Social-Democracy is Socialism, and this is Socialism!
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In the photo you can see how in one of these places, intended to sell food at prices regulated by the government, and ultimately, under government administration, is completely empty, the shelves that once used to be completely full of provisions , now they are only meant to load some of the cleaning products that are not yet depleted.
People don't even bother to go to these places, since they will not find anything. The failure has been so evident that President Nicolás Maduro himself announced a couple of months ago that the company would be sold and would return to the private sector.
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But what caught my attention in this particular photo, was not the empty shelves, that's something I'm used to seeing, but the poster that appears above the premises, which in an ironic, but true way, proper to a socialist government that boasts of anything that is capable of achieving, no matter how useless this may be, he says "Un logro de la Revolución Bolivariana", which could literally be translated as "An achievement of the Bolivarian Revolution."
Venezuela has become nothing more than a sad example of what happens when socialism comes to your country, is not the only example, and perhaps not the saddest, but the most recent, and the one that shows us that we have learned nothing from our past.
Something that keeps spinning in my head is the growth and resurgence of socialist ideas in all of Western society, the countries that shone for being the apex of capitalism (although they never fully developed it), to this day they are trying, at least a large part of their population, to put into practice these statist ideas that have failed each and every time they have been tried.
I do not question the good will that many of these people may have, I know that the vast majority of people who adhere to these ideas believe they are doing the right thing, believe they are helping people and/or the world, hell, If I thought that the people who support the socialist regimes were really evil, then I would have taken my bags and left the country years ago, but the reality is that both socialist politicians and socialism itself, in essence, theory and practice, in all its approach, is wrong. The elite of socialist politicians is the most disgusting and corrupt that a country can have, adding to the corruption and inherent impudence that politicians of any kind and idea already have.
Whether due to ingenuity or ignorance, many people are being indoctrinated to these ideas since young, and they are being radicalized, all this within the western society.
If I tell you in summary form, because I have already told it extensively in other of my publications, what socialism did to Venezuela, then you will be able to understand the magnitude and the great failure that this example represents. Without any excuse.
Venezuela, which as we saw in the photo above, now has no food, used to be the richest country in all of Latin America, in fact, its economy was the second largest in the entire American continent (only behind the United States) for some decades in the past. The Venezuelan wealth generated by oil exports was so high that the country handled exceptional figures, even if we compare them with a European country, between 1973 and 1998 for example, since the creation of PDVSA, which is the monopoly company that controls the oil in Venezuela, until the arrival of Hugo Chávez to power, Venezuela obtained by oil revenues the equivalent of 20 Marshall plans (250 billion dollars), that is, 20 times the money that was necessary to rebuild all of Europe after the Second World War.
In the 20 years that chavism socialism has been in power, income not only increased, but multiplied exponentially during the oil bubble that took place between 2003 and 2013, and in this period of 10 years, the socialist Venezuela I get to manage more money for oil revenues than all the money that the country had managed during the 40 years before Chávez came to power. How many Marshall plans will that be?
Venezuelan socialism was the one that handled the most money in history, not even the Soviet Union proportionately managed as much money as Venezuela, which only has a population of 30 million people. However, and without forgetting the empty shelves of that photo above, the socialist government wasted money on all kinds of subsidies, which today are useless, and if you want to know how stupid was the waste, think that if you are a low class citizen in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, and you have used public transport, so you probably should thank the Venezuelan government, which in 2007 started a public transport subsidy in London to "favor the more needy ", thus reducing the passage in half. Of course this was just a maneuver to buy public opinion, while helping his comrade, the former mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who belongs to the Labour Party.
Labour Party? Does it sound? If you live in the United Kingdom, Australia or even Norway, you will have an equivalent to this party, and yes, it is of socialist tendency, although it is described as a social democrat. Do you sound Jeremy Corbyn? Maybe not, but if you live, again, in the United Kingdom, then I'm sure you know I'm talking about the main leader of the UK Labour Party, who, as you can guess if you paid attention, was a very good friend of Chavez, and even to this day continues to support the government of Nicolás Maduro. Don't forget the empty shelves in the photo of the beginning while I tell you this, you must be very clear that they are the same, and also what they are capable of doing no matter how rich the country they are arriving to.
