3 ms·

I'm not sure if I qualify as leftist, but I can answer your questions. Is there anything that makes me accept that leftists plicies are bad? Yes. Evidence, like

by mvaliente2001 11y ago

I'm not sure if I qualify as leftist, but I can answer your questions. Is there anything that makes me accept that leftists plicies are bad? Yes. Evidence, like Venezuela's example, prove that some leftists policies are bad. The current government and the policies it have taken are the only responsible for the current inflation and product scarcety. But that doesn't mean that every leftist policy is bad. For example, the Venezuela government started programs to eliminate analphabetism, increased the number of doctors and free hospitals (in a program with the help of Cuba), reduced the infant death rate, increased the education budget, the access to potable water and other things like that. Granted, none of these measures are leftist per se, but also, these are not the things a right wing government cares about (at least not our right wing governments). I think the reason so many people in Latin America is leftist is not ideology. It's simply that the other option is not liberalism, free markets and laisse faire. The alternative is chronism, medieval institutions (feudalism is alive in a lot of places), privatization of earnings and nationalization of loses.

fiatjaf 11y ago
Thank you for being the only one to answer my question. But let me make another one. We will not agree on an answer, you don't even have to reply if you don't want, but I want to ask anyway: you don't see any relationship between the reasoning behind free hospitals and the Venezuela economic collapse?
- mvaliente2001 11y ago
  Relationship between some improvement in health services and economic collapse? No. I think the economic trouble is due to a bigger, wider mismanagement. Health and education are just a drop of water that could (and should) remain untouched even after the prices of oil went down. When I talked about an increase in health and education expenditures, I was talking about increase in the percentage of the budget, so they were done at expense of other things, and it began before the increase in oil prices. The years previous to Chavez, the health budget was 3.5-4.5% and it went up to 6.0%, and remained above 5.0 up to 2010. As you can see, these are not exorbitant expenses, and they are below other countries' expenditures like Uruguay, Tanzania or Uganda [1]. The economical crisis is not because the government increasing expenditures in some basic human needs, but because there hasn't been a cut down anything at all. There are a lot of valid criticisms that can be done to Venezuela's government, but expending a little bit more in its people is not one, in my opinion. [1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

fiatjaf 11y ago

Thank you for being the only one to answer my question. But let me make another one. We will not agree on an answer, you don't even have to reply if you don't want, but I want to ask anyway: you don't see any relationship between the reasoning behind free hospitals and the Venezuela economic collapse?

mvaliente2001 11y ago
Relationship between some improvement in health services and economic collapse? No. I think the economic trouble is due to a bigger, wider mismanagement. Health and education are just a drop of water that could (and should) remain untouched even after the prices of oil went down. When I talked about an increase in health and education expenditures, I was talking about increase in the percentage of the budget, so they were done at expense of other things, and it began before the increase in oil prices. The years previous to Chavez, the health budget was 3.5-4.5% and it went up to 6.0%, and remained above 5.0 up to 2010. As you can see, these are not exorbitant expenses, and they are below other countries' expenditures like Uruguay, Tanzania or Uganda [1]. The economical crisis is not because the government increasing expenditures in some basic human needs, but because there hasn't been a cut down anything at all. There are a lot of valid criticisms that can be done to Venezuela's government, but expending a little bit more in its people is not one, in my opinion. [1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS