Venezuela

[Jairzinho]

48 minutes ago, Skaro said:

 

 

Marx, their inspiration, would have been proud.

 

 

No, Marx would have thought Stalin was a complete mong.

[Jairzinho]

7 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

I heard somewhere it was because he was an atheist or because he had a moustache, can't remember which. 

Let's go with Atheist.

 

Stalin is proof that Atheism is a failed, murderous ideology.

[Jairzinho]

7 minutes ago, SasaS said:

 

It kind of does, because most of the things you listed can be classified under economic policies. Faced with various problems over the past 20-odd years, the government typically decided on the wrong choice of action in the given circumstances.  

So even if you completely ignore all outside influence (which would be staggeringly stupid, but let's go with that for the sake of argument), it's a failure of government, then? Not a failure of an ideology.

 

[s(k)aturation]

7 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

No, Marx would have thought Stalin was a complete mong.

 

Yes, I heard Karl never like Georgians.

 

Georgian houses in North London on the other hand....

 

 

[Strontium]

Ifitadnabinfer outside influences.

[SasaS]

1 hour ago, Jairzinho said:

So even if you completely ignore all outside influence (which would be staggeringly stupid, but let's go with that for the sake of argument), it's a failure of government, then? Not a failure of an ideology.

 

 

I agree it would be stupid to ignore outside influence and context, American interests, Saudis' capability and willingness to manipulate oil prices to suit their own interest and so on, but your course of action should take all that into account as much as it is possible.

 

I am steering clear of saying it was (yet another) failure of socialism, but there is no escaping the fact that it was a failure of application of an ideology or its elements. I'd say it was a failure of realization that ideology cannot subvert or change basic economic laws. In Venezuela's case the problem was probably exacerbated by the fact that they already had the "curse of a resource-reach country" in place, which meant that everything revolved around who controls the oil revenue and the focus is always on how is this then distributed, rather than on value creation.

 

If you look at socialism in the past 100 years, or what is generally labelled as such, it generally works when it has to redress apparent gross imbalance in social justice or inequality, but then runs into problems when it does not know how to bring about a productive system of motivating people to create economic value, prevent emergence of a class of gatekeepers of public services and provisions that is almost always the main source of corruption and parallel economy of exchange of favours and influence which takes on the form of actual currency. On top of that it usually resorts to political oppression as a response to developmental challenges. Venezuela retained a sizeable private sector and remained more or less a parliamentary democracy with comparatively free elections, but it still mostly fell victim to other problems that have so far been typical of entirely socialist economies.

 

Is this a systemic, ideological failure, I don't know. What I do know is that it is better to observe, analyze and then redefine the social model you think would be a way forward, rather than resort to rejection of truth and denial, which, as I said in my previous post, I feel too many are too quick to do. The same thing happened in the conversation when Castro died, with so many people trying to persuade us Cuba was a successful model, when it was painfully obvious that for the most part it wasn't, it was a Central American take on the good old East European model of totalitarian socialism which nobody in the end wanted any more.

 

Apologies for the TL/DR type of post.

[magicrat]

I've been to Venezuela half a dozen times on business. Not in the last 12 years mind.

First time I went got up to my hotel room in Caracas and was greeted to the sound of gun fire down on the street ! Next day found out some kid had been shot dead for a pair of trainers.

More murders on a weekend there than in the UK in a year.  Chavez chased away foreign investors or grabbed things like the steel industry and the security situation saw most foreign nationals leave. One of the potential powerhouses of South America with a fortune in natural resources, fabulous countryside that would be a mecca for tourism if they could stop visitors getting kidnapped. I refused to go back there after the incidence of kidnapping on the main highway from the airport to Caracas got to be a real worry. My main regret was never getting to see Angel Falls but it was bad then it's now fucking basket case.

[TheHowieLama]

2 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

So even if you completely ignore all outside influence (which would be staggeringly stupid, but let's go with that for the sake of argument), it's a failure of government, then? Not a failure of an ideology.

 

Would you agree that the factors that made it a failure of government (human greed being at the top) have made it difficult for the idealogy to succeed. After all there are not alot of shining examples in todays world - seems like massive corruption is a given and paradoxically it manages to create a wider gulf in income/power.

[Jairzinho]

Just now, TheHowieLama said:

Would you agree that the factors that made it a failure of government (human greed being at the top) have made it difficult for the idealogy to succeed. After all there are not alot of shining examples in todays world - seems like massive corruption is a given and paradoxically it manages to create a wider gulf in income/power.

I think socialism is impossible in South America.

[TheHowieLama]

Agree -- tbh I think it is going to be difficult anywhere

[TheHowieLama]

1 hour ago, SasaS said:

 

the good old East European model of totalitarian socialism

Is there any other kind of example?

[TheHowieLama]

15 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

I think socialism is impossible in South America.

So there is something intrinsic to South American people that guarantees failure of the ideology?

[SasaS]

18 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

I think socialism is impossible in South America.

 

Why?

4 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Is there any other kind of example?

