The end of Venezuela's "socialist paradise"

[Pope Joan]

Years of US embargo, enforced by political, judicial and commercial means, can have quite an impact.

But Iran is still standing, at least

Um the US does not have an embargo on Venezuela.
We still import Venezuelan oil. We still allow Venezuela to own Citgo.

We export oil to Venezuela as well.

Some American companies still operate there. Most have left but not because of the US.

While I think we SHOULD ban Venezuelan oil and seize Citgo, we unfortunately have not.

Iran is not socialist.

Contrary to your belief everything is not the fault of the US.

We so what we can to engineer regime change, So far, our showpieces of success are Iraq and Libya,

Yay

[Darussalam]

We so what we can to engineer regime change, So far, our showpieces of success are Iraq and Libya,

Yay

Unlike these regimes, the media heaped tons of completely undeserving praise to Venezuela under Chavez. It's not a victim of Western public relations, it's a victim of its own making.

[Novus America]

Um the US does not have an embargo on Venezuela.
We still import Venezuelan oil. We still allow Venezuela to own Citgo.

We export oil to Venezuela as well.

Some American companies still operate there. Most have left but not because of the US.

While I think we SHOULD ban Venezuelan oil and seize Citgo, we unfortunately have not.

Iran is not socialist.

Contrary to your belief everything is not the fault of the US.

We so what we can to engineer regime change, So far, our showpieces of success are Iraq and Libya,

Yay

I am not saying we bomb them.
Not that a full fledged war and bombing could do more damage than what Chavez and Maduro already did.

If you want to win a war with Venezuela it is much cheaper and more destructive to leave the corrunt government in power. They are more destructive than any weapon.

Honestly it would be better to put them IN power in a country hostile to you.

But why should we do business with hostile regimes?
Since the US is so evil are they not better off without our evil capitalist money?...

They can hate us all they want. But they have no right to access our markets.
They should be given a choice. Place nice or no money from us.

[Pope Joan]

We prefer compliant corrupt regimes

But then we turn on them too, seemingly at random, a whim

just ask Noriega

[The Two Jerseys]

What is so great about Iran?

Their ability to keep F-14 Tomcats flying using duct tape and chewing gum.

[Novus America]

We prefer compliant corrupt regimes

But then we turn on them too, seemingly at random, a whim

just ask Noriega

Actually we prefer non corrupt and competent friendly governments. Like Poland. I would say the UK but I cannot call their government competent... but they are still our friends.

But obviously we prefer friendly governments to unfriendly ones.
What is wrong with that?

Literally every country does of course.

Noriega started shit with us anyways. Started attacking US troops.
Obviously we were not pleased that he did.

[Kowani]

They can hate us all they want. But they have no right to access our markets.
They should be given a choice. Place nice or no money from us.

"Oh, you having starving citizens?" "Too bad. Change your ways or die."

[Novus America]

They can hate us all they want. But they have no right to access our markets.
They should be given a choice. Place nice or no money from us.

"Oh, you having starving citizens?" "Too bad. Change your ways or die."

What else do you suggest?
Obviously they have to change their economic policies.

Which is causing the starvation.
But we do not make their economic policies.

[Kowani]

"Oh, you having starving citizens?" "Too bad. Change your ways or die."

What else do you suggest?
Obviously they have to change their economic policies.

Which is causing the starvation.
But we do not make their economic policies.

Except, y'know...Maduro gives zero fucks about his citizens...so those policies aren't going to get changed.

[Novus America]

What else do you suggest?
Obviously they have to change their economic policies.

Which is causing the starvation.
But we do not make their economic policies.

Except, y'know...Maduro gives zero fucks about his citizens...so those policies aren't going to get changed.

Sure. But if we remove him by force the world screams how evil we are. And then we have to spend trillions fixing the place.

[Kowani]

Except, y'know...Maduro gives zero fucks about his citizens...so those policies aren't going to get changed.

Sure. But if we remove him by force the world screams how evil we are. And then we have to spend trillions fixing the place.

If we remove him by force, someone worse'll step in. You should know this by now.

[Novus America]

Sure. But if we remove him by force the world screams how evil we are. And then we have to spend trillions fixing the place.

If we remove him by force, someone worse'll step in. You should know this by now.

Well I cannot imagine worse but I know by now no matter how low I set my standards someone will fail to meet them.

Literally no leader in recent history has done worse in peacetime though.

