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An entire article that sidesteps the fact that yet another socialist country has failed. "We will end poverty as we know it" Nope, sorry....... try again.

by giantwolf2017 9y ago

secstate 9y ago
In all fairness, the corrupting influence of big money interests from federalist countries does not help here. One can hardly argue that socialist reformers in Central America were the reason those governments failed. Political assassinations driven by the policies of capitalist nations caused those instabilities. Not trying to argue that Chavez and now Maduro are not demagogues, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. No one ever said pure socialism worked, just like pure capitalism is a pipe dream. The world catches it's breath when moderates of both sides of the spectrum are in power.
- bassman9000 9y ago
  Yet another but it wasn't socialism episode. Nationalization of strategic sectors and currency manipulation had nothing to do I guess.
  - secstate 9y ago
    No, it's not that simple. Scandinavia has had a pretty good run with socialism. But Norway does the old college-educated trick of investing 10% of it's oil income. And Sweden has a much more diversified economy. In South and Central America, what we have are dirt poor countries with enormous export income. For sixty years the wealthy of these countries have been siphoning off the export income to make themselves rich at the expense of everyone else. When a charismatic demagogue steps up and offers to make you feel as rich as the countries export bank account suggests you should be, what are you supposed to do? Politely decline and tell them to invest in infrastructure and a rainy day fund? Socialism in the extreme is a hazard to stable government. But so is capitalism, federalism, militarism, and any other -ism.
    - mc32 9y ago
      Brazil has a wealth of resources --unbelievable, more than Mexico perh but yet they continue to do worse than middling -socialists didn't improve Brazil one bit despite being in power over two decades. They should look to Chile. A can do country. One which almost went socialist but avoided it and came out doing pretty well for itself. The problem with those counties is that the whether they go communist or socialist or any dictatorship is that the caudilo mentality permeates everything. Same behavior in the Caucasus region. Mexico has been ravaged by this mentality --their economy was pretty much on par with European countries outside the big five in the early 1900s --but caudiloes happened.
      - secstate 9y ago
        Chile is ruled by their socialist party at the moment. The originator of the modern Chilean Socialist Party, Lagos, actually took the traditional Marxist socialist platform and moderated it to much success. Turns out moderation and not a black and white this OR that platform is more resilient. Who knew?
        mc32 9y ago
        I think it's helped they are all pretty much centrists who favor free enterprise and don't go about nationalizing domestic or foreign companies --and don't engage in typical caudilo practices much of the southern cone suffers from. Bachelet resisted calls from her coalition to "redistribute" moneys from their copper mining ops to close income differences --something a certain bolivian would do no question for a little income "high" today.
    - leovonl 9y ago
      Social welfare is not socialism.
      - fyolnish 9y ago
        It’s not? I find it strange how people view socialism in black and white, but not capitalism.
yongjik 9y ago
I hate this line of reasoning, because it almost always end up asserting why America should not adopt socialist policy X, because socialist countries fail. When it is pointed out that policy X is currently active in Sweden, France, or Japan, it is handwaved away by saying how these countries are too small/too big/too sparsely populated/too densely populated/culturally homogeneous/just plain culturally different. Apparently Venezuela and Cuba have so much in common with the USA, unlike those exotic places like Canada or Sweden, whose culture we barely understand.

An entire article that sidesteps the fact that yet another socialist country has failed. "We will end poverty as we know it" Nope, sorry....... try again.

secstate 9y ago

In all fairness, the corrupting influence of big money interests from federalist countries does not help here. One can hardly argue that socialist reformers in Central America were the reason those governments failed. Political assassinations driven by the policies of capitalist nations caused those instabilities. Not trying to argue that Chavez and now Maduro are not demagogues, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water here. No one ever said pure socialism worked, just like pure capitalism is a pipe dream. The world catches it's breath when moderates of both sides of the spectrum are in power.

bassman9000 9y ago
Yet another but it wasn't socialism episode. Nationalization of strategic sectors and currency manipulation had nothing to do I guess.
- secstate 9y ago
  No, it's not that simple. Scandinavia has had a pretty good run with socialism. But Norway does the old college-educated trick of investing 10% of it's oil income. And Sweden has a much more diversified economy. In South and Central America, what we have are dirt poor countries with enormous export income. For sixty years the wealthy of these countries have been siphoning off the export income to make themselves rich at the expense of everyone else. When a charismatic demagogue steps up and offers to make you feel as rich as the countries export bank account suggests you should be, what are you supposed to do? Politely decline and tell them to invest in infrastructure and a rainy day fund? Socialism in the extreme is a hazard to stable government. But so is capitalism, federalism, militarism, and any other -ism.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Brazil has a wealth of resources --unbelievable, more than Mexico perh but yet they continue to do worse than middling -socialists didn't improve Brazil one bit despite being in power over two decades. They should look to Chile. A can do country. One which almost went socialist but avoided it and came out doing pretty well for itself. The problem with those counties is that the whether they go communist or socialist or any dictatorship is that the caudilo mentality permeates everything. Same behavior in the Caucasus region. Mexico has been ravaged by this mentality --their economy was pretty much on par with European countries outside the big five in the early 1900s --but caudiloes happened.
    - secstate 9y ago
      Chile is ruled by their socialist party at the moment. The originator of the modern Chilean Socialist Party, Lagos, actually took the traditional Marxist socialist platform and moderated it to much success. Turns out moderation and not a black and white this OR that platform is more resilient. Who knew?
      - mc32 9y ago
        I think it's helped they are all pretty much centrists who favor free enterprise and don't go about nationalizing domestic or foreign companies --and don't engage in typical caudilo practices much of the southern cone suffers from. Bachelet resisted calls from her coalition to "redistribute" moneys from their copper mining ops to close income differences --something a certain bolivian would do no question for a little income "high" today.
  - leovonl 9y ago
    Social welfare is not socialism.
    - fyolnish 9y ago
      It’s not? I find it strange how people view socialism in black and white, but not capitalism.

yongjik 9y ago

I hate this line of reasoning, because it almost always end up asserting why America should not adopt socialist policy X, because socialist countries fail. When it is pointed out that policy X is currently active in Sweden, France, or Japan, it is handwaved away by saying how these countries are too small/too big/too sparsely populated/too densely populated/culturally homogeneous/just plain culturally different. Apparently Venezuela and Cuba have so much in common with the USA, unlike those exotic places like Canada or Sweden, whose culture we barely understand.