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It makes me angry to see how such rampant government ineptness can completely destroy a once-thriving economy in a decade. Worse still is Maduro’s continued ins

by cal5k 8y ago

It makes me angry to see how such rampant government ineptness can completely destroy a once-thriving economy in a decade. Worse still is Maduro’s continued insistence that it’s a conspiracy against Venezuela rather than idiotic policy which is to blame.

bufferoverflow 8y ago
Pretty much every socialist-communist-attempting country went through this. China is the only kind-of successful one, but at the cost of rivers of blood, political prisoners. It's Venezuela's turn to show the whole world how socialism fails.
- chii 8y ago
  > China is the only kind-of successful one, but at the cost of rivers of blood, political prisoners. china actually "secretly" (or openly secretly) adopted capitalist ideals for it's planned economy (such as opening up foreign investments and exports of cheap labour) - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping (and slightly better article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_charact...). These reforms have single-handedly made china the world's 2nd biggest, economy after the US. Venezuela doesn't have the same level of labour exporting, and relied on natural resources, and even actively nationalized private businesses (against the interests of foreign investors). Obviously they are going to stop getting investment, and as oil prices tanked, their socialist policies (or, bribery of the voters with "free" stuff) can't be kept up.
  - avcdsuia 8y ago
    Actually, it was Zhao Ziyang’s credit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang
  - wdn 8y ago
    Please do not mix communist with socialist. Communist is a political party like the Republicans and Democrats parties we have here in the US. China has moved away from the socialist economic models for 4 decades. They thrive because they have capitalist/capitalism model.
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  Lets end this meme right here. Venuezela was and is a capitalist country. It may have had some left wing tendancies in government, but no more than say, denmark or sweden. Two countries which would rather disprove your point. EDIT: It's incredible how many people seem to read this and assume that I somehow support the venuezelan government. Just because they have poor policy does not mean that they are communist.
  - andrenth 8y ago
    Venezuela has a totalitarian government who nationalized industries and implemented heavy price controls, putting those who don’t comply in jail (or to death by government militia). I can’t imagine how this could even be compared to market economies such as Denmark or Sweden.
    - RugnirViking 8y ago
      It nationalized oil - just like norway :) As for price controls, this happens all the time in countries in the west, ranging from farming subsidies to taxes on sugary foods. Another example where this often happens is minimum price controls per unit of alcohol Yes the government hasn't been great at human rights, but that doesn't make it socialist.
      - andrenth 8y ago
        It’s nothing like Norway, no matter how many smiley faces you put over the citizens killed by the Venezuelan government. Price controls are a socialist measure. Name a country that has impelemented Venezuela-style price control, where business owners either sell at government-defined prices of face imprisonment, and you’ll spot a socialist leader doing it “for the people”.
        RugnirViking 8y ago
        The UK. You cannot sell alchohol too cheaply. We have price controls per unit. There are literally thousands of such controls in most contries. California. They control the price of electricity in the state. And yes, these are laws. If you break them, you go to prison.
- Arnt 8y ago
  Make a list of such countries, why don't you. And please restrict yourself to cases where the hyperinflation started after the regime in question took over. China's hyperinflation happened about a thousand years before Communist Party too over, the Soviet Union's started during the civil war and ended soon after the Communists won (1923-1924).
  - bufferoverflow 8y ago
    LOL. I grew up in USSR, and you are 100% wrong. Since 1922 ruble lost its denomination 6 times. The total loss of valuation is 1 to 5 quadrillion. That's not even counting the inflation since 1998, which is is another 1:5 loss, though that's not due to socialism. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Деноминация_(экономика)#В_СССР_и_России https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Деноминация_(экономика)#В_СССР... (EDIT: fixed the typo 1992 -> 1922)
    - Arnt 8y ago
      What was the inflation rate from 192x to 1989? I mean, the inflation was terrible from 1917 to 1924. Clear hyperinflation. But it's not fair to blame the communists for that. Starting around 1922 it's fair to blame them for much of it, because by that time the Communists were in almost full control. But that's roughly when the hyperinflation ended.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - tomp 8y ago
    Before collapsing, Yugoslavia has a huge inflation.
    - Arnt 8y ago
      Yes. It's listed as one of the 15 examples in Wikipedia, actually. Bufferoverflow appears to think that most/all leftist regimes led to hyperinflatiuon, a viewpoint which is not well backed by Wikipedia's list.
- dep_b 8y ago
  Like Argentina (mobilizing it's own army against it's own people to enforce IMF reforms right now) is a showcase about why market driven capitalist governments with "trickle down economics" delusions are a failure?
nailer 8y ago
Both Chavez and Maduro still receive praise from the far left opposition leader in the UK - while the government are pretty damn incompetent too, so the opposition actually has a chance of getting into power. https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992 https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> rampant government ineptness The fascinating thing to me is how stability has been maintained. Usually nations have two stable modes. Ones where the peasants are too hungry and illiterate to organize. And ones where enough people are productive and happy to make revolting a bad bet. Venezuelans are educated. Yet they've devolved to failed statehood without much fuss from the population.