But yeah, I am not advocating we remove him by force.
As long as Venezuelans are unwilling or unable to remove him they are screwed.

There is nothing we can afford to do to save them.

[Kowani]

If we remove him by force, someone worse'll step in. You should know this by now.

Well I cannot imagine worse but I know by now no matter how low I set my standards someone will fail to meet them.

But yeah, I am not advocating we remove him by force.
As long as Venezuelans are unwilling or unable to remove him they are screwed.

There is nothing we can afford to do to save them.

It's mostly unable. Also, that foreign aid isn't exactly unaffordable.

[The Galactic Liberal Democracy]

If we remove him by force, someone worse'll step in. You should know this by now.

I liked the part where Reagan funded far right terrorists to overthrow a socialist government, causing the innocent civilians to keep the government in power due to their fear of the terrorists.

[Novus America]

Well I cannot imagine worse but I know by now no matter how low I set my standards someone will fail to meet them.

But yeah, I am not advocating we remove him by force.
As long as Venezuelans are unwilling or unable to remove him they are screwed.

There is nothing we can afford to do to save them.

It's mostly unable. Also, that foreign aid isn't exactly unaffordable.

Obviously enough of them still support the regime, otherwise it would fall.
A regime with no support cannot survive. Almost certainly a minority now, but a large enough one.

But at one point a majority did choose it. The people did bring this on themselves.

Foreign aid cannot help them. It would never get to the people, just stolen by the regime.
And it would just delay the inevitable a little. It would not fix anything,

I do think we should help our allies in Colombia accommodate the Venezuelan refugee crisis they are dealing with.

Best thing would just have Colombia annex Venezuela but obviously that is not politically viable and Colombia does not want to deal with it.

[Entreum]

Socialists try create Socialist state; Socialist state fails; Socialists claim it wasn't Socialist; repeat.

Like a broken record, it repeats again and again. Just turn the damn thing off already and be done with it.

Yes, we get it, capitalism is the only true economic system.

Let's just forget the fact that A. That shitty meme is about Communism, not Socialism, B. True Communism has never actually been achieved (That would be a: Stateless, Classless society where workers control the means of production), and C. You're actually living in a Socialist society, Socialism tends to be ahead of the trend and evolves over time with it's original purpose being to give people universal suffrage, union/worker rights, etc... so if you live in any of the developed nations, then congrats, you live in a Socialist society!

No? Socialism is strictly defined as a system in which A) the means of production, or at least a large majority of the means of production are owned by the public, and B) All wealth is completely distributed. You can't claim a system is partially socialist because it has policies shared with socialist ideologies, that's like saying a system is partially fascist because some of it's policies are shared with fascist policies. Same with anarchism. Socialism can't evolve over time. Socialism is a pretty basic idea, but liberal social capitalists are not socialists and will never be socialists and that is it and there is no reason to argue otherwise.

[US-SSR]

If by "True Socialism" is meant control of the means of production by workers, then yes, that is a true statement. When did workers control the means of production in Russia? China? Cuba? North Korea? or Venezuela?

Democratic socialism as practiced in, say, Scandinavia, on the other hand is a roaring success on all counts. But for some reason those who run down so-called "socalism" in despotic and/or populist nations never are able to come up with a cogent critique of Scandinavian-style democratic socialism other than that taxes are high.

I'm reiterating Novus America's point here - but social democracy is a success in many developed countries because it combines support for the well-being of the working class, curving corporate excess, all the while allowing private enterprise to innovate and expand the economy. It's not rocket science.

Imagine how much better off social democratic nations would be if they moved toward placing more and more control over the means of production in the hands of workers! One Big Union!

[Novus America]

I'm reiterating Novus America's point here - but social democracy is a success in many developed countries because it combines support for the well-being of the working class, curving corporate excess, all the while allowing private enterprise to innovate and expand the economy. It's not rocket science.

Imagine how much better off social democratic nations would be if they moved toward placing more and more control over the means of production in the hands of workers! One Big Union!

They would not be better off.
How would that make companies more profitable?

That would entirely defeat the point of Social Democracy.
Profit making companies fund the welfare. It needs a robust, largely free private sector to raise sufficient funds. Social democracy works. Socialism does not.

Also this class warfare stuff is the OPPOSITE of social democracy. Social democracy uses cooperative rather than adversarial labor relations, management and labor work together for mutual benefit.
Management makes sure the workers are well provided for and the workers are productive in return. Unions and management work together to ensure they company is profitable AND that the workers are fairly treated and compensated.

