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>>This same thing happened under a more liberal capitalist government before. That's literally how Chavez got into power. The biggest difference between then an

>>This same thing happened under a more liberal capitalist government before. That's literally how Chavez got into power. The biggest difference between then and now is the severity of the oil price drop. There were plenty of petro-states which didn't see the kind of economic devastation Venezuela did when oil prices plummeted. The key difference was that other petro-states had a robust private sector, which not only meant they had more private savings that halped the economy absorb the shock from low oil prices, but also meant they were more diversified. The drop in oil prices should never have led to mass malnutrition. Venezuela even with low oil prices is a middle income country. It was socialist policies like price controls that led to the long food lines and empty supermarket shelves. >>An exacerbating factor is that the same forces that tried to coup Chavez in 2002 are of course still politically active and, rationally given their interests, using their economic connections to exacerbate the economic collapse through various means. The United States recently freezed some Venezuelan government finances which is obviously intended to further destabilize the government. This is what the Venezuelan government is blaming its economic problems on, but there is actually no evidence at all that the intervention of the US government is anywhere near enough to be responsible for any significant portion of the economic decline of Venezuela. There are no significant sanctions on Venezuela and the US imports much of its oil from the country.

ue_ 9y ago
In my view it is a sign more of the fact that Venezuela thought it could depend so much on oil that it failed to diversify rather than a failure of its mode of planning, though that's not without criticism, one would have hoped they learned from the disaster of the USSR's Five Year Plan. Price controls aren't really a Socialist policy - the Socialist policy in this case would be the gradual change from the production of commodities to the production only of use-values, lacking their exchange value dimension. If price controls are a Socialist policy, then it doesn't take much for Socialism to come about - but that's clearly not what Socialists are talking about when they talk about Socialist policy. Marx, for one, wasn't in favour of price controls to my knowledge. Nor were the other Socialist economists and theorists. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea from other than the oft-repeated myth that Socialism is merely when the government "does stuff".
- platz 9y ago
  correct, Socialism according to Marx is not 'the government does stuff'. 'the government does stuff', when the private sector is replaced by government functions, is really State Capitalism (because the state controls the means of production, not the workers). In fact, it was Stalin that declared 'when the state is in charge, we got socialism'. It confused everybody but it's wrong.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    Curiously enough, Chavez had similar things to say about state capitalism: >>“It is impossible, within the framework of the capitalist system, to solve the grave problems of poverty of the majority of the world’s population,” the Venezuelan leader said. “We must transcend capitalism. But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project, and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything." Socialism is always one execution away from utopia.
    - platz 9y ago
      And did he achieve this stated goal? no... so you can't pretend like he did achieve it, and then somehow the failed outcome proves that the goal is itself invalid. I don't think that what politicians claim is a sound method to understand the definition of something, especially when we _do_ have the definition already (again, what Marx described). Just because Chavez made claim X, that doesn't mean that the original definition is somehow altered. And remember, your original claim was that price controls are socialist, which still doesn't make sense; pivoting to something Chavez said doesn't correct this. I am no fan of what Venezuela or Chavez is doing, and I don't support their policies. If you want an example of something that is more faithful to what Marx described, take a look at the Mondragon Corporation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation which is a competitive worker cooperative based in Spain. Notice that this has nothing to do with the government.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago

ue_ 9y ago

In my view it is a sign more of the fact that Venezuela thought it could depend so much on oil that it failed to diversify rather than a failure of its mode of planning, though that's not without criticism, one would have hoped they learned from the disaster of the USSR's Five Year Plan. Price controls aren't really a Socialist policy - the Socialist policy in this case would be the gradual change from the production of commodities to the production only of use-values, lacking their exchange value dimension. If price controls are a Socialist policy, then it doesn't take much for Socialism to come about - but that's clearly not what Socialists are talking about when they talk about Socialist policy. Marx, for one, wasn't in favour of price controls to my knowledge. Nor were the other Socialist economists and theorists. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea from other than the oft-repeated myth that Socialism is merely when the government "does stuff".

platz 9y ago
correct, Socialism according to Marx is not 'the government does stuff'. 'the government does stuff', when the private sector is replaced by government functions, is really State Capitalism (because the state controls the means of production, not the workers). In fact, it was Stalin that declared 'when the state is in charge, we got socialism'. It confused everybody but it's wrong.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  Curiously enough, Chavez had similar things to say about state capitalism: >>“It is impossible, within the framework of the capitalist system, to solve the grave problems of poverty of the majority of the world’s population,” the Venezuelan leader said. “We must transcend capitalism. But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project, and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything." Socialism is always one execution away from utopia.
  - platz 9y ago
    And did he achieve this stated goal? no... so you can't pretend like he did achieve it, and then somehow the failed outcome proves that the goal is itself invalid. I don't think that what politicians claim is a sound method to understand the definition of something, especially when we _do_ have the definition already (again, what Marx described). Just because Chavez made claim X, that doesn't mean that the original definition is somehow altered. And remember, your original claim was that price controls are socialist, which still doesn't make sense; pivoting to something Chavez said doesn't correct this. I am no fan of what Venezuela or Chavez is doing, and I don't support their policies. If you want an example of something that is more faithful to what Marx described, take a look at the Mondragon Corporation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation which is a competitive worker cooperative based in Spain. Notice that this has nothing to do with the government.
CryptoPunk 9y ago