- atombender 8y ago
  Depends on how you define "much": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2018_Venezuelan_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2018_Venezue....
- meiraleal 8y ago
  More than half of the country support the government and their current struggle. Venezuelans are educated, and a lot of them knows were they stand in the world. Most of them don't have time nor interest to be in the internet fighting "meme wars".
  - hisnameismanuel 8y ago
    I've lived in Colombia and Chile, close to 4 years between the two countries. I left Chile at the end of December. Venezuelan economic refugees are all over the place. In both countries. I've worked with, hired, been friends with, been driven by (etc), dozens of Venezuelans and they always talk about this subject. What the above commenter is saying is totally false. I think most YCers could see quite easily through this and realise that this is a government troll but in case you're wondering, this is your confirmation.
    - meiraleal 8y ago
      More often than not, Europeans flood Brazil with immigrants. It happened in 1800, in the end of 1800 and beginning of 1900, again around 1930, and yet again around 1950-1960. After the crash of 2008, Brazil was thriving and again, the influx of Europeans moving here grew, specially Portuguese and Spanish running from their collapsed economy. Of course there are Venezuelans trying to find a better life, the same way every Brazilian is leaving or thinking about leave the country. Why would Venezuela be different? I'm not a government troll, but aren't you?
nabla9 8y ago
People chose populism in 1999. This is the end of this path. Populism has the message that the elites are corrupt and we can solve issues by just selecting the right people to lead us. Populism assumes that there is a such thing as "will of the people" and the job of the government is to simply implement this will.
- samdoidge 8y ago
  Why conflate this with populism? This is the result of poor economic policies.
  - nabla9 8y ago
    It was the root cause. Populism and good economic policies repel each other.
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      Because your basic asumption is, that people are stupid?
      - linkmotif 8y ago
        Yes, especially popular things and popular people. If it’s popular, it’s stupid.
      - nabla9 8y ago
        People have incorrect intuitions of how the government and democracy works. They respond positively to solutions that are overly simplified. They see person problems instead of system problems. They want to solve issues one by one instead of using general principles.
        hutzlibu 8y ago
        I actually do agree. But does this not conflict with our current concept of democracy in general? Because democracy is supposed to implement the will of the people .. so populism? But I don't think we should abandom democracy, but maybe make the system simpler, smaller - easier for people to understand. So more power back to the local communitys, instead of up and zentralized.
andrenth 8y ago
I’m not sure his policy is “idiotic” in the sense that he just made mistakes running the country. This is history repeating itself for the nth time, so it can’t be a “mistake”. This is in fact socialism working as designed. Maduro and the rest of his political bureaucracy elite are doing very well, than you, at the cost of the rest of the country.
meiraleal 8y ago
> Worse still is Maduro’s continued insistence that it’s a conspiracy against Venezuela Coincidence or not, Venezuela is sitting in the world's biggest oil reserves. And there are really some foreign companies trying to get it for free (the same they are doing without effort in Brazil and Argentina, which will open 3 US military bases now that the president is "aligned" with the US).
- waffle_ss 8y ago
  Yet things got a lot worse after Chavez's continued nationalization of industries, kicking out those foreign companies and replacing workers with Chavistas.
  - diminish 8y ago
    Who are Chavistas? An ethnic or religious group in the country or are they ordinary citizens who voted for the government?
    - stevenjohns 8y ago
      I believe it's a reference to people who are strong supporters of Chavez or the ideology[0]. So not necessarily ethnic or religious -- but political. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavismo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavismo
grecy 8y ago
Identical story to Zimbabwe.
i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
It's not ineptness. It never was, never is and never has been. It's deliberate. This is a textbook example of how power has been weilded throughout history. Your angry because you assume the goal should be to make everyones lives better. Maduro's goal is to make his life better and to keep the ability to do so for as long as he can. To that end his policies have been effective. The consequences have been horrific for the people, but he doesn't give a fuck. He's only in it for himself. Why Nations Fail was such a good damn document of history and the nature of human behavior.
- mtgx 8y ago
  Your comment reminds me of Rules for Rulers by CGP Grey. Great video and relevant to this discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
  - i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
    If you like that video Why Nations Fail is basically 100x deeper explanation through examples of the last 12,000 years of history.
    - coryfklein 8y ago
      Are you referring to: * James Robinson's 18m TED Talk [1] * Daron Acemoglu's 90m lecture [2] * Daron and James's 550 page book [3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZDlBU36n0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZDlBU36n0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRAkz13cpsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRAkz13cpsk [3] https://smile.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B0058Z4NR8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532452011&sr=8-1&keywords=why+nations+fail+daron https://smile.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity...
- Bromskloss 8y ago
  > To that end his policies have been effective. How?

