Socialism is a failed ideology, but that won't stop the Marxist from arguing otherwise
>Protests against the long national nightmare of socialism continue in Venezuela, as the death toll over the last month has risen to 37 and over the weekend demonstrators tore down a statue of Hugo Chavez, the former president who ushered in the era of chavismo, his Latin American flavor of socialism, or "Bolivarian socialism"—the protests represent the inevitable end to any socialist experiment.
>n his heyday, Chavez was heralded by a number of leftists in the West as a model of democratic socialism. After Chavez's 2013 death, filmmaker Michael Moore gushed over Chavez's nationalization of the oil industry. "He used the oil $ 2 eliminate 75% of extreme poverty, provide free health & education 4 all," Moore tweeted. U.K. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Chavez showed the world that "the poor matter and wealth can be shared" and that he made massive contributions to Venezuela" and the world.
>Chavez was succeeded by his vice president, Nicolas Maduro, who continued Chavez's policies sans the kind of charisma that blinded some to the incompetence of Chavez and the incoherence of Bolivarian socialism, and eventually without the high oil prices to subsidize profligate government spending either. Left to its own devices, the centralized planning of socialism has failed spectacularly in Venezuela.
>America's favorite homegrown socialist, Bernie Sanders, once pointed to Venezuela as a model too.
>"These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger," Sanders wrote in a 2011 op-ed. "Who's the banana republic now?"
>Last year, the average Venezuelan living in extreme poverty lost 19 pounds amid mass food shortages largely created and then exacerbated by government price controls—60 percent of Venezuelans said they had to skip at least one meal a day. Maduro joked that the "Maduro diet," as the government-induced starvation has been called, was leading to better sex, to the applause of government workers and party loyalists but few others. There have been shortages of food as well as goods like toilet paper, deodorants, condoms, and even beer.
>Some hardline socialists have been more critical of Chavez, criticizing the Western left's infatuation with Chavez, who the Socialist Party of Great Britain complained did not really understand socialism. Their argument boiled down to the fact that, to paraphrase Rick & Morty, Chavez should be trying socialism with extra steps. The Socialist Worker condemned Maduro's slide to authoritarianism earlier this month, even though the authoritarianism started soon after Chavez first came to power. The idea that socialism can ever effectively exclude cronyists when it accumulates the kind of power to which cronyists are attracted is preposterous.
>Sanders, when he ran for president last year, no longer brought up the Venezuelan example of socialism. Instead he leaned on Americans' misinformed view of Scandinavian countries as socialist paradises. But Scandinavian countries like Sweden have "deregulation, free trade, a national school voucher system, partially privatized pensions, no property tax, no inheritance tax, and much lower corporate taxes," as Johan Norberg wrote last year.
Adam Ramirez
>Western leftists should not be allowed to distance themselves from the spoiled fruits of socialism in Venezuela, which they embraced only a few years ago. Countries across South America welcomed different versions of socialism over the last two decades, often to praise in the West, and, as The Economist noted in its latest Democracy Index, South American voters have tired of this left-wing populism and are slowly returning to more sensible, right-of-center free market policies.
>Free market policies also happen to be the best antidotes to the currently ascendant populism and economic authoritarianism, as they have the power to best mitigate the kind of economically poor conditions in which populism thrives in the first place.
>Maduro, and diehard supporters, blame the United States for Venezuela's woes, an increasingly unbelievable assertion in the face of evidence to the contrary. Even ThinkProgress, in a piece on the catastrophe in Venezuela that manages to avoid mentioning socialism (or chavismo or Bolivarianism for that matter) a single time, dismisses Maduro's fever dreams of U.S. responsibility for Venezuela's self-inflicted economic and political wounds.
>The opposition in Venezuela won control of the legislature in elections in 2015, which was followed by the Maduro government working diligently to consolidate power even further. Protesters in Venezuela have demanded early elections, while Maduro has proposed a new constitution protesters call a coup.
>The imprisoned opposition leader Leopold Lopez has called for the protests to continue.
Reminder that socialists will forget this and as soon as it descends into anarchy will disingenuously call it the next "libertarian paradise" like they did with Somalia, another failed former socialist state.
Stay mad Marx cucks.
Noah Sullivan
Nigga, the price of oil tanked. Go back to Sup Forums, where not knowing shit about what you're talking about is acceptable.
