4 ms·

This is of course getting a ton of press in Commie hating USA, but how much worse is this than narcostates or right-wing deathsquad-enforced regimes set up by t

This is of course getting a ton of press in Commie hating USA, but how much worse is this than narcostates or right-wing deathsquad-enforced regimes set up by the US? And of course since the US/CIA loved to plot overthrows and juntas, how could the country trust aid offers? And the wire recordings of Henry Kissinger trying to deliberately collapse the Argentinian economy before their takeover... I get that this is site is often a huge capitalistic libertarian O-jerk, and I'm not naive to the logistical failings of authoritarian socialism, but I wonder what the full story is here...

clarkmoody 10y ago
Libertarians oppose all the things you mention in your first two paragraphs. Your beef is with neoconservatives, not libertarians. At the core of the libertarian philosophy is non-intervention.
clock_tower 10y ago
The people didn't starve under the US-backed dictatorships, so those regimes have that much going for them. But they didn't starve under Castro either, and living conditions were probably better under Castro than in any country in the Warsaw Pact (see Anthony Daniels' _Utopias Elsewhere_); so I'd guess that most of the story is that Chavez was just that dumb.
- Aloha 10y ago
  An Island like Cuba is just small enough to make actual communism possibly work - it has just slightly less people that the Los Angeles Metro area does - it also has a very homogeneous cultural background. Cuba however isn't quite rich enough in natural resources to actually reach autarky however, if it was, Cuba might be a very different story. I'm not a proponent of anything Authoritarian, but communism on a small scale does fascinate me.
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    just small enough to make actual communism possibly work This is an important distinction. Humans evolved in tribes, and many of our instinctual responses to how we think we should work together are optimized for such a setting. But these things just can't scale upwards. There are many things that work well at a community level that fall apart with larger groups. So when we see a problem in the world and feel our heart-strings tugged, we should be suspicious that our emotional response is something that can really make sense in the big picture. I do agree that such things might be able to work at small scales. But I suspect that the threshold is well below the size that you're citing here.
    - Aloha 10y ago
      I suspect the threshold is actually about 450 people - but if you scale that up, and have multiple units of 450 people each - then you start to have something workable. The long term problem with planned economies is the inherent inflexibility and immovability in the face of changing realities. Markets work because they are irrational, and move with people as situations change - like a subconscious reflex - planned economies require conscious effort to reapportion their efforts in the face of change. The solution to socialism is collectives - lots of little ones from 50-500 people, which then interact with each other using market settlement and price adjustment mechanisms.
  - randiantech 10y ago
    May I ask you what actually fascinates you of living in a society where actually theres no private property?
pastProlog 10y ago
Yes, Honduras is in a far worse state right now than Venezuela after Obama and Hillary supported the military coup against the majority indigenous/mestizo backed president, and the handful of white landowners of 90% of the land had the US trained/armed/funded army take over. Berta Caceres is just the latest murder, scores of political candidates, organizers etc. have been murdered, the murder rate is higher than Venezuela certainly, Hondurans have been pouring over the US border as reported etc. Venezuela has been very heavily dependent on oil for decades and this happens every time oil's price plunges for a long period in Venezuela, look at its history since WWII. The same is happening to every oil-dependent region in the world (except Saudi Arabia, which is doing the market flooding). The article opening lines talking about how unique the situation is without mentioning what is happening in Honduras this moment is a laugh.
- botfly 10y ago
  Additionally, the Venezuelan crude is generally viewed as a low quality product. It's not as suitable for many applications. So when prices drop it's one of the first products to get pushed out of the market But why talk about that when we can have silly ideological arguments over the merits of communism and capitalism instead
  - astrodust 10y ago
    It's heavy crude, not light crude, but it's oil nonetheless.

clarkmoody 10y ago

Libertarians oppose all the things you mention in your first two paragraphs. Your beef is with neoconservatives, not libertarians. At the core of the libertarian philosophy is non-intervention.

clock_tower 10y ago

The people didn't starve under the US-backed dictatorships, so those regimes have that much going for them. But they didn't starve under Castro either, and living conditions were probably better under Castro than in any country in the Warsaw Pact (see Anthony Daniels' _Utopias Elsewhere_); so I'd guess that most of the story is that Chavez was just that dumb.

Aloha 10y ago
An Island like Cuba is just small enough to make actual communism possibly work - it has just slightly less people that the Los Angeles Metro area does - it also has a very homogeneous cultural background. Cuba however isn't quite rich enough in natural resources to actually reach autarky however, if it was, Cuba might be a very different story. I'm not a proponent of anything Authoritarian, but communism on a small scale does fascinate me.
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  just small enough to make actual communism possibly work This is an important distinction. Humans evolved in tribes, and many of our instinctual responses to how we think we should work together are optimized for such a setting. But these things just can't scale upwards. There are many things that work well at a community level that fall apart with larger groups. So when we see a problem in the world and feel our heart-strings tugged, we should be suspicious that our emotional response is something that can really make sense in the big picture. I do agree that such things might be able to work at small scales. But I suspect that the threshold is well below the size that you're citing here.
  - Aloha 10y ago
    I suspect the threshold is actually about 450 people - but if you scale that up, and have multiple units of 450 people each - then you start to have something workable. The long term problem with planned economies is the inherent inflexibility and immovability in the face of changing realities. Markets work because they are irrational, and move with people as situations change - like a subconscious reflex - planned economies require conscious effort to reapportion their efforts in the face of change. The solution to socialism is collectives - lots of little ones from 50-500 people, which then interact with each other using market settlement and price adjustment mechanisms.
- randiantech 10y ago
  May I ask you what actually fascinates you of living in a society where actually theres no private property?

pastProlog 10y ago

Yes, Honduras is in a far worse state right now than Venezuela after Obama and Hillary supported the military coup against the majority indigenous/mestizo backed president, and the handful of white landowners of 90% of the land had the US trained/armed/funded army take over. Berta Caceres is just the latest murder, scores of political candidates, organizers etc. have been murdered, the murder rate is higher than Venezuela certainly, Hondurans have been pouring over the US border as reported etc. Venezuela has been very heavily dependent on oil for decades and this happens every time oil's price plunges for a long period in Venezuela, look at its history since WWII. The same is happening to every oil-dependent region in the world (except Saudi Arabia, which is doing the market flooding). The article opening lines talking about how unique the situation is without mentioning what is happening in Honduras this moment is a laugh.

botfly 10y ago
Additionally, the Venezuelan crude is generally viewed as a low quality product. It's not as suitable for many applications. So when prices drop it's one of the first products to get pushed out of the market But why talk about that when we can have silly ideological arguments over the merits of communism and capitalism instead
- astrodust 10y ago
  It's heavy crude, not light crude, but it's oil nonetheless.