Related anecdote: a friend of mine is an engineer that builds and operates glass factories all around the world, mostly producing bottles for beer, wine, and liquor. One of his company's factories was in Venezuela, and while he was there working, Chavez et co decided to nationalize that industry because they were "forcing unfair labor conditions."
The company rushed to get every American out of the country before the military showed up and seized control of the factory.
But as it turns out, making glass is hard and requires constant tuning and adjustment. None of the new Venezuelan managers had the expertise needed to continue glass production at anywhere close to the same levels of efficiency and quality. Thus the factory started to lose its ability to produce glass bottles at all.
I can imagine a similar lead-up to this in Venezuela's power industry. Nationalization -> loss of expertise -> loss of efficiency -> national crisis.
But what is happening here is because of massive corruption at every level of the government. They only nationalized one of the power companies (Electricidad de Caracas, only deals with power in the capital).
The rest simply succumbed to corruption. Companies with ties to the military and government officials that sold a bunch of overpriced, refurbished power plants that don't work. The price per MW of the power plants built here is the highest in the world.
I know because I used to work for a small Power Protection Systems contractor and we saw this from the inside. That and the reduction of the morale of even the lowest employee that saw the destruction and corruption from the inside.
Has nothing to do with Communism, and everything do with the rhetoric that follows this sort of approach towards governance, in which some idiot dictator uses Communist rhetoric to destroy the country by parceling out private corporations to his family and friends in the name of the people where he knows nothing about anything. The Soviet economy was perfectly functional until the very end. Chavez was a military dictator that knew shit all about running governments or about Communism or even Socialism.
> The Soviet economy was perfectly functional until the very end.
You have never spent much time in the former Soviet Union have you?
The Soviet Union could only survive because of its reliance on natural resources. They could not export exept to people they keeped under millitary controll and all of those tried to get western stuff if they could.
The Soviets themself always imported lots of tech from the west, with the exeption of select industries like space they were behind. Read:
- Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1917–1930 (1968)
- Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1930–1945 (1971)
- Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development 1945–1965 (1973)
Internally the Soviet economy never functioned as claimed. The only reason it could survive at all is because illegal market makers would travel around and exchange resources between different factories.
It is also a symptom of a capitalistic/plutocratic government. The fact that the rich control the media (CNN/MSNBC etc all owned by Clinton donors, [nytimes also corrupt](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-new-york-t...) and use their propaganda machine and [immense wealth](http://i.imgur.com/vUVatUt.png) to have their puppet elected... and then the biggest corruption machine in the world (creatively called "lobbying") gives your congress and senate bills to rubber-stamp... it's in a way worse than the Venezuela situation because at least Venezuela doesn't go out and kill thousands of (brown) people.
A similar thing happened in Zimbabwe. Using a race-based system, they changed control of farms from one set of people to another (with rather strong rhetoric about how certain people would never be welcome again). Turns out a bit of experience was required, so they had to back down on that position:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/zimbabwe-seized-...
The article indicates that Zimbabwe went from being an exporter of food to requiring food aid to prevent starvation.
Zimbabwe just recently took over all diamond mines. Which sounds sorta OK in theory, but I can only imagine it's going to result in less official output and more corruption. Seems like they'd be better just insisting on very high fees.
One thing that usually follows is the lack of consequences for bad decisions.
I've noticed shareholders are more aligned with letting heads roll than politicians and voters unless it hits extremes. Most corporations would nip it in the bud early or die trying.
Topic is regarding Venezuela shutting down for a week since they can't cope with basic needs. Questioning factory working conditions is quite on-topic.
Here in Tasmania we're not at the shut down stage yet, but it's something no one wants to talk about. They're not asking residents to shutdown yet, but if things continue the way they are, who knows. The major companies/power users are currently being rationed (Aluminium smelters, paper mills etc)
The state relies on hydro-electric power, and last year sold off a lot of its "excess" power to Victoria via the Basslink cable at a huge profit.
However we're suffering a fairly bad drought, and the dams are at historically low levels. Worse still, the Basslink cable (which allows the state to both export and import electricity) failed on December 20th 2015, and the repair ship has been unable as yet to actually locate the fault in the cable (it's a 270km long under-sea cable)
Apparently the repair ship costs are running @ $100,000 per day, and it could take months.