No matter what country you are in, you can be sure that if you look with the right eyes, you will find an equivalent to Chávez, or maybe Maduro, willing to convince you with any kind of ideas that sound "charitable", "correct", "beneficial" or even "necessary", but do not believe them, it is just talk, these people just want to take power, they are megalomaniacs, they have delusions of greatness, they would not mind subsidizing 51% of the population to guarantee their votes and then do a disaster the country, will turn democracy into an Occlocracy, as they are already doing in some countries, and then with the dictatorship of the proletariat and the tyranny of the majority, will make their slight majority crush the opposition. Remember this, Chávez was popular, but never reached more than 50% of the entire national population in his favor.
You may think that I am exaggerating, that the speech of leftist politicians in your country is not openly socialist, and that the Venezuelan case is not comparable to your country, but I will tell you something, those "social-democratic" politicians of Europe and the United States, they are not really social democrats, they are socialists, many of them supported the government of Venezuela, such as Jeremy Corbyn (United Kingdom), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (France), Pablo Iglesias (Spain), just to mention a few. Many of them are afraid to say that they are socialists openly, as Bernie Sanders did, but it is only because they are afraid to take off their mask and expose themselves, Hugo Chávez did not say he was a socialist before taking power, in fact, he did it 5 years after taking the presidency, in his election campaign he said he would not expropriate, and quoted, "absolutely nothing", he also said that Cuba was a dictatorship, and detached himself from it, and said he wanted to establish a government similar to Tony Blair in the United Kingdom, that is to say "social-democratic", but to this day, 21 years after that, we can look back and know that he was lying, and he did it shamelessly, just as today's progressive politicians do in Europe and the United States, just as Chávez placed the United Kingdom as a model, Bernie Sanders does the same with Scandinavia, but he is lying, he is a socialist, and they want a totally socialist state, which is what all socialists want .
Do not think that your country is too rich for a crisis of this magnitude to happen to him, Venezuela also was rich, and it happened. Do not believe that your country has greater democratic traditions, Venezuela also had it, it was the first democracy in South America, and it lost it. Do not think that the politicians of your country are honest, why they are not, Venezuela is not an exception, your country either.
To finish I could put some photos of the Venezuelan crisis, people eating from the trash or people without food, empty shelves and rows of people waiting to buy food, hospitals without medication but full of sick people, but I don't want to ruin your day, I just want make them aware of how easy and fast they can lose everything, absolutely everything, simply by making a wrong decision, or by not doing enough so that other people don't make that decision for you.
Right I must criticize your post no matter how well it's written, and pose some questions to your argumentum contra propriam socialismi.
First may you define socialism in your own words.
Now back to the actual post, social-democracy is not socialism; quite far from it, let me explain. Social-democracy is a form extremely revised form of marxism, where to the point it's considered within the capitalist section of ideology. Coming back to Venezuela a lot of the sector is mostly private according to the ILO 72.2% to be exact, which is responible for around 70% of the GDP. Just to compare let's take some fairly right wing countries such as Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria. This trio have a public sector of 25% compared to Venezuela's 27.8%, could you really truly call them socialist? Of course not their just after breaking away from the Soviet Union.
But nonetheless if you deem that as an unacceptable argument I will come in defense of the social-democratic system. Under chavism the GDP has skyrocketed only plummeting when the oil industry had a crash, which inherently is a fault of capitalism and not "supposed socialism". The west has taken the stance of embargoing the crippled nation for the reason of "undemocratic election" which the country had a history of fully fair and democratic elections. The true reason for these embargo's are truly ideological and economical; meaning the United States wanting the people to install a puppet government, like they did with Afghanistan (which I must inform lies on a trillion dollar worth of rare earth metals).
So to put a personified analogy on this; it's the equivalent of kicking a crippled man on the floor. You must ask, why hasn't this been done to other social democracy such as Denmark, and Sweden. Well the answer is quiet simple, they are western countries who have a history of taking the side with America (NATO). Taking such actions would be inappropiate and bring lots of attention to USA.