Adam Miller
>my ideology d-didn't fail it was the o-o-oil that f-failed...
kinda funny how your entire government just collapses when one export drops
Lincoln Butler
...
Aiden Lee
Yeah, the whole socialist government there was built on one export. So...genius, big surprise when it fell when the price fell. Look at North Dakota, I'll assume socialism caused North Dakota's gdp to drop, too.
Aaron Morales
The incoherence of the Marxist, everyone. Comparing a state in the Union to a starving nation.
Lincoln Robinson
Even Sweden has some fucking cultural and economical problems.
Hunter Hernandez
>>Socialism is a failed ideology, ...
It seems to work all over Europe even with an extra 5 million unemployed sand niggers sucking it up.
Isaiah Barnes
>ideology
Elijah Cruz
They will learn they can't keep printing money to sustain welfare systems, bubble economies always burst
Easton Lopez
Oh noes, oil prices cooled off. How ever will they survive!
Ryan Lewis
I compared 2 economies who were boom and bust from the recent oil market. Sorry if the simplicity of such a comparison is so beyond you that coherence is impossible. May I suggest you kill yourself to correct your problem?
Chase Wilson
nigga, that chart is dated in 2014. Do you have access to a time machine?
Charles Murphy
well it wasn't REAL socialism. If I were in charge things would be a lot different and the venezuelan people would be living in a veritable garden of eden.
Daniel Bell
venezuelan here, you dont know what the shit youre talking about,
>socialism >some stupid military guy that steals money from a country and makes it a narco-state
pick one
Cooper Bennett
...
Wyatt Russell
But, that's exactly how it works, goy! If you borrow Money at interest from your Jew Masters, you can print all the money you want.
Julian Campbell
Venezuela is not socialism at all. Stalin either.
Sebastian Garcia
Venezuelans thought the same shit at first.
Europe is a massive welfare state, which is a terrible distortion of the economy, but when it comes to socialism they are socialism-lite. South America, on the other hand, went full retard and now they are starving.
Europeans (and pro-Europe Americans) also don't appreciate how much poorer they are than America, in no small part because of their shitty welfare states.
Christopher Howard
Literally one in the same senpai. Socialism encourages the centralization of state power (paradoxical I know) which leads to your situation, a authoritarian government.
Isaac Williams
...
Jaxon Ramirez
venezuela was never socialist or communist >authoritarianism by an uneducated military guy whos previous job was to edit films and a track record of killing people and a coup that landed him in jail after he killed innocent citizens
>bernie sanders social democracy with a proven track record and good education and good morals proven time and time again
lets keep going tho
Juan Lopez
Here you go, person who never read an economics book but thinks they know socialism:
You'll notice the chart shows a 1/3 drop in the price of oil. That killed the profit margin that made capital investment possible for the growing shale oil of N Dakota and offshore oil production of Venezuela. The result was the tanking of both oil production places and pretty much every other place that had to spend extra on production or capital to compete with more established sources with easier means of getting oil.
This isn't rocket science. Now, please, take your retarded ass back to Sup Forums.
Nathan Barnes
and yet you never even tie your argument in as being the direct result of a socialist economy... that's called emotional thinking
dude there are literally 1 thousand million niggers in africa starving and other thousands in the rest of the world
Sebastian King
yeah Africa that's a great example of a free market with a strong central government and rule of law
Parker Ross
venezuelan here that wiki page is all fucked not accurate at all but OK person thats never set a foot in venezuela....
the elections were rigged from the beginning and subsequent elections as well
im not about to sit here to explain to you why criminals commit crimes, but its been known to happen
a former president of the election committee now lives under asylum in miami and she denounced all this and has the proof and all but well, you know, criminals.... also the presidents nephews are in jail in NY for trafficking
BUT KEK OK sorry you know nothing only what wikipedia says
but tell me more again about how thats socialism and all that heres another wikipedia you might find useful
you have 45 million poor americans that's like a 15 per cent of the population
democracy, comunism, socialism and capitalism is bullshit
i really think a well made socialism with a global agreement might work well but considering that the 70% of the millionaries at the moment are humungous assholes it could not happen
Ryder Davis
>make big money off oil >distribute all the money to the poor >and literally nothing else
Don't worry guys, this can't fail.
