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“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” -- Margaret Thatcher In this case, they managed to run even out of petro-

by jazzyk 10y ago

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” -- Margaret Thatcher In this case, they managed to run even out of petro-money. Takes some skill.

coldcode 10y ago
It's not socialism, it's dictatorism. It's graftism. It's simple thievery. It's everyone's worst nightmare that your country is a madhouse that no hospital can cure. You may as well blame mothers for having children who ruined the country. But the country still has oil in the ground but not the will to use it wisely. There is still hope just no idea of how to make it happen.
- jazzyk 10y ago
  "Socialism" is rarely actual socialism. There are usually good intentions in the beginning, but then "some animals become more equal than others".
  - coliveira 10y ago
    Capitalism is also rarely actual capitalism. It is frequently just a system where friends help each other to continue increasing their fortunes. This is true specially in third world countries.
    - slantaclaus 10y ago
      Capitalism + Nepotism = Capitalism
  - jeffdavis 10y ago
    That's the problem: it's fundamentally unimplementable. First, on even a moderate scale, you quickly find out that democracy is not well suited to make the zillions of decisions needed to run an economy. Voters will be making too many decisions about things they know too little about. So, they have to delegate the power. Under capitalism, government powers are somewhat limited, so delegating has some checks and balances. But under socialism, you have to delegate power over every aspect of the economy, which is basically everything. In other words, you've just delegated arbitrary power, which has a bad history. Even if that all works out, now you have an information flow problem. Prices no longer reflect supply and demand, so how do you deal with shortages and surpluses? What if you have 10000 people applying to be "beer taster" and zero people applying to be nurses?
- eudox 10y ago
  If we go to Boston, and we find that the people in the North all have nice clean homes, and the people in the South live in a dump, then that's a valid distinction because the difference existed before we went to Boston. If you look at socialist countries throughout history, and classify them into "nice moderate progressives" and "plain old dictatorships" on the basis of outcomes, then that's not a valid distinction: it's just retroactively repainting the lines on the ideological landscape to fit your views. An ex post facto difference is none at all.
  - danharaj 10y ago
    The definition of socialism is democratic, collective worker control over the means of production. It is an extremely simple definition, which is why there are dozens of variations on the basic idea. Put 10 socialists in a room and they'll walk out with 11 ideologies. Venezuela has not had democratic ownership of the means of production. Venezuela is a state capitalist entity with either a centrally administrated or command economy depending on how you want to look at it.
    - eudox 10y ago
      This is too broad and abstract to be actionable, let alone analyzable. What is "democratic" control? If people elect representatives who try to run the economy as if it were a diesel engine, is that democratic control? Or does it mean a plurality of worker's owned corporations? Furthermore, "state capitalist" is about as pitiable a phrase as "late capitalism". Venezuela is populated by Communists and run by Communists who ran their political campaigns on Communist promises, therefore, Venezuela is a Communist country.
      - danharaj 10y ago
        That's ridiculous. Then the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy, a republic, and for the people. Capitalism is a form of economic organization based on markets, private property, the accumulation of capital, and exploitation in the "neutral" sense of extracting property from investment. Capitalism comes in many different forms just as socialism does. Just because welfare capitalism and laissez-faire capitalism are distinct does not mean capitalism as a concept is devoid of content. Just because "market" and "private property" are abstract terms that need to further instantiated to be analyzed does not mean capitalism isn't a coherent concept. State capitalism is when the state owns all the property and administers or directly controls the means of production through a bureaucracy, exactly like a corporation at the scale of a nation. > This is too broad and abstract to be actionable, let alone analyzable. What is "democratic" control? Well that's why there are so many different flavors of socialism. A lot of socialists would say you cannot simply elect socialism into office. Are they wrong? You're the one who wants to lump all people who call themselves socialists together, even though that sort of reasoning leads to absurdities like considering both North Korea and the United States of America democratic countries. If defining socialism as an empirically verifiable condition of the relationship between people and the means of production is too abstract to be analyzable, lumping everyone together based on intent and self-labeling is even worse.
- sib 10y ago
  There's a bit of No True Scotsman in these sorts of defenses of socialism in the context of places like Venezuela... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
  - sgift 10y ago
    There's always "no true scotsman" in economic discussions. Just try pointing out any problem with free market and wait for the inevitable "yes, but that isn't a real free market". Somehow, economic discussions seem to be the home of every extremist view one can find and with it all the "no true scotsman" arguments.
hackerboos 10y ago
It's funny that you quote Thatcher as she did exactly what Chavez did with the UK's North Sea oil money. She spent the cash in our own economy (via tax cuts) which sent inflation and the pound through the roof. The Norwegians got it right. If you discover oil create a sovereign wealth fund and invest the revenues outside your own economy. [1] [1] - http://www.spectator.co.uk/2008/04/why-hasnt-britain-got-a-sovereign-wealth-fund/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2008/04/why-hasnt-britain-got-a-s...
- mchaver 10y ago
  My understanding of Economics isn't very strong. Could you explain how investing the revenues outside their own economy is the right strategy?
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    It is called Dutch disease [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    The Resource Curse. Developing countries that strike oil/diamonds/whatever actually do worse than countries in the same starting position who don't discover such resources. The theory is that governments can rely on resource revenue rather than true economic development to both grow their own coffers and feed the people. True economic development requires a good legal system, education, economic freedom, and reasonable regulations. Drilling oil really doesn't. It's why if the oil disappeared tomorrow, Saudi Arabia would quickly be reduced to impoverished banana republic. I was under the impression that this phenomenon does not hold for so-called developed countries, like Norway and the UK. I could be mistaken.
    - mchaver 10y ago
      Right. I understand the resource curse and the need to diversify one's economy and develop strong, trustworthy institutions, but I didn't understand what hackerboos was referring to when they said "revenues outside your own economy". To me that sounds like invest the money in a foreign country or maybe it means invest in different industries?
nkrisc 10y ago
It's socialism as much as a common mugger is Robin Hood.
kafkaesq 10y ago
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” Whereas the current dominant system (whatever one wishes to call it) doesn't have this problem, because it provides the elites with more highly nuanced, and much more effective ways of siphoning money, power, and hope from the disadvantaged -- and in covering its tracks whilst doing so.
- adventured 10y ago
  No, the current system produces by far the highest standard of living for the most people. Which is why with the gradual spread of free market systems has resulted in a dramatically increased median global income, dramatically reduced global poverty, and dramatically decreased global inequality. The US, Canada, Australia, Germany, UK, Japan, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Singapore, Italy, South Korea - all utilize the free market system to one degree or another, and none of those are remotely close to being Socialist. Nearly all of most prosperous major economies on a per capita basis, those with the highest standard of living, are free market oriented, and anti-Socialist. The US has the fifth highest GDP per capita, and one of the highest median household income levels, as well as nearly the highest median disposable household income level; as well as a median household net wealth level higher than Germany or Sweden. For a nation of 330 million people. Let's see Socialism manage that; the closer you get to actually implementing Socialism, the faster you collapse. Versus: USSR, which struggled to even keep extremely basic grocery store shelves stocked. Cuba. Cambodia. Vietnam. Socialist Germany and Italy of the 20th century. North Korea. Mao's China. Venezuela. You can't show me one single example of Socialism ever working, not after 200 years of disastrous results from every attempt at Socialism. I've got dozens of extremely prosperous examples of the free market working, it has worked in the US for two centuries. There is no contest.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Yes, free markets win. But broad prosperity is unstable, and tends toward inequity. And inequity leads to instability via populism. So prudent free markets include safety nets. That's not working so well in the US, in recent decades.
  - 10y ago

