I said that Sweden was in a two decade long economic slump, and only climbed out of it courtesy of de-regulation and de-taxation of their economy. I'd be happy to link to several articles covering this historical fact; the Swedish architects of that event have talked openly about how and why they did it.

Can you name the ways in which Sweden is a Socialist nation? I'm aware of very few things that can even be argued to define them as such. Quite the opposite, their overwhelming characteristics economically are that they heavily rely on the market economy determined by individual business owners and investors rather than a command economy dictated by the State.

- Do they allow private ownership of property, including the means of production? Yes, Sweden's economy is almost entirely driven by private businesses.

- Does nearly all of their economy function around private business ownership? Yes.

- Do they allow the existence of so called capital classes? People whose wealth is primarily existent in capital, investment, real estate, etc.? Yes.

- Do they force the redistribution of wealth, so as to attempt to prevent the existence of rich and poor classes? No.

- Do they allow the private ownership of real estate, farm land, etc? Yes.

- May the government arbitrarily nationalize your wealth, investments, or business? No, that would be a rare event in Sweden.

- Do they primarily function via the free market economy of non-coerced trade? Or is all trade primarily dictated by the State? Right, almost entirely free trade.

- Does the State determine all investment priorities for all businesses? No, quite the opposite, businesses are free to set their own priorities, build new products at will, choose how they allocate capital.

- Does the State dictate most allocations of capital? No, the opposite.

Things like healthcare, slightly heavy economic regulation, education - are the primarily arguments I'm aware of regarding Sweden, however those define them as a welfare state, not a Socialist state. The US for example has vast free healthcare, housing, and food systems, along with a massive entitlement system, which is why the US is also a welfare state (and not primarily a Capitalist nation as it was a hundred years ago).