Venezuela
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Pi 
Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: SA
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| Wokko wrote: | | Yarra Falls End wrote: | Miss Venezuela was one of my favourite gender studies.
I thought her numbers always stacked up well. |
They've got some nice Anti-Government protesters too. |
maybe i was wrong... exercise (rioting) and dieting (starvation) through socialism 
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Pi = Infinite = Collingwood = Always
Floreat Pica |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Seeing as how we're talking about everything but the actual situation in Venezuela, here's a recent news story:
http://abc.net.au/news/2017-08-01/venezuela-security-agents-seize-opposition-leaders-from-homes/8764958
| Quote: | Footage has emerged of Venezuelan security officials seizing two opposition leaders from their homes in overnight raids, after they urged protests against a new legislative superbody widely denounced as anti-democratic.
Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were both under house arrest, the former for his role in leading street protests against President Nicolas Maduro in 2014 and the latter on charges of plotting a coup. |
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Pi
Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Location: SA
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Geez I really hit a nerve with the crack about brickies labourer.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| David wrote: | Seeing as how we're talking about everything but the actual situation in Venezuela, here's a recent news story:
http://abc.net.au/news/2017-08-01/venezuela-security-agents-seize-opposition-leaders-from-homes/8764958
| Quote: | Footage has emerged of Venezuelan security officials seizing two opposition leaders from their homes in overnight raids, after they urged protests against a new legislative superbody widely denounced as anti-democratic.
Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were both under house arrest, the former for his role in leading street protests against President Nicolas Maduro in 2014 and the latter on charges of plotting a coup. |
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It's a long way away and there are no Islamists, right? What else would I want to know?
I mean, unless I was buying it - as you know, I'm always on the lookout for real estate. Do they have a "third-world toilet" stamp duty exemption on acquisitions of failing, South American states? |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| David wrote: | | Mugwump wrote: | | ^ nobody who reads anything I write will expect me to defend socialism, but in truth Venezuela is really a corrupt oil state where military populists have used the people's oil wealth to buy loyalty. I think the verdict of history is pretty clear that good societies need a little socialism to moderate the malign effects of an essentially capitalist model of allocation. |
I think this is more or less correct, though I'd disagree on the balance of socialism and capitalism in most liberal democracies. Welfare, Medicare, government-funded infrastructure, government-funded media, enterprise agreements, progressive taxation and many other fundamental aspects of our society that we take for granted are all essentially socialist concepts, and this is in a society that took a fairly radical shift towards capitalism thirty years ago – successful European social democracies have even more socialist policies in place.
So, when I look at a corrupt authoritarian autocracy like Venezuela, it doesn't suggest to me that socialism has failed. It certainly suggests that authoritarianism and dictatorships don't work. Give me a broad socialist policy platform within a democratic system and I'll generally support it. I think that's the view of many leftists, many of whom rejected Venezuela as any kind of progressive state years ago. Its only real support on the left comes from Tankies and rabid 'anti-imperialists' (read: Putinists). |
Actually, as far as I can tell, Venezuela was not especially authoritarian until recently, and nor was it a dictatorship. Chavez was a populist in the Latin American style who won power repeatedly through the ballot box, by promising ordinary voters things that the economy could not deliver, while further eroding the economy's capacity through destructive and cronyist nationalisation. This was essentially a kind of Sovietism via the ballot box, and it failed to template, massively accelerated by corruption and over-reliance on a single, volatile product.
One can quibble about the definition of socialism, but i think the various government programmes you describe are exploring the outer limits of socialist possibility within an essentially capitalist society. As in Vz, they too have been built on politicians offering voters things that the pollies cannot fund with other people's money. This is evident from the fact that most of the Western economies offering these policies are drowning in government debt (unless, like Germany, they are operating a mercantilist book through a rigged currency).
I think Venezuela does have lessons for us all, but only after the differences are understood.
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Two more flags before I die!
Last edited by Mugwump on Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:21 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Interesting reason. What happens the rest of the time? |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Well, you know, as they undoubtedly say in Russia, there are democracies and then there are democracies.
We can find plenty of examples of social democratic states running into debt, but what are the alternatives? The US, about as radical a capitalist state as you get in the West, has huge amounts of debt; and is also (through its institutions) responsible for unleashing a worldwide economic crisis that we're still recovering from. So, for all the condemnation of socialism as a failed experiment, where's the evidence that unfettered capitalism works? The best societies, by nearly any measurement, are still the ones that employ a mix of both.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ my point was not that unfettered capitalism works - it clearly does not. It was merely that socialists seem committed to the idea that government programmes should continuously expand, that this is usually offered to voters on a "someone else will pay" basis, and that we may well be on a slow path to breakdown as a result. At minimum, we are creating debts for future generations to fund and pay back, so that this generation can live beyond its means.
The alternative is to raise taxes to pay for programmes so that budgets and state debt are balanced across the cycle. These taxes should be funded by the average Joe and Jo, so that they hear their taxes rising every time they hear a politician promising to spend new money. We are not Vz, but we have plenty of the irresponsible Vz mindset.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| "A pure laissez-faire capitalist society has never existed. The closest any country has come to pure capitalism is 19th century America. Twentieth century America is not a pure capitalist country, but is a “mixed economy”: a mixture of freedom and controls. i.e., crippled capitalism, i.e., a hampered market economy." |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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| Wokko wrote: | | "A pure laissez-faire capitalist society has never existed. The closest any country has come to pure capitalism is 19th century America. Twentieth century America is not a pure capitalist country, but is a “mixed economy”: a mixture of freedom and controls. i.e., crippled capitalism, i.e., a hampered market economy." |
Disagree, Wokko, i think history shows that market failure (mostly monopoly and collusion and corruption) naturally emerge from unfettered capitalism, and this capitalism does tend to eat itself.
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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| That pretty much all stems from Government interference and "crony capitalism". In an otherwise ethical society with a robust justice system the less Government involvement in commerce the better. |
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| Why? |
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