Eli Fisher
the difference is our poor become fat asses while the socialist poor become skeletons
curious that
Jayden Smith
Venezuela isn't socialist, so this entire post is pointless. Good job faggot.
Elijah Hall
>make big money off oil >distribute all the money to the poor >and literally nothing else
ACTUALLY more like
>steal all the oil money for you and a select few >spend like 0.001% on poor but make sure you make videos and propaganda about how much youre helping the poor, make tons and tons and tons on top of tons of projects about helping the poor but never actually complete them >have strong ties to narco guerillas and shit like that >tell people youre socialist
my point is American "poor" are better off than most of the world
Angel Brooks
Lol, ah, considering I just showed you factual information, it appears your insistence that socialism is the reason for the fall of the economies of both Venezuela and N Dakota would be the "emotional thinking". Too generous of a description, since i doubt your thinking extends beyond retarded trolling to lengthen your threads. You are still the least qualified person in the room to discuss economics.
Luke Davis
And every time capitalism fails we just go ahead and start some wars and screw the poor. Call it something cool like... Hunt for weapons of mass destruction, or... The global war on Terror, or... Make America Great Again.
Jose Nelson
>capitalism fails going 200+ years strong senpai
try again
Leo Torres
Now THAT's socialism. Food stamps are always available to keep US farmers propped up.
Gabriel Hughes
Here's what you fail to realize:
Advocating for socialist policies does not equate to advocating for socialism generally and without qualification.
Venezuela is a failed state for many reasons. It's policies have not only failed but have been taken over by corrupt private interests. It is a dictatorship, utterly corrupt, and the starvation of the people is not simply the result of "socialism" like some kind of ghost.
Finally, some socialist policies are genuinely good and have had great effect for our people. Medicaid, medicare, social security, state sponsored scholarships and welfare for example.
Robert Bell
that has nothing to do with communism or capitalism dude, forget it
if you america decided to be socialist there would not be a big difference since the country is so fucking fine in economical terms.
Angel Cruz
from the OP:
>>Some hardline socialists have been more critical of Chavez, criticizing the Western left's infatuation with Chavez, who the Socialist Party of Great Britain complained did not really understand socialism. Their argument boiled down to the fact that, to paraphrase Rick & Morty, Chavez should be trying socialism with extra steps. The Socialist Worker condemned Maduro's slide to authoritarianism earlier this month, even though the authoritarianism started soon after Chavez first came to power. The idea that socialism can ever effectively exclude cronyists when it accumulates the kind of power to which cronyists are attracted is preposterous.
what you are describing as "socialist" policies is welfare backed by an incredibly resilient economy. none the less medicare and social security are bankrupting the nation, bringing us ever closer to the Venezuelan situation.
Gavin Hill
Capitalism fails regularly. The government bails it out regularly (socialism). Quit acting like you know anything about economics. You're a clown.
Henry Howard
>if you america decided to be socialist there would not be a big difference since the country is so fucking fine in economical terms. see America is only "fine" because our dollar is used the world over and it's in no one's interest to see it collapse. we're running hundred-billion dollar deficits every quarter, it's not "fine" at all.
Ian Garcia
Medicare and Social Security have been paid for. Not having them would bring us closer to the Somalian situation. So, please, again, quit acting like you know anything about economics. You just don't.
Dylan Johnson
What funds the US government in the first place retard?
Wyatt Morales
boom and bust cycles are part of a capitalist economy; the fact the government thinks some firms are "too big to fail" notwithstanding.
Mason Smith
>Medicare and Social Security have been paid for. simply false, but I know you're just baiting me at this point. social security MIGHT have been paid for if the funds hadn't been dipped into for other things. now it's not even sustaining itself.
Lucas Peterson
The same thing that funds any government, retard.
For all that is holy, PLEASE, quit acting like you know economics.
Connor Cox
Implying cheeseburger heartattack hasn't killed more? Im looking for a number from venezuela, cant seem to find one. They have to beat 600,000 annually.
Julian Howard
>quit acting like you know economics. wow this accusation has been repeated about a dozen times now
paid shill or just incoherent child?
try making arguments instead of shouting everyone down.
Benjamin Long
>70% of the millionries at the moment are humungous assholes Yeah except that they are the only people bringing wealth to the US economy and also millionaires tend to be far more generous with their wealth than any other demographic
Matthew Hughes
Venezuelan here, this is why you can't let negroes take over your country
Gavin Long
be sure to factor in that Venezuela has 1/10th the population of America
include deaths from starvation since skeletons don't get heart attacks.
