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Ah, the no-true-socialist fallacy. You can't just say their political system wasn't responsible for this, especially when it's how these types of governments a

Ah, the no-true-socialist fallacy. You can't just say their political system wasn't responsible for this, especially when it's how these types of governments always end up.

Bartweiss 9y ago
Reading Jacobin articles on Venezuela has been fascinating. They're fairly honest about facts-on-the-ground, which makes for some interesting contortions to avoid criticizing socialism. The two leading stances seem to be "it would have been totally fine except for enemy action" and "sure, chronic shortages are a predictable issue with not paying for things, but at least the starvation is distributed equally!"
ionised 9y ago
Yeah it is definitely nothing at all to do with their hyper-reliance on oil.
ue_ 9y ago
> Ah, the no-true-socialist fallacy. No. In order for this to be a fallacy, it actually has to be fallacious. Many years I have been on Slashdot, Reddit and HN and seen this bandied about. I do not believe it is a fair assessment. One of the core tenets of Socialism is collective worker control over social means of production and its democratic management. There have not even been plans in Venezuela to put this into place. Another is the abolition of the functions of private (i.e bourgeois) property via seizure. This has not happened and many businesses employing wage labour continue unimpeded. Another is the abolition of wage labour. This has not happened nor has there been any apparent effort put towards it. Another is production for use (i.e maximising use-value) rather than for exchange, exchange containing within it the operation of the Law of Value. Almost all goods continue to be produced for the purpose of exchange value maximisation. Another is the removal of money, as Engels said in Anti-Duhring, "Money is already contained in embryo in the concept of value; it is value, only in developed form." This has not happened nor has there been any effort toward it. A possible replacement for money is the adoption of non-exchangable labour vouchers, a possible suggestion by Marx and Proudhon for "lower stage Communism". This has not happened nor has there been any effort toward it. Venezuela exhibits all aspects of the capitalist mode of production. If you think that "Socialism" means "government doing stuff" or "government gives away money to people", you are either using a very strange and ahistorical definition of Socialism, or you are wrong. The actions of Venezuela more closely resemble a weak social democratic model. So what exactly are you trying to say?
- wooter 9y ago
  I mean you are wrong. My family had their farm, property, and businesses taken away. I've argued for years against socialists that its not some socialist paradise. now that its impossible to hide, people still don't admit their wrong. this is on bernie sander's site to this day: 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. Who's the banana republic now? - Sanders (https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/close-the-gaps-disparities-that-threaten-america https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/close-the-...) Instead they just deflect about oil prices. Are oil prices shooting protests and abolishing free speech? Is Dubai (with less money) able to stock tampons and basic medicine?
  - ue_ 9y ago
    I apologise, I did not mean to say that it hasn't happened at all, rather, it has not happened on the scale that would be required for the abolition of private property. I am curious, what kind of business was it? I can't really defend Sanders on that point, ultimately he and I have different goals, my goal is not to reduce income inequality, but rather to create the material conditions such that things like "income inequality" cannot manifest themselves.
- justadeveloper2 9y ago
  The thing I see failing within socialism is individual work effort--everyone comes to believe that work is someone else's deal and not theirs or they become discouraged by the high taxes and simply go Gault. Then the crackdowns begin, further eroding morale until everyone is just beaten down, poor, and decrepit in body and spirit. Then they are ruled over with an iron fist. Marxism is the bane of humanity--the ultimate promise of something for nothing which is the biggest lie ever told.
  - ue_ 9y ago
    >The thing I see failing within socialism is individual work effort--everyone comes to believe that work is someone else's deal and not theirs Socialism isn't about having other people work for you, it is about bringing about the necessary conditions such that the average amount of work per person required in society is reduced by eliminating what Marx terms 'contradictions' which are inherent in the capitalist mode of production. Nor do I believe it is about high taxes, or any taxes at all - in fact a key component of Socialism is the withering away of the state as the functions are either abandoned for not fitting material conditions or transferred to the proletariat. >Marxism is the bane of humanity--the ultimate promise of something for nothing which is the biggest lie ever told. I don't think that's true at all, and it's a gross misrepresentation that a Socialist society is a "promise of something for nothing". There are a great many people who would benefit by the kind of labour-saving optimisations that a Socialist mode of production introduces, especially those who put in something and get very close to nothing. As Russian anarcho-Communist Kropotkin said in The Conquest of Bread: >In virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dig, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master. He must sell his labour for a scant and uncertain wage. His father and his grandfather have toiled to drain this field, to build this mill, to perfect this machine. They gave to the work the full measure of their strength, and what more could they give? But their heir comes into the world poorer than the lowest savage. If he obtains leave to till the fields, it is on condition of surrendering a quarter of the produce to his master, and another quarter to the government and the middlemen. And this tax, levied upon him by the State, the capitalist, the lord of the manor, and the middleman, is always increasing; it rarely leaves him the power to improve his system of culture. If he turns to industry, he is allowed to work — though not always even that — only on condition that he yield a half or two-thirds of the product to him whom the land recognizes as the owner of the machine.
dep_b 9y ago
Europe has been riding an unprecedented wave of stability and prosperity after the Second World War while many countries adopted a form of socialism. And if they wouldn't try to ignore problems around immigration so hard for the past decades the left wing would probably still be quite popular.
- arethuza 9y ago
  The left wing has grown in popularity in the UK over the last while - look at the last election results.
  - dep_b 9y ago
    While a majority voted for Brexit, a movement very much aligned with alt right. There's not a clear message here but for some reason right wing popular politics are on a rise where the left more or less stands still in terms of ideas.
    - arethuza 9y ago
      I didn't mean Brexit - which I didn't think was that closely aligned with the normal left-right spectrum. After all, the left wing in the UK regarded the EU as a capitalist plot and the right wing regarded it as a socialist plot!
  - vixen99 9y ago
    What was popular were Corbyn's promised bread and circuses as in free university tuition for instance. He has subsequently retracted that promise. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/0/shelving-corbyns-tuition-fee-promise-will-come-back-haunt-labour/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/0/shelving-corbyns-tuit...
radarsat1 9y ago
> You can't just say their political system wasn't responsible for this He didn't? > I'm not against socialism but this particular form of it was basically handing out money for nothing.

