ADSactly World: Venezuela & the measures from Karl Marx
Introduction
It has been more than a week since I wrote the last article about Venezuela and it was about time to continue with the discussion about this important topic. It is necessary to not forget that these articles have the goal of comparing the failed socialists revolution in Venezuela with the measures that Karl Marx wrote on his well-known book titled “The Communist Manifesto”, and see if said measures were indeed applied or not.
I would like to refresh the reader’s memory and do a quick overview of the measures that were already discussed in the previous articles:
The first one says “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes” Source. This measure was half applied because even though private land was expropriated by the government in an abusive way, there is still land that is owned by private individuals.
“A heavy progressive or graduated income tax” Source. This measure is not only applied in Venezuela, but in virtually every country there is.
“Abolition of all rights of inheritance” Source. This measure wasn’t applied and Venezuelans can have inheritances without having any problems.
“Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels” Source. There was a short-lived government program called “Ubica tu casa” that planned to accomplish something similar to this. But the program was eventually closed and is no longer active. Nevertheless, there has been a lot of abuse towards property owners as we have already discussed in the previous articles.
“Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly” Source There is a kind of implicit centralization through an organism called Superintendence of the Institutions of the Banking Sector of Venezuela (SUDEBAN), which has a lot of control over the private banks. However, given the fact there are private banks this cannot be called a monopoly.
“Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State” Source Similarly to what I just mentioned about banks, the means of communication and the means of transport are owned by both private companies and by the government. In this sense, it can be called a half applied measure because even though the government directly participates in the market, it is not a monopoly.
As we can see, so far we have discussed several of Karl Marx’ measures, in total there are 10 different measures and today we will continue with this discussion.
Karl Marx measures
The next measure in the list says the following thing:
- Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan Source: this measure was applied in Venezuela because government-owned factories were increased due to all of the expropriations from private farmers and companies.
Some of the most well-known cases of the government taking control of big companies were when they decided to take control of a very big electricity company called “Electricidad de Caracas” which operated mainly in the capital of the country. This happened in February 2007 and 3 months later they took control of CANTV which is the biggest telecommunication company in the country. In short words, the government started to take control of entire industries in the year 2007.
Regarding the cultivation of wastelands and the implementation of a common plan, this was also applied. In 2017 a government sowing and harvesting plan called "Venezuela cultivates 2017" was created, and it fits perfectly with this description “...the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan”. As expected, this type of centralized and socialist plans don’t have the expected results, and the majority of the people continue to suffer from food scarcity mainly due to low local food production and high prices of imported food.
On a recent interview between the well known Venezuelan journalist Nelson Bocaranda and the president of the Confederation of Associations of Agricultural Producers of Venezuela (FEDEAGRO), it was informed that 66% of Venezuelans eat only 1 or 2 times a day. The video in Spanish where Bocaranda talks about this can be found here and it explains the dire situation that the majority of Venezuelans are currently facing thanks to socialism.
On the other hand, there are people that find it preferable and more economical to purchase food from other countries because the local prices are so high that even after including the shipping costs it ends up being cheaper. I personally know of 2 close people that have done this. The food that is purchased from abroad is mostly canned food and non-perishable food, and the people doing this are mostly individuals that have incomes directly with American dollars, which of course, is not common at all in this country.
It is not a surprise for any Venezuelan living in the country to find certain parts of the supermarket looking like this:
The result of the government taking control over industries has been a decrease in the quality of the service when it comes to electricity and telecommunications. Let’s not forget the national blackout that lasted several days in March 2019, and the fact that Venezuela currently has the slowest internet connectivity in South America.
When it comes to food production, the expropriations were a complete disaster, with the majority of the expropriated companies going bankrupt and the general food production in a dangerous decline.
Conclusion
In this article, I was able to continue discussing Venezuela’s collapse, and how some of the measures applied by the government are similar to those from Karl Marx’s book. In this case, the topic was mostly about food production and how it ended up collapsing due to the socialist model that was enforced in the country.