Ian Brown
The money was "dipped into" by fucking "supply side" economics, which has been thoroughly debunked at this point. Even now, both funds can exist for 2060 with some simple adjustments. Scrapping SS and medicare will cause more problems than you think that'll solve. Again, begging, please cease this charade that you know anything about economics and go back to Sup Forums, moron.
Carson Price
Medicare and social security are the problem? Are you sure it's not-
>>corporate subsidies >>pork barrel spending >>military spending >>terrible legislation like a multibillion dollar wall >>Corporate tax cuts
Oh yeah, but medicare is the problem. People like you have been brainwashed into believing things that help society do the opposite.
Jose Richardson
Ah, no, it just gets tiring correcting this imaginary world you've created while watching right wing bullshit that you've constructed and call"economics". All the while, you use everything except actual knowledge of economics to form your responses. This one you accuse me of being an agent of opposition, as opposed to someone that knows you're full of shit. Just stop.
Nicholas Powell
>Medicare and social security are the problem? yes darling. they are most definitely the problem
green is non-discretionary spending IE, we are on the hook for it whether or not it's funded.
Oliver Perez
>Just stop. You stop; go form a counter-argument and get back to me.
I bar you from making claims that everyone "knows nothing about economics" anymore, that's played out.
Brody Anderson
imagine being so desperate to defend capitalism that you are stuck saying "at least america is better than a third world country"
Dylan Harris
Would you suggest more tax cuts for the 1%, corporate welfare, and increased military spending?
Elijah Torres
i would encourage tax cuts for everyone once we are revenue-neutral, but we have trillions in debt to pay down first. military spending can be dropped dramatically but requires closing overseas bases and letting Europe fund it's own defense, something that's not likely to happen anytime soon.
cronyism is always toxic but it's a drop in the bucket compared to mandatory spending.
Leo Rodriguez
Read the fucking textbooks and you wouldn't get that criticism. Reality is waiting for you. It's about 1600 pages (micro- and macro- economics) away.
Oliver Perry
National-Socialism is the only way, user.
Nazism last a few years and Germany become a superpower in no time.
Still don't believe me? Ask Franco and the Spanish miracle or Pinochet and the Chilean miracle.
In truth, Fascism is the only way.
Aaron Thompson
...
Caleb Ward
That's not even a counter-argument, my guy.
Gabriel Diaz
Ah, how about the shadow military budget that doesn't even get mentioned? We don't even know how much we actually spend on our military. We give out no-bid contracts to lobbyists, many of whom aren't even headquartered in this country to evade paying fucking taxes. Dude, just shut the fuck up.
"revenue neutral"? Seriously? You guys cut taxes for corporations and millionaires every time and, no, it doesn't trickle the fuck down.
Please stop.
Evan Barnes
did you not understand my argument? i was trying to engage with you honestly.
FWIW the rich already pay half of their payroll income in tax. i can't say with a straight face they should pay more. corporate taxes amount to a double-tax on recipients of corporate revenue.
EVERYONE should pay a lot less in tax; it stands to reason the people paying the most deserve the most relief.
Asher Nguyen
I would say correcting your embarrassing gaps in economic knowledge and then surmising the exchange with a recommendation you read THE BASIC TEXTBOOKS ON THE SUBJECT is neither bait nor a counter argument. It's a suggestion that one should embark on a wonderful journey to understand something they obviously don't know. Slay your ignorance. Remove the blindfold. Grow a pair of intellectual balls. Read.
Levi Thompson
Can we stop acting like the government is a private institution that balances a checkbook. Debt is a factor of growth in any modern economy and paying back such debt is a matter of being able to sell it.
Nicholas Thomas
ok fine. so what is your alternative? corporatocracy?
Levi Smith
...
Jaxon Williams
Marxism has failed so much that its modern advocates have resorted to isolating themselves into toxic SJW circles and pushing out shitty memes about Stalin every hour. They also are masters of infighting and engage in historical reenactments of the 1930s purges within their own camps all the time. Not only that Marxism (dialectical materialism) is just a shitty epistemology that has churned out pretty bad practices: the psychoanalytic school and the frankfurt school. Also who fucking cares about social realism? Boring, bland, and dry much like the life of any poor soul living under the red fist.