On Friday they severed the cable in order to begin testing to locate the fault, and half of Tasmania's internet went down. I was unlucky enough to be with one of the ISPs who didn't provision enough backhaul connectivity on the other network cables, so my 100mbit fibre internet now looks something like a 1998 dialup connection
I mean, I feel bad complaining about my internet speeds, because in 6 months times if there hasn't been any rain.. well, it's going to get a lot more serious.
Thanks for sharing tue situation with us. I live just across the ditch in New Zealand and somehow managed to remain oblivious about it.
The developments makes me feel somewhat uneasy since NZ is highly reliant on hydroelectric power and we have been shutting down thermal plants because they are no longer required. Whilst there is excess capacity now we have had problems during the droughts in 2004 so the risk of another shortage is real.
Also, why is the internet affected? Is the communications cable laid next to the HVDC cable?
I feel very sorry for you people down there. There's really no other way to route traffic that has enough capacity for the whole state. It's a great/terrible example of the part of the National Broadband Network that no one talks about - Australia simply doesn't have enough backhaul because we're so far away from everywhere.
WTF dude, if you need any large downloads let me know - I'm sure it'll arrive faster by mail boat :P
Does anybody live 'off the grid' where you live? What are your options for self-generating electricity, like solar or wind? Definitely a wake up call to me here in Canada. I'd be lost without electricity!
> I was unlucky enough to be with one of the ISPs who didn't provision enough backhaul connectivity on the other network cables, so my 100mbit fibre internet now looks something like a 1998 dialup connection
Shouldn't this be handled by the NBN? I thought fibre was supposed to be run by NBNco so we wouldn't have to deal with these issues ever again.
As far as I understand, their infrastructure is from the home/street to the exchanges. Major backhaul links are still done via individual ISPs, the net result of which is vastly differing NBN performance between providers.
This is correct. My NBN TPG connection is very fast for somethings, and very slow for others depending on where the servers are hosted, although it has improved dramatically in recent months.
Reminds me of a situation in Norway a few years back, where a dry autumn, a cold winter, and the power companies using a new cable to the continent to sell their "excess" capacity abroad resulted in skyrocketing prices.
> The latitude means that Tasmania isn't great for solar
Just for comparison:
Berlin is at lattitude 52°31′N.
Marseille is at lattitude 43°18′N.
Hobart is at lattitude 42°53′S.
So Tasmania is more similar to southern Europe in levels of insolation. Not as great as mainland Australia, which has some of the best insolation levels in the world, but still not too bad.
Solar isn't too bad. As soon as I can buy a couple of Tesla batteries (or equivalent) I'll probably look at getting solar... In the winter the days are short (but nothing like Scandinavian countries), and can go multiple days without seeing the sun, so definitely want a good set of batteries
No, he is correct. It was a setup that provided huge incentives to artificially limit/withdraw supply, reaping huge profits in the process. The biggest price effects were on natural gas, which affected both gas consumers and electric consumers (since much of electric supply is from gas-burning plants... including within Silicon Valley proper). There's one by my gym near San Tomas and 101, for example.
I had a gas bill of well over $350 one month for just water heating and furnace... and my thermostat was never over 62F, and on only 10 hours a day. (For local climate perspective, this is with an average overnight temperature never below freezing... it's not like the furnace was fighting blizzards.)
I saw a really good presentation on Charlie Rose by one of the main guys who was part of the electric privatization in the Mid-Atlantic States ... months if not years before the California Dereg, and he predicted it chapter and verse.
The Enron story was a great one ( even senior management could not control those traders ) but ... context. And I knew a couple guys from MCI. who had been absorbed by Enron and they weren't a part of that at all.
Thats a really sad situation, but is common in some LATAM countries. In example, in Argentina there's an active "energetic crisis" plan [1], where government defined an scheduled program to cut electricity in cities to try to mitigate demand.
At least with Argentina there's reason to be optimistic. From what I've read, the newly-elected Macri administration seems to be taking concrete steps toward reversing Fernandez's economic mismanagement.
Be aware the country is highly divided along political lines, and some of us in Argentina are thinking Macri is sinking the country into a profound unpayable debt and a crisis the likes of which-- well, I was about say "we've never faced before", but sadly my country is cyclical. We have faced it before, and we will again.
I have reason to be pessimistic about Macri's policies.
You can see in the video, the son and the accountant of a major contractor from Kirchner's Administration.
They're counting corruption money, and drinking a scotch to celebrate afterwards.