There are still a few measures that still need to be properly explored and discussed, but in the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts about everything mentioned in this article.
Thanks for reading!
Authored by @dedicatedguy
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@dedicatedguy, Venezuela became great example to whole world and that example is, we have to understand one thing and that is, if we give complete control to government then definitely there is 99% of possibilities where common people will become slaves of system.
And then system will dominate how they want. In this process only common people get suppressed.
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I agree mate, Venezuela is yet another example of how disastrous socialism is.
True. Decentralised Structure is needed to protect Humanity.
Your work dealing with the Venezuelan reality in the times of "socialism of the 21st century" has been very well directed, @dedicatedguy. The aspect you address in this post is one of the most important and sensitive. The appropriation by the government and the party, in this case (I insist, not the State) of industries and production companies has been one of the most disastrous exercises, and which, as you indicate, have not led to the current economic debacle, is particular, food. To contribute to the information you give, only one case: the expropriation (confiscation) of the company "Agroisleña", turned into "Agropatria", according to the agricultural producers themselves, has been one of the causes of the terrible crisis in food. It was eliminated (the government company created was a failure) the main source of supply of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, feed for livestock, etc.) for agricultural production and livestock, but also facilitating credit to small and medium producers field.
Thanks for your post, @dedicatedguy. I will continue reading your deliveries. Greetings.
It is always nice to read your comments mate.
I agree, there are countless examples of expropriations ending up in total disasters and that is another excellent example. Thanks for sharing it!
Excellent addition to the series.
You have done an exceptional work discussing aspect by aspet every single idea and their failed implementation.
Communism as it is is already a risky business that has proven fatal in every country that has attempted to implement it. If we add to that a bunch of crooks, resented and functional illiterate individuals trying to get rich and powerful before they can actually do something they can call an achievement, then we have a perfect crap storm.
No company or industry expropriated by the venezuelan government has been able to produce any profit because that is not in their plans.
The idea is not to create prosperity because that creates free individuals who, even if they depended on the state, if they had all their needs covered, their alliance to that state is not guaranteed.
They need to keep people always in need of things that only the state can allegedly provide.
Total submission and total humiliation. That's the source of their power.
You are totally right. The goal for them is to loot the companies and enrich themselves with stolen resources.
They have even said this. You can see it in this video
hola amigo que interesante este post que realizo de mi país Venezuela, ese libro relata la triste historia que actualmente vivimos
La idea es informar a las personas sobre la realidad de Venezuela y su colapso causado por el socialismo, e incentivar discusiones sobre este tema.
Me alegra que te haya gustado el artículo.
the sad reality that we live, in this post they reflect it completely. In these days we have to add the endless lines to put gasoline, an oil country that does not have gasoline. @adsactly @dedicatedguy
In the previous article I shared these 2 videos where we can see extremely long queue lines with people and their cars and motorbikes waiting to fill their tanks with gas
https://twitter.com/josetorohardy/status/1129505846940065793
https://twitter.com/josetorohardy/status/1129773737870594057
Greetings @adsactamente
With respect to inheritance, by decree, there is no direct derogation from the laws that deal with the matter For its part, the action of unscrupulous groups, and often armed, through extortion and psychological harassment directed at the owners of farms, businesses, shops and homes, making the properties sold for prices well below their real prices. After making the properties lose value or be abandoned, the new wealthy class (the socialists) are made of them, eradicating somehow inheritance rightsYou are right, the socialist government doesn't respect private property, but in theory, having an inheritance isn't illegal. I wrote a little bit more about this topic in this article https://steemit.com/world/@adsactly/adsactly-world-continuing-the-discussion-about-venezuela-and-socialism
Greetings @dedicateguy
Thanks for sharing the link, I will be reviewing it.Interesting post.
Excelente post, felicitaciones
May be I´m no the best to give an oppinion about it because I haven´t read the Comunist Manif.. But everybody wich lives in Venezuela know the reality of what happen here. I appreciate the effort you made to this article.