I'm looking forward towards this debate, hoping you come back with something good :)
I am from Cuba and I was in Venezuela when Chavez was still alive filming a documentary film about what was happen there. It will be a long long comment but I do not have time atm so to make it short. "Socialism" pure and hard is an utopy and you will never ever have something like that because of the "human factor". And if you think that to kill the "individual rights" in favor of the "masses" you are denying one of the fundamental things we have as human, "individuality", something that in "lookslikeSocialism" states is a very dangerous thing to have because they do not like this. Is what they do not like the most btw, people who can think by them self. And I do not say Capitalism is the solution (btw, you do not have real Capitalism too, everything is full regulated by the gov so looks more like Socialism atm than Capitalism what you have in Europe for example).
I will like to talk about it not to write... it is pretty difficoult for me in english because is a very deep theme.
I fully share your opinion, I also publish in Spanish, so I can happily go through any of my publications and make comments, I am always open to debate and discussion on good terms.
Tu eres de Venezuela? La verdad es que llamar a Venezuela socialista es raro para mi, incluso habiendo estado allí. Venezuela es uno de los países mas capitalistas que he visto en mi vida y vivo en Europa hace 10 años ;) Quizás la ideología del gobierno sea de carácter socialista o eso se creen ellos pero... eso que había allá en 2012 cuando estuve no era socialismo ni nada parecido, ahora con Maduro no se la verdad y no creo. Cuba tampoco lo es por cierto. Esa es la política que se busca pero al final es imposible porque si te fijas, todos los ricos o con posibilidades son las familias de los que están en o con el gobierno.. si, como en Venezuela pero aún en Venezuela hay una clase social muy muy alta que no existe en Cuba (bueno sin contar a la familia de los Castros y demás) y que existía desde mucho antes de Chavez ... si se buscara un Socialismo verdadero o algo parecido, esas familias serían lo primero que se hubiera eliminado .. como mismo se hizo en Cuba. Y bueno ... mucho mas se puede decir de todo esto ...
Pd: yo estuve en uno de esos mercados socialistas jajaja y me sorprendió lo grande que era y claro, en esa epoca estaban llenos de productos, mira, esta es la bodega de mi casa en Cuba... estas fotos son para un publicación que mi mama va a escribir, ella vive allá todavía. En Cuba no hay mercados así para gente normal, son bodegas y todas están iguales desde hace años a la nuestra. Los mercados son en dolares nada más y nosotros ganamos desde el 1959 aprox una media de 12 dolares al mes.
Evidentemente el socialismo venezolano no es en el socialismo teórico explicado por Marx, pero Venezuela es lo que se llama Capitalismo de Estado, pues toda la economía es coordinada por el gobierno. Aquí existe control de precios, control de cambio, control de salarios, control de importación, entre muchos otros tipos de controles diferentes, además de que las más grandes compañías son todas públicas a excepción de unas pocas que todavía son de propiedad privada, pero que están subordinas al gobierno. Aquí no existe ningún respeto por la propiedad privada, pues cualquiera puede ser expropiado, como fue el caso de las tierras y compañías. Aunado a todo eso, el Estado mediante la inflación, en lugar del impuesto, expropia a las personas de su dinero, y se ha convertido prácticamente en el más grande demandante y ofertante de bienes y servicios dentro de la economía. En consecuencia, no somos el socialismo de Marx, pero tenemos una economía central y planificada, mal planificada y mal centralizada, pero de todas formas es una economía totalmente Estatista, que de capitalista tiene prácticamente nada.
Probablemente en cuba la cosa sería diferente si no fueran una isla y sí contaran con la cantidad de petroleo que nosotros tenemos, las condiciones son diferentes y por eso no se aplican exactamente las mismas medidas.
Pd: En cuba al igual que en la unión soviética, pueden emprender negocios pequeños como la bodega que me muestra, siempre y cuando no contraten a nadie, es eso cierto?