Looks like a hollywood script. Reality surpasses fiction.
Yes, the almost complete surrender to the terms of the holdouts and vulture funds, Paul Singer included, will sink the country into a debt I don't see how it can ever be paid. All within 90 days, quite a feat!
Alleged contractors corruption cases are a serious deal which should be investigated, no-one is denying that, but I don't think corruption alone is all that matters in a country. I'm more worried about disastrous policies. A perfectly honest politician can lead a country to ruin, and many of us don't think Macri is clean in any case.
The US had a lot of debt to "Vulture Funds" after the Revolution. The US paid.
Like the US, Argentina's decision to pay its debts will enable the country to borrow, which is useful if you want to invest in stuff which will improve your economy.
I'm unfamiliar with that part of US history, can you provide me with a brief recap (or better yet, a link to an article) explaining how their creditors behaved like vulture funds? (edit: do you mean this? https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/loans)
This isn't about regular creditors, but about vulture funds, sovereign debt, ruining countries, and the never-ending cycle of incurring even more debt to pay for existing debt.
After the Revolution, the US owed money to many including soldiers who served in the War. After a few years, it seemed like the payments would never be made, and speculators began buying up the debt at steep discounts. These speculators basically acted exactly like the "Vulture Funds" did in the Argentine situation.
Many were naturally for paying what was due to soldiers, and against paying off the speculators who were "preying" on the situation. By paying it all off, Alexander Hamilton demonstrated the (a) the US would make good on its debts and (b) US debts can be can be liquidated bought and sold freely without exception.
Both of these points make it easier for a country to obtain new finances on demand at lower cost. Point (a) means the lender can be assured the country will not disown the loan. Point (b) because debt which can be freely sold gives the lender much more flexibility.
Thanks! Very informative. I see the parallels now.
However, am I right in thinking that, along with incurring new debt, Hamilton also recommended additional policies, such as taxation and protection of the industry? These are points of criticism of Argentina's new government: relaxation of import restrictions, and decreasing taxation of businesses and of exports from the wealthy agricultural sector.
A bit nearer to you, Brazil also surrendered to vulture funds at the 90's, and paid it back with things running very smoothly. During all the time the opposition (current government) was screaming how it was impossible to pay it back just like it's doing in Argentina now.
But yes, there are debits that are impossible to pay back. Argentina is too big to get one of those in 90 days, but you may be in that hole - it depends on the details.
Also I'll disagree. Corruption is the single most important issue on LATAM today. It's the root of nearly all of our problems.
Thanks for the reply and for the polite disagreement :)
> Brazil also surrendered to vulture funds at the 90's, and paid it back with things running very smoothly
What was the impact of those policies on the population, especially on the poor? Honest question, this isn't a trick question -- in fact, I'll be honest and say my assumption is that neoliberal policies in Latin America hurt the poor and create the ground for the rise of so-called populist governments. With Brasil this theory of mine is made less clear by the fact that, if I'm not mistaken, Lula's PT continued many of the policies of Cardoso... I remember being very confused about that!
The results of controlling inflation and privatizing state companies was that from 94 forward a never seen number of people raised from poverty. Hunger was almost eradicated (yes, before Lula), and wealth inequality started to reduce fast. The result of unwinding those policies is now that people are going back to poverty, also in huge numbers.
I don't have much idea if the net result of renegotiating the external debit was positive or negative. It was mostly a non-event, it is hard to find any impact anywhere. I imagine the magnitude varies with the actual debit size, and at the end of the day, our wasn't that big - despite politicians focusing their discourse on it for a generation.
Anyway, to the extent that it has any meaning, "neoliberalism" also includes focusing on extractivist industries. We didn't practice that part.
Also, there was some effort into fighting corruption and institutionalizing policy. I'd classify it on the poverty reducing side of the balance, so that it murks a bit the effects of monetary stabilization. But then, poverty continued to reduce even late at Lula's government, so I must conclude that the stabilization was more important than this fighting (that wasn't as big as what is happening now).
About the raise of PT, it happened in a period of worldwide economical crisis, and our economy took a hit. The party got very lucky that the world economy recovered fast, and got into a big period of growth, that only ended in 2008.
The new government will also be corrupt. And they have agreed to repay questionable old debt by taking on new loans, and will probably receive kickbacks from the vultures.