In short fuck Marxism.
Nicholas Moore
When someone asks for a counter argument, maybe then it should be in your best interest to go along and do just that. If you want to get your point across, you need to be able to address your point, defend your point, and refute your opponents claim in a thorough manner. If you can't do any of those key things, which is most evident by your lack of any argument what-so-ever, then you better hold your tongue rather than engage in higher-than-thou attitudes and pretentious Ad Hom attacks against your opponent while also trying to steer off topic.
Still waiting for that counter-argument though, no worries.
Luke Nelson
don't bother, he's a professional baiter. he's not here to argue ideas, just divide and conquer
Robert Hernandez
>FWIW the rich already pay half of their payroll income in tax
Citation needed. The top tax rate hasn't been 50% since the 1950's.
>EVERYONE should pay a lot less in tax; it stands to reason the people paying the most deserve the most relief.
They have been enjoying "tax relief" in non-"revenue neutral" periods for decades. (pic related) Must everything you say be so false?
Elijah Reed
You are right, we shouldn't strive for improving society, we should just let ourselves be controlled by the markets, all the evil in the world is the socialists/communists fault.
Elijah Adams
Obviously not OP.
Nathan Flores
All you mention is Venezuela and Chaves (i only read the first post tho cause that shit it too long). But yeah even perfect ideas fail sometimes because we live in an imperfect world. Look at the housing market crash in america. Almost no one expected that, and it was covered up until the very end. But you also only point out the negatives. All i gotta say is look at sweeden and finland.
Isaac Price
>But you also only point out the negatives. All i gotta say is look at sweeden and finland. should read the second post famalam
>Sanders, when he ran for president last year, no longer brought up the Venezuelan example of socialism. Instead he leaned on Americans' misinformed view of Scandinavian countries as socialist paradises. But Scandinavian countries like Sweden have "deregulation, free trade, a national school voucher system, partially privatized pensions, no property tax, no inheritance tax, and much lower corporate taxes," as Johan Norberg wrote last year.
all this market goodness AND a homogeneous culture to boot
Carson Adams
I can't counter an argument that's based solely in fantasy with anything other than correcting them in each case and suggesting the proper information source to avoid such embarrassment in the future.
A knowledge of how to argue is just bullshit. I never said you don't know how to bullshit. So, quit acting like that's a substitute for factual knowledge.
Nathaniel Adams
I'm sorry but you need to go. I asking you to leave quietly.
Just go friend.
Charles Young
Bro the housing market issue in the US was a pain in the ass but comparing that to Venezuela is a bit much.
Angel Jenkins
More bullshit. Go back to Sup Forums.
Nicholas Stewart
...
James Foster
The fact of the world and humility is that we have enough manpower and the world has enough resources to provide for everyone, we just decide to put a monetary value on life. We have the smarts and the emerging technology to populate other planets in the near future and maby explore the universe in the distant future. But as it is we kill over oil, religion, and ideology. Eye for an eye shit. You killed him ill kill you. The whole world is in debt, like an obscene amount. How is that possible? Is god gonna come collect or is it aliens? Not to mention that our money is based of a useless metal, that people decided was worth something cause it was shiny. If we get our shit together the human race can survive time itself. But as it is we are going to kill ourselves or die when the sun goes into its supernova stage. Just having this argument is another thing setting us back. People can have different ideas and that's fine, but we all need to come together if we want to survive as a race.
Luis Moore
Not an argument. Back to /reddit/ with you.
Nicholas Bell
We are the world...
Brody Fisher
Posting memes won't keep you from looking like a moron when you try to fake it about economics, kid. You lost. Bigly.
Leo Lee
ITT: People who give zero shits about learning what Socialism is about and rather troll others with their ignorance
Ryder Parker
Wasn't comparing the two things themselves. Just that both ideas were seemingly indestructible when created. Nobody thought the housing market would crash, never even popped into their minds. Same thing with Venezuela
Leo Gonzalez
>implying im economic bro Lol, butthurt, ain't even me
Jordan Mitchell
>Nobody thought the housing market would crash Bateman knew it would
Eli Bennett
Because it is easier for a feble mind to hope for a successful life, as they know from TV ads and what is socially acceptable, than to face the bitter truth about them being tools for the high class to maintain themselves in control.