by jazzyk 10y ago

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” -- Margaret Thatcher In this case, they managed to run even out of petro-money. Takes some skill.

coldcode 10y ago

It's not socialism, it's dictatorism. It's graftism. It's simple thievery. It's everyone's worst nightmare that your country is a madhouse that no hospital can cure. You may as well blame mothers for having children who ruined the country. But the country still has oil in the ground but not the will to use it wisely. There is still hope just no idea of how to make it happen.

jazzyk 10y ago
"Socialism" is rarely actual socialism. There are usually good intentions in the beginning, but then "some animals become more equal than others".
- coliveira 10y ago
  Capitalism is also rarely actual capitalism. It is frequently just a system where friends help each other to continue increasing their fortunes. This is true specially in third world countries.
  - slantaclaus 10y ago
    Capitalism + Nepotism = Capitalism
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  That's the problem: it's fundamentally unimplementable. First, on even a moderate scale, you quickly find out that democracy is not well suited to make the zillions of decisions needed to run an economy. Voters will be making too many decisions about things they know too little about. So, they have to delegate the power. Under capitalism, government powers are somewhat limited, so delegating has some checks and balances. But under socialism, you have to delegate power over every aspect of the economy, which is basically everything. In other words, you've just delegated arbitrary power, which has a bad history. Even if that all works out, now you have an information flow problem. Prices no longer reflect supply and demand, so how do you deal with shortages and surpluses? What if you have 10000 people applying to be "beer taster" and zero people applying to be nurses?
eudox 10y ago
If we go to Boston, and we find that the people in the North all have nice clean homes, and the people in the South live in a dump, then that's a valid distinction because the difference existed before we went to Boston. If you look at socialist countries throughout history, and classify them into "nice moderate progressives" and "plain old dictatorships" on the basis of outcomes, then that's not a valid distinction: it's just retroactively repainting the lines on the ideological landscape to fit your views. An ex post facto difference is none at all.
- danharaj 10y ago
  The definition of socialism is democratic, collective worker control over the means of production. It is an extremely simple definition, which is why there are dozens of variations on the basic idea. Put 10 socialists in a room and they'll walk out with 11 ideologies. Venezuela has not had democratic ownership of the means of production. Venezuela is a state capitalist entity with either a centrally administrated or command economy depending on how you want to look at it.
  - eudox 10y ago
    This is too broad and abstract to be actionable, let alone analyzable. What is "democratic" control? If people elect representatives who try to run the economy as if it were a diesel engine, is that democratic control? Or does it mean a plurality of worker's owned corporations? Furthermore, "state capitalist" is about as pitiable a phrase as "late capitalism". Venezuela is populated by Communists and run by Communists who ran their political campaigns on Communist promises, therefore, Venezuela is a Communist country.
    - danharaj 10y ago
      That's ridiculous. Then the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy, a republic, and for the people. Capitalism is a form of economic organization based on markets, private property, the accumulation of capital, and exploitation in the "neutral" sense of extracting property from investment. Capitalism comes in many different forms just as socialism does. Just because welfare capitalism and laissez-faire capitalism are distinct does not mean capitalism as a concept is devoid of content. Just because "market" and "private property" are abstract terms that need to further instantiated to be analyzed does not mean capitalism isn't a coherent concept. State capitalism is when the state owns all the property and administers or directly controls the means of production through a bureaucracy, exactly like a corporation at the scale of a nation. > This is too broad and abstract to be actionable, let alone analyzable. What is "democratic" control? Well that's why there are so many different flavors of socialism. A lot of socialists would say you cannot simply elect socialism into office. Are they wrong? You're the one who wants to lump all people who call themselves socialists together, even though that sort of reasoning leads to absurdities like considering both North Korea and the United States of America democratic countries. If defining socialism as an empirically verifiable condition of the relationship between people and the means of production is too abstract to be analyzable, lumping everyone together based on intent and self-labeling is even worse.
sib 10y ago
There's a bit of No True Scotsman in these sorts of defenses of socialism in the context of places like Venezuela... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
- sgift 10y ago
  There's always "no true scotsman" in economic discussions. Just try pointing out any problem with free market and wait for the inevitable "yes, but that isn't a real free market". Somehow, economic discussions seem to be the home of every extremist view one can find and with it all the "no true scotsman" arguments.