Yeah, same thing is happening here in Venezuela. Chavistas now want the new Assembly to fix what chavismo has been destroying here (still is) for 18 years.
I'm not very familiar with Venezuela's history (I have a vague notion of events like the "Caracazo", but not too much). What was there before the rise of Chavismo, and was it successful and good for the country?
Well, she wasn't running for re-re-election so she couldn't have been kicked out (personally, I think if she had run, she would have won against Macri, but lost because her party ran with Scioli, a highly divisive and uncharismatic politican, but I admit that's speculation on my part. Let's remember on her first re-election she won with 54% of the votes on the first round, almost unprecedented).
I assume you meant her party was kicked out. Since 49% of voters voted for this party, and Macri's (somewhat fragmented) coalition only won on ballotage, I'd say it was a pretty close call... and now the country is highly divided.
Regardless, the political left doesn't like either Kirchner or Macri, and their criticisms are valid.
Fair enough. I've never been to Argentina, and can only go on what I've read in the news. I'm curious what policies you specifically think are going to sink the country into crisis. Is it just about his deal to make good on the defaulted bonds, or is he a profligate borrower and spender in other areas as well?
If it's primarily the bond deal, I would be sympathetic to the argument that Macri is just being honest and having the country take responsibility for the debts racked up by his predecessors. Another good sign is how he's cleaned up the government statistics office that Fernandez was using to publish ginned up economic indicators to make herself look better (which wasn't fooling anybody outside the country; I don't know how widely they were believed domestically). These sorts of moves pay off in the long term by restoring the goodwill of the international community and giving the government more room to maneuver. The fact that he's making them now, when they make his job more difficult in the short term, suggests a profound professional integrity that inclines me to think of him as a statesman.
Am I misreading your objection here? If so, I'd like to know more about your take on things. (Or maybe you could point me to some sources I could read?)
Yes, in this concrete case I was thinking about the debt incurred in order to pay the holdouts and the "vulture funds", like Paul Singer's. I think it will be a short term respite that will ultimately lead the country to ruin.
Let's not forget kirchnerismo (the party ousted by Macri) arose from the ashes of De la Rua's government, which was fiscally conservative and "orthodox", and who few would accuse of being populist. His reign ended in the 2001 chaos, with economic upheaval, a collapse of the banking system, a few deaths and the goddamn president flying away in a helicopter! Kirchnerismo didn't even exist back then.
Nepal calls it load shedding too. In practice it's fairly counterproductive there. People buy banks of car batteries and inverters to store power when it's available and use it later. So they use as much power as before, with the added benefit of tons of hazardous waste from all the equipment at each building. Which of course they just throw into piles of broken stuff.
Its very typical and not just for power. It happens with water as well.
The pattern is simular, unstable supply leads to private infrastructure. Demand increases when supply is available, leading to more instablilty. Quality goes down because private infrastructure is usually second rate.
In egypt water quality is way down because of private storage in water tanks.
When load-shedding "Season" happens, which we had recently, yes. Everyone wants to protect themselves, so a lot of people buy inverters + battery packs, or diesel/petrol generators.
Not entirely the same thing. 'Load shedding' in South Africa has effectively been scheduled blackouts of entire metropolitan areas, including the major cities, to avoid a grid meltdown and to allow for plant repairs.
It's caused by too many plants being poorly-maintained and breaking down and insufficient investment in new power plants caused by corruption and incompetence. In other words, not regular localised reductions or transfers of load, but the same wide scale forced blackouts as being discussed elsewhere in this thread.
There has, thankfully, been no load shedding over the past few months, but only because the economy has slowed down sufficiently that the country's electricity demand has dropped below its regular levels.
Could this be helped by first world countries donating solar and wind generation equipment, and peace corps training programs to train and supervise the installation in country?
Disclaimer: I am Brazilian, I know how Latin America & 3rd world "works".
No, it wouldn't help. This crisis is not caused by lack of resources. It is caused by corruption, cronyism, patronage and, above anything else, gigantic incompetence.
If "first world countries" give some help it will probably only benefit the corrupt officials.
Why incomppetance? People seem to be really competente at using corruption to their benefit. If it would benefit them to be competent, they would improve, but they have no insentive to do so.
So I think its wrong to say "above anything else, gigantic incompetence", its more like "above anything else, bad insentives".