Well I guess you have African and Arab examples, or countries such as Yugoslavia where you were at least free to work and travel abroad, transitional or hybrid models in Americas.

[Red Phoenix]

4 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

What about the emails?

Hahah I deleted them! First from the site then from my private server too. I also asked Dave to delete any backups of my emails he might have and to plead the fifth if it goes to court. The NSA/CIA might have ways of retrieving the originals though, will just have to see what happens and hope it doesn't affect me running for prime minister and installing anarchy in the UK at any point in the future.

[TheHowieLama]

@SasaSI am not sure that 10 or 20 years could be construed as an instance of successful ideology - if anything it would be proof of failure.

 

Yugoslavia was a clusterfuck of massive proportions don't you think?

[SasaS]

1 minute ago, TheHowieLama said:

@SasaSI am not sure that 10 or 20 years could be construed as an instance of successful ideology - if anything it would be proof of failure.

 

Yugoslavia was a clusterfuck of massive proportions don't you think?

Not really, it did quite well until the early '80s, it was the darling of the European left with its self-managment system and early break with the USSR. Suckled on many a teat for decades, including the American one.

The break-up was, but that's another story, as the bartender in Irma La Deuce used to say.

[TheHowieLama]

Yugoslavia was a royal land grab after state sponsored assassinations. Ironically -- the royal was then executed but it was a dictatorship until WWII

 

What Tito did then is not far from what has happened in Venezuela -- a sham of an election and then a power grab based on that election -- the royals by this time were smart enough to not live there.

 

If you want to say the situation was "better" because of the split between Stalin and Tito that is opinion -- neither was any less than a dictator and both presided over police states. 

 

He did introduce some elements of a democracy but lets face it -- without him in power it was always a house of cards. 

[Red Phoenix]

When you have trillions sat in offshore havens via the rich people and corporations of crony capitalist countries, I don't think it's a surprise that they're going to be absolutely opposed to any ideology that seeks to redistribute wealth to poorer people. Then when you then look at the resources these countries have to go in and fuck a country over along with the government of the target country trying to seek out socialism also having corruption going on, it's clearly just going to result in a mess.

 

It also shows the amount of obstacles that political parties trying to implement viable methods of socialism in any country have to face. The UK and the City of London are a haven for cronyism and have been for a long time, so it's no wonder Corbyn over here is painted as someone bordering on the antichrist when he could cause so much to change. If Maduro is so bad with corruption the only mistake he's making in the eyes of countries like the US is that he isn't sharing the cash he's gaining from it with them and their corporations. The other guy they now say should be in charge will obviously make sure things are shared out well enough in return for power.

[Captain Turdseye]

It’s absolutely ridiculous to assume that the Labour Party, if elected, would implement anything like the ‘socialism’ that has existed in South America. All we’re crying out for in this country is a swing to the left. 

[TheHowieLama]

I was going to take a poke at "viable methods of socialism" but left it.

 

There have been a few shining examples of strong personalities holding onto "socialist" powers for decades - there have not been many examples of the less fortunate members of a society benefitting in meaningful ways over a sustained period of time.

 

If I was a socialist that part might bother me.

[Strontium]

8 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

It’s absolutely ridiculous to assume that the Labour Party, if elected, would implement anything like the ‘socialism’ that has existed in South America.

 

If so, I'm afraid we need an explanation as to why Labour MPs have been queueing up to praise the socialism that exists in South America.

[moof]

Jesus Christ. The last couple of pages have given me an aneurism 

 

edit: or the majority of this page, at least. 

[Captain Turdseye]

2 minutes ago, Strontium Dog said:

 

If so, I'm afraid we need an explanation as to why Labour MPs have been queueing up to praise the socialism that exists in South America.

 

Why?

[SasaS]

9 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Yugoslavia was a royal land grab after state sponsored assassinations. Ironically -- the royal was then executed but it was a dictatorship until WWII

 

What Tito did then is not far from what has happened in Venezuela -- a sham of an election and then a power grab based on that election -- the royals by this time were smart enough to not live there.

 

If you want to say the situation was "better" because of the split between Stalin and Tito that is opinion -- neither was any less than a dictator and both presided over police states. 

 

I thought you meant a cluster fuck of a socialist state, in keeping with the theme (Venezuela), I mentioned it along with other countries as examples that the Eastern Block socialism was not necessarily the only one recorded in history, not because I claim they were or weren't successful.  Cluster fuck would I guess be Pol Pot's Cambodia or China during the Cultural Revolution.

The situation was "better" in that it was more liberal, unless you've been a bad boy, you had your passport and could travel freely to the West and you'd regularly go shopping to Italy or Austria.  Even in the Eastern Block proper there were considerable differences, I remember Hungary felt more or less like a normal country, especially towards the end, whilst Romania was a proper police state throughout.

 

[Strontium]

2 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Why?

 

The likes of Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott etc have literally described Venezuela as a model to be followed and proof that another way of doing things is possible. So your claim that they wouldn't try to implement anything like it here is based on - what, exactly?