Esa bodega es propiedad del estado como casi todo en Cuba, solo recientemente se pueden tener negocios privados como restaurantes y cosas así pero realmente no son tuyos, te los quitan cuando quieren. En Cuba a diferencia de en Venezuela TODO es del estado, no existe propiedad privada de ningún tipo hace mas de 50 años.
Lo de la isla es muy cierto y en Venezuela no solo hay petroleo ... oro, diamantes y muchas cosas más aparte de muchaaaa tierra y diferentes ambientes naturales, desde montañas hasta llanuras, pasando por selvas y ciénagas. Muy lindo tu país por cierto.
Este soy yo a las 6 am con el Pico Bolivar a mis espaldas.
Y camino de salida del paramo
Muchas gracias por tus palabras. La verdad es increíble para mi, ver que hasta esa pequeña bodega pueda ser propiedad del Estado, aquí se buscó algo similar en el 2007, cuando se intentó establecer una nación netamente socialista mediante una reforma constitucional que fue desaprobada por las personas. Pero es cierto lo que dices, ni aquí, ni allá, existe dicho socialismo "marxista" en plenitud, pero dentro del aspecto práctico, son gobiernos altamente Estatistas, más allá en Cuba que en Venezuela, pero aún así considero que el grado de intervención estatal es muy alto.
Deberías venir a Europa y ver lo tanto que pasa eso también aquí. El gobierno regula todo y cada vez es peor, si te dan unas ayuditas te piden la vida por ello cuando te las dan (por suerte no los necesito) ... parece mas Socialismo que otra cosa. Sobre todo en el grado de aceptación que tiene entre la mayoría de las personas. Saben que está mal pero como tienen alguito se quedan callados. Me da hasta miedo vaya! Y hablo de Alemania!
I must begin by thanking you for the good comments, I hope you liked my publication even though you may disagree.
I would define socialism, obviously being quite summarized, as a system of social and economic organization based on the ownership and collective or state administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
Based on that definition, I am aware that social democracy is not literally socialism, but is a conglomeration of some half-baked ideas among which Marxist socialism predominates, one could say that it is a less radicalized version of socialism, however, what it deserves with the title, is that many modern political figures who call themselves social democrats are people more attached to socialist ideas than they like to admit, but are afraid to say it publicly for all the historical weight that this it brings them.
Only the oil industry represents more than 50% of GDP in Venezuela, which is a mono-producer country, that is, that its economy depends almost entirely on a single product, and absolutely all this industry is state controlled , so I would doubt the ILO data, but without dismissing it, since the data presented by the government are not transparent at all and ceased publication at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.
Efectively, and this is because the Venezuelan economy is totally dependent on oil, this is not a failure of capitalism, since the prices in the international market were not established through a free market, but rather, OPEC speculated with the price of the oil manipulating the demand, as it still does, creating a price bubble that was unsustainable in the long term, however, the government, despite being aware of this, did not diversify the industry and only destined more money to public spending through the increase in the number of social programs and government subsidies.
Venezuela does not have an embargo, today, the main commercial partner of Venezuela is still the United States, which together with China represent more than 50% of exports and also imports of the country. The sanctions placed during these last two years they have only made it impossible for the country to borrow more, but commercial deals have not stopped. And the economic crisis that the country is going through, started four years before these sanctions, in fact, the height of the crisis occurred between 2015-2016, just before the sanctions were placed.
Although during the Chávez administration I am totally sure that the elections were clean, since you could even see on the street that the Chavistas were the majority, since the arrival of Maduro to power the elections have been much less transparent, the opposition won the last elections cleanly held in 2015, and since then the government has imprisoned some politicians and vetoed others, and talked about the main opposition leaders, also closed the parliament, which was controlled by the opposition, and held elections for a National Constituent Assembly without following the established guidelines in the constitution, that is, in an illegitimate way, and even in the elections to choose this assembly, in which the opposition did not participate, the company in charge of providing the technological services for the elections, and which lent them throughout the government of Chavez, Smartmatic, said the elections were rigged by at least 1 million votes. So the antidemocratic sanctions of the United States are not so detached from reality.