[Aclion]

venezuela isn't socialist

For the past decade socialists held Venezuela up as an example of socialism's success, proof that it can work. You don't get to it cast it away the moment things fall apart. That's nothing but fair weather socialism.

[New Bremerton]

venezuela isn't socialist

For the past decade socialists held Venezuela up as an example of socialism's success, proof that it can work. You don't get to it cast it away the moment things fall apart. That's nothing but fair weather socialism.

It's called the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. We've had fascists on a different thread literally complain about how Nazism is "not real fascism" and how Hitler gave them all a bad name. The same goes for moderate Muslims who deny that ISIS or any of the totalitarian Islamic regimes are practicing "real Islam". This is nothing more than political correctness and an abrogation of collective responsibility. Those who resort to such faulty argumentation are part of the problem and part of the reason why extremists are able to run amuck in the first place.

[Kowani]

For the past decade socialists held Venezuela up as an example of socialism's success, proof that it can work. You don't get to it cast it away the moment things fall apart. That's nothing but fair weather socialism.

It's called the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. We've had fascists on a different thread literally complain about how Nazism is "not real fascism" and how Hitler gave them all a bad name. The same goes for moderate Muslims who deny that ISIS or any of the totalitarian Islamic regimes are practicing "real Islam". This is nothing more than political correctness and an abrogation of collective responsibility. Those who resort to such faulty argumentation are part of the problem and part of the reason why extremists are able to run amuck in the first place.

TBF, every time capitalism screws up it's "Corporatism" and not Capitalism.

[New Bremerton]

It's called the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. We've had fascists on a different thread literally complain about how Nazism is "not real fascism" and how Hitler gave them all a bad name. The same goes for moderate Muslims who deny that ISIS or any of the totalitarian Islamic regimes are practicing "real Islam". This is nothing more than political correctness and an abrogation of collective responsibility. Those who resort to such faulty argumentation are part of the problem and part of the reason why extremists are able to run amuck in the first place.

TBF, every time capitalism screws up it's "Corporatism" and not Capitalism.

True that. And let's not forget those religious people who constantly harp on about how Stalin was an atheist. You don't hear me, an atheist, complaining about his not-real-atheism do you? It's the communist side to him that's truly fucked up.

[Duvniask]

venezuela isn't socialist

For the past decade socialists held Venezuela up as an example of socialism's success, proof that it can work. You don't get to it cast it away the moment things fall apart. That's nothing but fair weather socialism.

You act as if all socialists, collectively, agreed on this, which was never the case. The reality is that Venezuela was never really socialist, but more of a social democratic country, with the state playing a stronger role in the economy, while still retaining central capitalist features such as generalized commodity production, capital accumulation and so on.

For the past decade socialists held Venezuela up as an example of socialism's success, proof that it can work. You don't get to it cast it away the moment things fall apart. That's nothing but fair weather socialism.

It's called the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. We've had fascists on a different thread literally complain about how Nazism is "not real fascism" and how Hitler gave them all a bad name. The same goes for moderate Muslims who deny that ISIS or any of the totalitarian Islamic regimes are practicing "real Islam". This is nothing more than political correctness and an abrogation of collective responsibility. Those who resort to such faulty argumentation are part of the problem and part of the reason why extremists are able to run amuck in the first place.

I'm not quite sure you understand how the "No True Scotsman" fallacy works. The fallacy involves changing the definition to exclude a universal generalization from any counterexamples. Let me illustrate with an example:

Person A: No Scotsman pours sugar on his porridge
Person B: I know person X who is a Scotsman and they pour sugar on their porridge.
Person A: No true Scotsman would do that.

Here the definition of a Scotsman (someone from Scotland) is arbitrarily being changed to avoid engaging the counterexample that person B provides against the universal generalization ("no Scotsman pours sugar on his porridge"). In other words, since there's nothing about being a Scotsman that says you have to pour sugar on your porridge, this is not logically sound.

When it comes to Venezuela and socialism, we are not changing any definitions by saying that Venezuela is not socialist; we are, in fact, abiding correctly by the definition. Capitalism, or the capitalist mode of production, is generalized commodity production, capital accumulation (i.e. what drives the pursuit of profit - "making money"), the primacy of wage labor (a class of non-owners, proletarians, who must sell their labor power and labor under the capitalist class) and the means of production being held in private hands, or at least, administered by a class separate from the workers, who extracts surplus value from their work.

Socialism as the negation of capitalism, is the socialization of production (i.e. the means of production being held and administered in common) and production for use, as the end goal, rather than for profit.

It's called the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. We've had fascists on a different thread literally complain about how Nazism is "not real fascism" and how Hitler gave them all a bad name. The same goes for moderate Muslims who deny that ISIS or any of the totalitarian Islamic regimes are practicing "real Islam". This is nothing more than political correctness and an abrogation of collective responsibility. Those who resort to such faulty argumentation are part of the problem and part of the reason why extremists are able to run amuck in the first place.

TBF, every time capitalism screws up it's "Corporatism" and not Capitalism.

Easy excuse. The difference between these two being?

[Duvniask]

Socialists try create Socialist state; Socialist state fails; Socialists claim it wasn't Socialist; repeat.

Like a broken record, it repeats again and again. Just turn the damn thing off already and be done with it.

This criticism itself repeats like a broken record, made by people who only show a surface level, meme-like understanding of socialism and its history. The chain of events you present is not reality; it would be closer to: socialists attempt to create a socialist state; socialists fail to create a socialist state; socialists correctly ascertain its failure.

The reason behind the above being that socialism cannot exist in a single country since it will inevitably be undermined by the pressures of world capitalism, not to mention, you cannot create socialism by forcing the people with the barrel of a gun - you cannot enact socialism by decree or brute force alone, it takes mass action by the working class.

Such was the case in Russia, but it ended up empowering a single authoritarian party and its bureaucratic machine, which ultimately had other designs - designs they ended up exporting to the rest of the world by seizing control of or influencing communist parties in other countries, going so far as to actively undermine genuine socialist revolutions like the one during the Spanish civil war. This is, of course, no different today, where Chinese Marxist students are being rounded up and arrested.

[Novus America]

For the past decade socialists held Venezuela up as an example of socialism's success, proof that it can work. You don't get to it cast it away the moment things fall apart. That's nothing but fair weather socialism.

You act as if all socialists, collectively, agreed on this, which was never the case. The reality is that Venezuela was never really socialist, but more of a social democratic country, with the state playing a stronger role in the economy, while still retaining central capitalist features such as generalized commodity production, capital accumulation and so on.

It's called the No True Scotsman logical fallacy. We've had fascists on a different thread literally complain about how Nazism is "not real fascism" and how Hitler gave them all a bad name. The same goes for moderate Muslims who deny that ISIS or any of the totalitarian Islamic regimes are practicing "real Islam". This is nothing more than political correctness and an abrogation of collective responsibility. Those who resort to such faulty argumentation are part of the problem and part of the reason why extremists are able to run amuck in the first place.

I'm not quite sure you understand how the "No True Scotsman" fallacy works. The fallacy involves changing the definition to exclude a universal generalization from any counterexamples. Let me illustrate with an example:

Person A: No Scotsman pours sugar on his porridge
Person B: I know person X who is a Scotsman and they pour sugar on their porridge.
Person A: No true Scotsman would do that.

Here the definition of a Scotsman (someone from Scotland) is arbitrarily being changed to avoid engaging the counterexample that person B provides against the universal generalization ("no Scotsman pours sugar on his porridge"). In other words, since there's nothing about being a Scotsman that says you have to pour sugar on your porridge, this is not logically sound.

When it comes to Venezuela and socialism, we are not changing any definitions by saying that Venezuela is not socialist; we are, in fact, abiding correctly by the definition. Capitalism, or the capitalist mode of production, is generalized commodity production, capital accumulation (i.e. what drives the pursuit of profit - "making money"), the primacy of wage labor (a class of non-owners, proletarians, who must sell their labor power and labor under the capitalist class) and the means of production being held in private hands, or at least, administered by a class separate from the workers, who extracts surplus value from their work.

Socialism as the negation of capitalism, is the socialization of production (i.e. the means of production being held and administered in common) and production for use, as the end goal, rather than for profit.

TBF, every time capitalism screws up it's "Corporatism" and not Capitalism.

Easy excuse. The difference between these two being?

Venezuela was widely praised as an example of successful socialism by many socialists.

And Venezuela was never social democratic. Sure it had welfare, but there is more to social democracy than welfare. Again social democracy combines welfare with pro private business policies and a cooperative model of labor relations.

Social democratic countries have a high degree of economic freedom.
They do not have the government seizing private businesses and imposing price and currency controls that make it impossible for most private businesses to properly function.