No. Argentina, Brazil and other latam countries really do not need donations. Venezuela is a very rich country that actually have the second largest oil reserves, ironically. It would be like donating stuff to Saudi Arabia.
Our problem is rampant corruption, populism and mismanagement derived from it.
Brazil is trying to get out. Argentina is out of it, lets hope is not too late.
For Venezuela is already too late.
Argentinian here. The problem is a bit more complex than "populism", because of course if non-populist governments were handling the country perfectly, there would be no risk of "populist" options.
The causes for the problems in Latin America are complex, there is no single root cause that can be easily explained in an Internet forum, and keep in mind many of these countries -- well, I can at least speak for Argentina -- were historically owned and managed by decidedly non populist landowners which influenced the following generations of leaders (and some of these families still own portions of the country). So if populism was a reaction to conservatism and prior authoritarian governments, it cannot (alone) be the root cause of our problems.
Sure, corruption is a problem as well, but I think that alone it doesn't explain our problems either.
I think corruption and populism are more symptoms than causes.
I do not agree with you. I think that the real issue with both Argentina and Brazil is that the ruling class is more interested in going on holidays to Miami and Europe than in the health and progress of the country. It also does not help that just 40 years ago the military wiped out an entire generation of left-wing politicians, which left us with very bad country management :(.
Venezuela is not a very rich nation. It would be like claiming that Afghanistan is very rich because they have massive deposits of metals.
In just three years, their inflation (the bolivar has lost 97% of its value) and economic contraction has taken their GDP per capita from ~$14,000 to ~$4,000. They've lost at least 70% of their economy, and it's not over yet.
Saudi Arabia's economic output is nearly five times greater per capita. Their median income and median household net wealth are both vastly higher than Venezuela. Saudi Arabia still has substantial capital reserves, while Venezuela has almost none.
Venezuela now has a $20 monthly minimum wage. [1] Most of the nation is struggling to afford food.
Saudi and Venezuela couldn't be any more different outside of being petro states.
I don't think you and the parent contradict each other. Venezuela has natural resources, favorable geography, a reasonably well-educated population, and (until recently) reasonably modern infrastructure. Many countries have fared far better with far less. The problem is management.
> No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time
Churchill quoting one of his predecessors in his autobiography "Churchill by Himself".
If anyone wants to understand why this is happening in one of the largest oil producers in the world, there is only one word. Corruption. At every single level of the government.
The government can blame El Niño all you want, but they can't hide the fact that they stole most of the money that was invested in non-working power plants all over the country. I worked in 3 of those (one from Derwick, see below) and saw power plants from 1995 that were sold as new at 3x the price of a NEW power plant.
One of the companies is called Derwick. Run by some guys with ties to the government, some as young as 23 years old, with ZERO experience in the field. They are all now multi-millionaires.
I can go on and on about this. But this basically boils down to massive, massive corruption that has penetrated Venezuela at every level.
Where I live, we've already had blackouts 2-3 times a week. Once this problem hits Caracas, the capital, we know things are going to get bad. The government has done everything possible to keep things normal there but they might not be able to for much longer.
I've been to Venezuela a couple of times and have friends there currently. I'd ask them how they are doing, except that we usually communicate over Skype and Hangouts...
I believe they'll be alright though. The one family I know owns a farm on the side of a mountain, so plenty of food, and they get fresh water from a mountain stream, so no worries there. They use a bit of electricity, but don't really need it to live.
The other one, the husband is a US citizen who does some occasional work online. He needs electricity, but he's told me before that he can get by on ~$130 a month, so he should be fine for a week.
This ends the great socialists experiments and arguments. It used to be that people in ultra-leftist circles used to cite Venezuela as an argument for socialist successes, now even those arguments are crumbling.
It's hard to be a determined leftist nowadays. I moved off long ago. If you want better standards of living for people, it's high trust capitalism that's going to do it.
Ironically, Venezuela has so much oil that gas is almost free. Most people dont even know the cost, they fill a car's tank with about 0.10 us$.
Probably, people will start using the portable power generators that everybody already have, because this is not the first time the power goes out, and it will become a gas-powered country for a week.
The "almost free" gas was from fixing the price of oil, which caused massive shortages within the country.[1][2] The new government overturned Venezuela's policy on this and raised oil prices by 6000%.[3]
The recent price increase falls far short of overturning this policy. The new price is still ridiculously cheap and far below market prices, something like the equivalent of $0.11/gallon.