hackerboos 10y ago

It's funny that you quote Thatcher as she did exactly what Chavez did with the UK's North Sea oil money. She spent the cash in our own economy (via tax cuts) which sent inflation and the pound through the roof. The Norwegians got it right. If you discover oil create a sovereign wealth fund and invest the revenues outside your own economy. [1] [1] - http://www.spectator.co.uk/2008/04/why-hasnt-britain-got-a-sovereign-wealth-fund/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2008/04/why-hasnt-britain-got-a-s...

mchaver 10y ago
My understanding of Economics isn't very strong. Could you explain how investing the revenues outside their own economy is the right strategy?
- danieltillett 10y ago
  It is called Dutch disease [1]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  The Resource Curse. Developing countries that strike oil/diamonds/whatever actually do worse than countries in the same starting position who don't discover such resources. The theory is that governments can rely on resource revenue rather than true economic development to both grow their own coffers and feed the people. True economic development requires a good legal system, education, economic freedom, and reasonable regulations. Drilling oil really doesn't. It's why if the oil disappeared tomorrow, Saudi Arabia would quickly be reduced to impoverished banana republic. I was under the impression that this phenomenon does not hold for so-called developed countries, like Norway and the UK. I could be mistaken.
  - mchaver 10y ago
    Right. I understand the resource curse and the need to diversify one's economy and develop strong, trustworthy institutions, but I didn't understand what hackerboos was referring to when they said "revenues outside your own economy". To me that sounds like invest the money in a foreign country or maybe it means invest in different industries?

nkrisc 10y ago

It's socialism as much as a common mugger is Robin Hood.

kafkaesq 10y ago

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” Whereas the current dominant system (whatever one wishes to call it) doesn't have this problem, because it provides the elites with more highly nuanced, and much more effective ways of siphoning money, power, and hope from the disadvantaged -- and in covering its tracks whilst doing so.

adventured 10y ago
No, the current system produces by far the highest standard of living for the most people. Which is why with the gradual spread of free market systems has resulted in a dramatically increased median global income, dramatically reduced global poverty, and dramatically decreased global inequality. The US, Canada, Australia, Germany, UK, Japan, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Singapore, Italy, South Korea - all utilize the free market system to one degree or another, and none of those are remotely close to being Socialist. Nearly all of most prosperous major economies on a per capita basis, those with the highest standard of living, are free market oriented, and anti-Socialist. The US has the fifth highest GDP per capita, and one of the highest median household income levels, as well as nearly the highest median disposable household income level; as well as a median household net wealth level higher than Germany or Sweden. For a nation of 330 million people. Let's see Socialism manage that; the closer you get to actually implementing Socialism, the faster you collapse. Versus: USSR, which struggled to even keep extremely basic grocery store shelves stocked. Cuba. Cambodia. Vietnam. Socialist Germany and Italy of the 20th century. North Korea. Mao's China. Venezuela. You can't show me one single example of Socialism ever working, not after 200 years of disastrous results from every attempt at Socialism. I've got dozens of extremely prosperous examples of the free market working, it has worked in the US for two centuries. There is no contest.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Yes, free markets win. But broad prosperity is unstable, and tends toward inequity. And inequity leads to instability via populism. So prudent free markets include safety nets. That's not working so well in the US, in recent decades.
- 10y ago