Well, for more than 18 years, Venezuela was not sanctioned, but as we saw, it totally abandoned constitutional democracy.
Embargo may have been the wrong word to choose I was writing without sleep for 20 hours, there are many points that I agree with you on. Such as venezuela failing to diversify their economy in spite of a oil crash; it doesn't disprove a social democratic system of governance.
Also some correction to your claim about the GDP produced by the oil industry, according to the OPEC their responsible for 95% of the exports and 25% of the GDP, which falls closely my claim of how much the private sector is responsible for.
Other than that, I don't have much to say I think we can come to a more or less agreement unless you want to dispute that.
Of course we can reach an agreement, personally I like to discuss different arguments, it is the main way I know to carry out a good feedback.
But you will see, in Venezuela there is private property, with few guarantees, since it can be expropriated by the State at any time. But the truth is that the private company is totally hanged by the State, because it does not matter if the ownership of the means of production is public or private, when the process of production and distribution is at all levels controlled by the State. According to the Central Bank of Venezuela, the private sector is over 50%, but it is less than 60%, according to 2013 data, however, the most important companies are dominated by the government, in addition to the fact that the entire Venezuelan economy is directly subsidized and dependent on oil.
I invite you to pass the following publications if you have enough time and interest in this topic. Thank you very much for your comments.
How Venezuela met Socialism? brief political history (4/5)
How Venezuela met Socialism? brief political history (5/5)
private property can not exist without the monopoly of force provided by a government, so the fact that the gov can take it at any time means nothing
In fact, there have been cases in history where private property exists without the need for a government, and it is something that in itself is quite feasible, as long as someone can protect their property by itself, or as long as nobody tries to take the property of another, that situation could occur, without the need of the State. Although it is true, the State is perhaps the best mechanism to secure private property, but the fact that the government removes the property at any time does mean something, and something very negative.
"Private property is a social relationship between the owner and persons deprived (not a relationship between person and thing), e.g., artifacts, factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, natural vegetation, mountains, deserts and seas. Marxism holds that a process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle could result in victory for the proletariat and the establishment of a communist society in which private property and ownership is abolished over time and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community. (Private property and ownership, in this context, means ownership of the means of production, not personal possessions)."
Private property is a relationship between those who control the means of production and those who don't. Control can only be done through force. That force is the state. (Even if it is a "business" they simply become a state)
Ok, I understand then that you mean private property, but exclusively talking about the means of production, or not? If that is the case, I can say that in the same way, the participation of the State is not necessary for there to be such property.
In addition, Marx the only thing that got with his theory is to increase the power of the State, not to diminish it, socialism, brings maximizes all the problems of capitalism and does not bring any of its benefits.
if you think that there will be no problem in that you give us your account and all the money in it. that is, property is a robbery, right?
private vs personal property.
Private property itself is offensive violence and thus requires a monopoly of force
It requires the use, or intent, of the use of force, but not the monopoly of it. There may be cases in which individuals have the power to defend what they consider their property, without the need of the State.
Check that amazing words
Another person just using the Argumentum Ad Venezuelum again.
What the hell!? This cant be real... Nobody can be so stupid on purpose, today I die of hunger in my country I have not eaten any kind of meat for a month surviving only with vegetables while a useful idiot tells me with a wrong data in my country 70% of the industry is controlled by the private sector I would debate it if you told me it's before 1970 when the country was ruled by mercantilist social democrats but incredibly you speak of now, god please if you exist do something with him!
thank you for not understanding the enormous privilege you have of living in a country that your government almost respects the economy. If you lived in my country you would be one of those who live on the dictator's populist gifts that also destroy much more our economy , shut up and take real data.
Data 1
Data 2
Data 3
If you have any brain or heart what you prefer, stop sharing this type of content that harms the liberty, harms the names of whos spend they lives fighting against this regime
At this rate today is my country and if you support these ideas tomorrow may be yours.
stop being the useful idiot
¡Viva la libertad carajo!
Well said my friend.
I appreciate your support and your vote dear friend I am publishing post with the ideas of freedom in both English and Spanish so that useful idiots like the previous one do not keep spreading their failed ideas and kill us all. so I plan to make money generating awareness and quality publications to emigrate from my socialist country and start another life. I hope you like my content and motivate you to follow these wonderful ideas.
Excellent ambition. Wish you best of luck.
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Happy steeming!
thank you very much bro : ') no one so far has given me such valuable data so I will keep them with much appreciation, I thank you infinitely for helping me to fulfill that dream.
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Thanks a lot again :) I have never used bots before. How does it work? and how to know which are the best?
I did not finish watching the full video, the initial data that it gives are completely wrong, very dashed to the figures that we have here in Venezuela, obviously it has a very partial vision, and it is very remarkable when it says things like Venezuela is not socialist, but Pedro Carmona is a "potential fascist", his premises are completely wrong.
When I say that Venezuela is socialist, I do it because it called itself and continues to do so, because many of its policies have been in favor of a socialist state, and because in addition, many politicians and left thinkers labeled it in the same way praising the Chávez's way of proceeding, such as Noam Chomsky, Heinz Dieterich Steffan, including the Castro brothers in Cuba, who seem to have a greater "degree of socialism" in the leftist circles because they are allies of the USSR, and many others of the Spanish-speaking world.
Curated for #informationwar (by @stevescoins)
Relevance: exposure of socialism
Our Purpose
Haz tocado unos de puntos que queria hablar y que desarrollare en un tiempo jajaaja es curioso como se nos vende que anterior a los dosmil en america latina imperba era capitalismo y cuando nos vamos a la defiicion de ellos vemos que ni el mas minimo punto comparten. Siendo que aqui impero fue un estatismo viceral, intervencionismo y mercantilismo de los más grandes en el mundo.
Maravilloso post.
Así es. Se llama revisionismo histórico, y cada gobierno nuevo en casi cualquier país de latinoamerica lo aplica al llegar, cambian la historia a su parecer y omiten datos deliberadamente, al Chavismo se le olvido por completo que aquí existió un intento de socialismo a medio cuajar durante toda la cuarta república.
Si amigo he podido leer eso el algunos trabajos del increible Carlos Rangel pero no tenia idea que se llamaba así ¡muchas gracias por el conocimiento!
Just like Argentina until Peron took over...
Oh yes, the famous Perón, Chavéz defined himself as a Peronist as well.
Me parece increíble la ironía de la imagen, quisiera hacer una pregunta, nos dices que Maduro informo la empresa se vendería y volvería al sector privado, tengo entendido allí tienen una ley la cual regula los precios de todo desde alimentos hasta repuestos de autos, la empresa al volver al sector privado seguiría estando sujeta a vender al precio regulado por el estado? Porque según lo que me han dicho esos precios regulados son extremadamente bajos comparados al precio real del mercado o supuestamente esa nueva empresa privada seguiría siendo subsidiada por el gobierno? otra pregunta, aun hay personas que se comen el cuento de la "revolución" y los ataques a la economía de Venezuela por parte de la oposición ?
Inclusive cuando vuelva al sector privado tendrá que vender al precio regulado por el gobierno, la regulación es en todo el mercado, el gobierno hace esto por los problemas burocráticos y de fuga de capital que les trae tener esos negocios, y a pesar de que se privatice el negocio, solo mejorara la administración puesto que la venta a perdidas debido a las regulaciones hacen que los estantes sigan estando vacíos.
Y respondiendo a tu pregunta final, sí, todavía hay personas que creen en las excusas del gobierno, aunque ya son una minoría, el gobierno ha perdido demasiada credibilidad, e inclusive en los barrios que antes eran los más apegados al gobierno, ahora se platean dudas, según las últimas estimaciones tan solo alrededor de un 20% apoya al gobierno actualmente (y probablemente son cifras infladas), se nota en la calle cuando ya nadie los defiende.
The state will always be needed to carry out Socialism as it involves spending other people's money. At some point even the most supportive will start to question what their hard earned money is going to be spent on.
Actually, Venezuela is what happens when you try Socialism and the US tries everything it can to undermine you
In fact, quite the opposite.