Ah, the no-true-socialist fallacy. You can't just say their political system wasn't responsible for this, especially when it's how these types of governments always end up.

Bartweiss 9y ago

Reading Jacobin articles on Venezuela has been fascinating. They're fairly honest about facts-on-the-ground, which makes for some interesting contortions to avoid criticizing socialism. The two leading stances seem to be "it would have been totally fine except for enemy action" and "sure, chronic shortages are a predictable issue with not paying for things, but at least the starvation is distributed equally!"

ionised 9y ago

Yeah it is definitely nothing at all to do with their hyper-reliance on oil.

ue_ 9y ago

> Ah, the no-true-socialist fallacy. No. In order for this to be a fallacy, it actually has to be fallacious. Many years I have been on Slashdot, Reddit and HN and seen this bandied about. I do not believe it is a fair assessment. One of the core tenets of Socialism is collective worker control over social means of production and its democratic management. There have not even been plans in Venezuela to put this into place. Another is the abolition of the functions of private (i.e bourgeois) property via seizure. This has not happened and many businesses employing wage labour continue unimpeded. Another is the abolition of wage labour. This has not happened nor has there been any apparent effort put towards it. Another is production for use (i.e maximising use-value) rather than for exchange, exchange containing within it the operation of the Law of Value. Almost all goods continue to be produced for the purpose of exchange value maximisation. Another is the removal of money, as Engels said in Anti-Duhring, "Money is already contained in embryo in the concept of value; it is value, only in developed form." This has not happened nor has there been any effort toward it. A possible replacement for money is the adoption of non-exchangable labour vouchers, a possible suggestion by Marx and Proudhon for "lower stage Communism". This has not happened nor has there been any effort toward it. Venezuela exhibits all aspects of the capitalist mode of production. If you think that "Socialism" means "government doing stuff" or "government gives away money to people", you are either using a very strange and ahistorical definition of Socialism, or you are wrong. The actions of Venezuela more closely resemble a weak social democratic model. So what exactly are you trying to say?