Just to clarify: there is no new government. The president is Nicolas Maduro,the successor named by Chavez when he realized he was too sick to continue.
There was an election to the National Assembly that the opposition won, but they did not have anything to do with the rise in gas prices.
Nuclear power stations require a high initial capital input. AFAIK nothing of this sort has been happening since Chavis became president. They have essentially starved their own energy industry of necessary reinvestments to get a quick buck.
This is of course, ignoring the risks that the government claiming that they will take over the nuclear plant and put a high school dropout in charge.
Venezuela had a mostly positive balance of trade last 10 years. So they had enough money to ask for financing for a nuclear plant (usually 5-10bln) to stabilize their grid. Instead they wasted money on the ridiculous gasoline subsidy, creating a huge smuggling industry.
That is false. The people in power have an insentive to keep current policy. Yes, maybe if a totally different government is put into place, things will change, but before that, no western coopration will make huge capital investments.
So for your solution to work the government would have to remove itself, and they want.
I read Atlas Shrugged cover to cover (and suffered). How did they deal with that speech in the movie that came out for it? I sure hope they cut it short ...
The eagerness of a different (but overlapping) libertarian cabal to court favor with the notoriously corrupt (and murderous) regime in Honduras to build their own version of paradise on the northern coast of that country (at the expense of the local Garífuna community) is also quite telling.
Her legacy would seem to cut both ways, we might say.
Except for the small detail that these guys' project swiftly disintegrated due to personality conflicts, zoning issues, and possible fraud before it ever started, and the most damage it did was that a couple of contractors didn't get paid. Meanwhile, Chavismo has immiserated millions of people and imposed a corrupt authoritarian government on a whole nation. So the parallels aren't really very close at all.
If you want a larger-scale example, the wholesale transformation of life in the U.S., Britain and much of the rest of the world since the early 1980s -- not strictly Randian, but definitely Rand-inspired -- hasn't exactly gone swimmingly well, either:
Of course radical libertarianism and authoritarian socialism, while both pipe dreams, are basically apples and oranges to one another, and can't be compared side by side.
But the point about the smaller-scale fiascos in Chile and Honduras is that it shows how farcical (and corrupt) that ideology can be whenever people do try to incarnate it in its purest form, out there in the real, actual world. This coming from people who claim to know vastly better about reinventing the world from the ground up.
If you really want to count up the number of corpses created by "radical libertarianism" and authoritarian socialism, we can just go right ahead and do that. I don't think you'll like the result, though.
Of course "libertarianism" as such -- being even more farcical than nearly any version of socialism -- has never gotten a real toehold anywhere for any length of time, making the comparison moot. That's why I prefer to stick with comparisons of large-scale, real-life ideological systems ("by their deeds shall ye know them"). That is, not the platonic ideals that people (pretend to) believe in; but the actual, real-world systems they compromise for as its "best viable" approximation.
Which is where the body counts, ecological toll and general misery -- domestic and exported -- of the two allegedly opposite systems tend to even out to a far greater degree.
It doesn't matter how you to try to spin it. The vast scale of the horrors inflicted on humanity because of authoritarian socialism is well known and won't just go away.
I never denied them, so I don't know what you're driving at.
I just don't think that being "horrified" at the excesses of only one extreme on the ideological spectrum -- whilst remaining indifferent (or willfully oblivious) to the skeletons in one's own ideological basement -- makes for a particularly useful or instructive view of the world.
The problem is that there are no real horrors of say libertarianism compared to the 100 million or so that were slaughtered, starved to death, enslaved, whatever..in the name of socialism.
At some point in time you have to deal with the reality that there isn't equivocation. I know some people have hard times dealing with it, and thus always pull the trick of "but look over here at this". It just doesn't work, but people don't seem to understand that it doesn't work.
> I just don't think that being "horrified" at the excesses of only one extreme on the ideological spectrum -- whilst remaining indifferent (or willfully oblivious) to the skeletons in one's own ideological basement -- makes for a particularly useful or instructive view of the world.
But the opposite, shrugging one's shoulders in the face of the explicit, obvious failure of a mode of governance and saying "well, who are we to judge really, these other guys did something bad once too," has its own faults. Namely, if we can't point at how Chavismo has played out so disastrously in Venezuela without getting uselessly entangled in whataboutery, what rhetorical tools do we have left to use the next time a charismatic socialist with an authoritarian streak starts getting close to political power in a democracy?
(Any comparison with the current political situation in a large nation whose name rhymes with "Bunited Bates of Bamerica" is, of course, left as an exercise for the reader.)
Ya, I'm a libertarian, and I find myself flinching a bit while reading Atlas Shrugged.
What's even funnier, though, is seeing real life unfold in front of my eyes that matches it, almost so perfectly that you'd think the politicians were following it as a script!
Im a libertarian as well and I dislike Rand quite a bit. I think its horrible that Objectivism is seen as the only philosopical backbone of libertarian society. While in reality I base everythng on Burke, Hume, Smith, Hayek and many others. These are complete different and hole incompadible with Objectivism.
Not to say that she did not have some good observations on some of the things she was against. Her modern followers by and inlarge horrible idiots that I don't want to be associated with.
I just finished it. While a little over-the-top at times to get points across, it addresses well the much-maligned "hyperproductive" of society.
It was staggering how perfectly the first third matches our current socioeconomic conditions, with the only difference in trajectory being the story having the productive rich bail out of society specifically to crash the "looters"' plans.
I associate corruption with large-scale human endeavors, generally.
If one prefers to believe that any particular -ism has some kind of a corner on the corruption market, as it were... well, that must be a nice, simple, orderly world they get to live in.
As are corruption and capitalism, corruption and monarchy, corruption and communism, corruption and just about every large-scale human endeavor (as well as a lot of the small-scale ones!).
If you only associate corruption with socialism, that seems like an uninformed view of the world.
I would say all 10 are clearly capitalist. All have strong recognition of property rights including private property in the means of production.
It is unfortunate that political terminology is muddy enough to allow for this sort of confusion. If I think these 10 countries are capitalist and you think 8 of them are socialist, what is the likelihood of us having a useful conversation discussing capitalism and socialism?
Perhaps your idea of socialism, but not many others' ideas. That's the problem.
A lot of people who cheer for socialism believe capitalism, in the sense of private property in the means of production, is a problem and should be abolished. Others, like yourself, are advocating fundamentally capitalist states with extensive welfare programs like Denmark or Sweden.
Unfortunately, the word socialism is used in both senses quite commonly, and it isn't always easy to tell the intent from the word.
(Also, I think sometimes the advocates of socialism aren't very clear on what they mean themselves. Which is unfortunate, as the difference between the two meanings is enormous.)
To be fair, it isn't just fans of socialism who perpetuate this. It does not help when right wingers insist on calling Obama a socialist.
Since the fraction of internet socialists who would actually like to try Marxist totalitarianism one more time is fairly sizable, I tend to assume the worst when I see people choosing that word for themselves.
I will say, if you care about distancing yourself from the totalitarian socialists, but you still like the sound of "socialism", making sure to describe yourself a "democratic socialist" does get the idea across. It's not my favorite term but at least it does suggest Sweden rather than Maoist China.
You can not change the definition of words to suit your idiological needs. Inform yourself about what words mean before going into a politcal discussion.
Their are some words that have many meanings, when you want to use those, you should provide the appropirate addition to communicat your idea.
Corruption is a much better term. As other philosophical ideas that are not well delimited, socialism is an empty tag that can mean anything as you want. Not much different than words like 'neoliberalism' or so. Elastic terms for filling empty phrases without any real substance.
In Venezuela's case, I mean a government that controls all the means of production. With one central authority in charge of everything, the corruption opportunities are enormous.
Also, even if everyone does as honest work as they can, the coordination problems in a gigantic top-down organization like this would doom it on its own.
The thing that is really screwing the Venezuelan economy is the weird exchange rate system which is not exactly corruption or socialism. The ft had "A foreign exchange rate at 10 and 200 versus a 1,000 black market rate is not effective" which I think means you can change at 10 or 200 pesos to the dollar depending on who you know or bribe and the real rate is 1000. Completely Alice in Wonderland mad. I think it's because president Maduro is a former bus conductor who has roughly zero understanding of economics.
Interestingly I see some Venezuelans are turning to bitcoin against the the wishes of their government.
Control over currency is as solicalist as it gets. Go back to Lenin and he basically advocates taking control of the currency to monopolies all import and export.
So what Venezuela does is straight out of the socialist revolutionary book.