wooter 9y ago
I mean you are wrong. My family had their farm, property, and businesses taken away. I've argued for years against socialists that its not some socialist paradise. now that its impossible to hide, people still don't admit their wrong. this is on bernie sander's site to this day: 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. Who's the banana republic now? - Sanders (https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/close-the-gaps-disparities-that-threaten-america https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/close-the-...) Instead they just deflect about oil prices. Are oil prices shooting protests and abolishing free speech? Is Dubai (with less money) able to stock tampons and basic medicine?
- ue_ 9y ago
  I apologise, I did not mean to say that it hasn't happened at all, rather, it has not happened on the scale that would be required for the abolition of private property. I am curious, what kind of business was it? I can't really defend Sanders on that point, ultimately he and I have different goals, my goal is not to reduce income inequality, but rather to create the material conditions such that things like "income inequality" cannot manifest themselves.
justadeveloper2 9y ago
The thing I see failing within socialism is individual work effort--everyone comes to believe that work is someone else's deal and not theirs or they become discouraged by the high taxes and simply go Gault. Then the crackdowns begin, further eroding morale until everyone is just beaten down, poor, and decrepit in body and spirit. Then they are ruled over with an iron fist. Marxism is the bane of humanity--the ultimate promise of something for nothing which is the biggest lie ever told.
- ue_ 9y ago
  >The thing I see failing within socialism is individual work effort--everyone comes to believe that work is someone else's deal and not theirs Socialism isn't about having other people work for you, it is about bringing about the necessary conditions such that the average amount of work per person required in society is reduced by eliminating what Marx terms 'contradictions' which are inherent in the capitalist mode of production. Nor do I believe it is about high taxes, or any taxes at all - in fact a key component of Socialism is the withering away of the state as the functions are either abandoned for not fitting material conditions or transferred to the proletariat. >Marxism is the bane of humanity--the ultimate promise of something for nothing which is the biggest lie ever told. I don't think that's true at all, and it's a gross misrepresentation that a Socialist society is a "promise of something for nothing". There are a great many people who would benefit by the kind of labour-saving optimisations that a Socialist mode of production introduces, especially those who put in something and get very close to nothing. As Russian anarcho-Communist Kropotkin said in The Conquest of Bread: >In virtue of this monstrous system, the son of the worker, on entering life, finds no field which he may till, no machine which he may tend, no mine in which he may dig, without accepting to leave a great part of what he will produce to a master. He must sell his labour for a scant and uncertain wage. His father and his grandfather have toiled to drain this field, to build this mill, to perfect this machine. They gave to the work the full measure of their strength, and what more could they give? But their heir comes into the world poorer than the lowest savage. If he obtains leave to till the fields, it is on condition of surrendering a quarter of the produce to his master, and another quarter to the government and the middlemen. And this tax, levied upon him by the State, the capitalist, the lord of the manor, and the middleman, is always increasing; it rarely leaves him the power to improve his system of culture. If he turns to industry, he is allowed to work — though not always even that — only on condition that he yield a half or two-thirds of the product to him whom the land recognizes as the owner of the machine.

dep_b 9y ago

Europe has been riding an unprecedented wave of stability and prosperity after the Second World War while many countries adopted a form of socialism. And if they wouldn't try to ignore problems around immigration so hard for the past decades the left wing would probably still be quite popular.

arethuza 9y ago
The left wing has grown in popularity in the UK over the last while - look at the last election results.
- dep_b 9y ago
  While a majority voted for Brexit, a movement very much aligned with alt right. There's not a clear message here but for some reason right wing popular politics are on a rise where the left more or less stands still in terms of ideas.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    I didn't mean Brexit - which I didn't think was that closely aligned with the normal left-right spectrum. After all, the left wing in the UK regarded the EU as a capitalist plot and the right wing regarded it as a socialist plot!
- vixen99 9y ago
  What was popular were Corbyn's promised bread and circuses as in free university tuition for instance. He has subsequently retracted that promise. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/0/shelving-corbyns-tuition-fee-promise-will-come-back-haunt-labour/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/0/shelving-corbyns-tuit...

radarsat1 9y ago

> You can't just say their political system wasn't responsible for this He didn't? > I'm not against socialism but this particular form of it was basically handing out money for nothing.