Not all socialisms are the same. Some work ...fairly well. It should be clear that there's been a big Dutch Disease/Resource Curse problem in Venezuela.
The US and Denmark are not for of from each other. The just get subtracted points for different things. Denmark actually had lots of 'neoliberal' reforms, but because it was done by a left government instead of a right one its not commonly mentioned. Sweden has been going in that direction since the 90s as well.
and to emphasize, socialism is in fact quite well defined -- especially national socialism (e.g. the Nazi Party of Germany). Here's a good overview of what socialism is, broadly speaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
The Nazi Party, even though it has "socialism" and "workers" in its title, is not considered to be a form of Socialism (nor, for that matter, to be pro workers). Not that it matters much, but the only mention of Nazism in the Wikipedia article you linked doesn't refer to it as a form of socialism.
I would not call them socialist exactly but the philospical background for both ideas is quite simular.
This is history that is mostly ignored or simply pased out of memory. Their was a version of socialism that was called 'Prussian Socialism' and the thinkers from this area had quite a bit of influence on the later devlopment of facism.
Many facists like mussolini were socialist that were pissed of by the socialist party. Hitler took a party with socialist elements and retracked it so that the socalist parts were neglected.
If you look at the original 23 points of the Nazi party, they look fairly simlular to many moderet socialist parties of the time.
The first chapter of Hayek 'The Road to Freedom' is an exploration of the history of thought. It was originally be intended to be part of a book on the subject (The Use and Abuse of Reason Part 1) but he had to no time and so he released it as a more populist book. Sadly this chapter did not get the attention needed and was removed in the version that became a best seller in the US (Readers Digest Version).
The Nazi Party, even though it has "socialism" and "workers" in its title, is not considered to be a form of Socialism (nor, for that matter, to be pro workers)
I hate getting down in the weeds on this, but its "not considered socialism" by those on the left who are embarrassed that the Nazis were pretty much a command economy and have socialism in its name.
I don't think Nazism is considered a form of Socialism by pretty much any reputable source; only some in the anti-Left fringe do. A planned economy alone is not enough to classify a system as socialist, and anyway Nazism had enough elements of private property and corporatism. The Nazis, like in many other aspects, were equivocating by calling themselves socialists -- not that they particularly liked the term themselves very much.
I wouldn't pay much attention to the name of the Nazi Party, either. After all, North Korea is a "democratic" republic, it says so right in their name!
So if a command economy isn't enough, perhaps it has to actually represent a form of community control, do you believe the USSR was any more socialist? What makes something actually socialist?
The understanding I've developed of socialism is of worker ownership of the means of production. The state at best can only claim to somehow speak for the workers in a top down manner, and I think that inevitably fails. (Which is not to say I'm advocating it here in a decentralized form but I'm much more sympathetic)
Frederick Hayek makes this argument in his famous book, The Road To Serfdom. Fascism isn't the capitalist response to socialism, it's the right-wing version of socialism. In Germany, it only came about because socialism had wiped out [classical] liberalism.
I don't think Trump is a murderous totalitarian (though I guess he could be), but fascism is actually an accurate label for his political ideas. He doesn't have a problem with state authority, he just thinks he could do it better, and would encourage nationalist social upheaval instead of SJW social upheaval. This is why the conservative movement hates him.
That communist countries often call themselves democratic is not really that strange. Democracy comes from the Greek words demos, which means people, and kratos, while means power or rule:
Essentially this: the current big dog party has been taking over every public facing company like electric, gas, oil and even the bloody chimney sweepers. Their approach is to loosen regulation, cut budgets and not to invest into the systems.
Recently, schools were hoarded under onem administrative body whp issues paper, chaulk, replacement chairs and everything. Even pays the gas bills on account of the schools. Guess what, schools have been shutting down because of unpaid bills and gas being cut in the middle of winter.
Whoever can find a job away from the country does and most never return. IT companies struggle to find good people because most there is now are tumblr dwelling mediocrity.
The company rushed to get every American out of the country before the military showed up and seized control of the factory.
But as it turns out, making glass is hard and requires constant tuning and adjustment. None of the new Venezuelan managers had the expertise needed to continue glass production at anywhere close to the same levels of efficiency and quality. Thus the factory started to lose its ability to produce glass bottles at all.
I can imagine a similar lead-up to this in Venezuela's power industry. Nationalization -> loss of expertise -> loss of efficiency -> national crisis.