by cal5k 8y ago

bufferoverflow 8y ago

Pretty much every socialist-communist-attempting country went through this. China is the only kind-of successful one, but at the cost of rivers of blood, political prisoners. It's Venezuela's turn to show the whole world how socialism fails.

chii 8y ago
> China is the only kind-of successful one, but at the cost of rivers of blood, political prisoners. china actually "secretly" (or openly secretly) adopted capitalist ideals for it's planned economy (such as opening up foreign investments and exports of cheap labour) - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping (and slightly better article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_charact...). These reforms have single-handedly made china the world's 2nd biggest, economy after the US. Venezuela doesn't have the same level of labour exporting, and relied on natural resources, and even actively nationalized private businesses (against the interests of foreign investors). Obviously they are going to stop getting investment, and as oil prices tanked, their socialist policies (or, bribery of the voters with "free" stuff) can't be kept up.
- avcdsuia 8y ago
  Actually, it was Zhao Ziyang’s credit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang
- wdn 8y ago
  Please do not mix communist with socialist. Communist is a political party like the Republicans and Democrats parties we have here in the US. China has moved away from the socialist economic models for 4 decades. They thrive because they have capitalist/capitalism model.
RugnirViking 8y ago
Lets end this meme right here. Venuezela was and is a capitalist country. It may have had some left wing tendancies in government, but no more than say, denmark or sweden. Two countries which would rather disprove your point. EDIT: It's incredible how many people seem to read this and assume that I somehow support the venuezelan government. Just because they have poor policy does not mean that they are communist.
- andrenth 8y ago
  Venezuela has a totalitarian government who nationalized industries and implemented heavy price controls, putting those who don’t comply in jail (or to death by government militia). I can’t imagine how this could even be compared to market economies such as Denmark or Sweden.
  - RugnirViking 8y ago
    It nationalized oil - just like norway :) As for price controls, this happens all the time in countries in the west, ranging from farming subsidies to taxes on sugary foods. Another example where this often happens is minimum price controls per unit of alcohol Yes the government hasn't been great at human rights, but that doesn't make it socialist.
    - andrenth 8y ago
      It’s nothing like Norway, no matter how many smiley faces you put over the citizens killed by the Venezuelan government. Price controls are a socialist measure. Name a country that has impelemented Venezuela-style price control, where business owners either sell at government-defined prices of face imprisonment, and you’ll spot a socialist leader doing it “for the people”.
      - RugnirViking 8y ago
        The UK. You cannot sell alchohol too cheaply. We have price controls per unit. There are literally thousands of such controls in most contries. California. They control the price of electricity in the state. And yes, these are laws. If you break them, you go to prison.
Arnt 8y ago
Make a list of such countries, why don't you. And please restrict yourself to cases where the hyperinflation started after the regime in question took over. China's hyperinflation happened about a thousand years before Communist Party too over, the Soviet Union's started during the civil war and ended soon after the Communists won (1923-1924).
- bufferoverflow 8y ago
  LOL. I grew up in USSR, and you are 100% wrong. Since 1922 ruble lost its denomination 6 times. The total loss of valuation is 1 to 5 quadrillion. That's not even counting the inflation since 1998, which is is another 1:5 loss, though that's not due to socialism. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Деноминация_(экономика)#В_СССР_и_России https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Деноминация_(экономика)#В_СССР... (EDIT: fixed the typo 1992 -> 1922)
  - Arnt 8y ago
    What was the inflation rate from 192x to 1989? I mean, the inflation was terrible from 1917 to 1924. Clear hyperinflation. But it's not fair to blame the communists for that. Starting around 1922 it's fair to blame them for much of it, because by that time the Communists were in almost full control. But that's roughly when the hyperinflation ended.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- tomp 8y ago
  Before collapsing, Yugoslavia has a huge inflation.
  - Arnt 8y ago
    Yes. It's listed as one of the 15 examples in Wikipedia, actually. Bufferoverflow appears to think that most/all leftist regimes led to hyperinflatiuon, a viewpoint which is not well backed by Wikipedia's list.
dep_b 8y ago
Like Argentina (mobilizing it's own army against it's own people to enforce IMF reforms right now) is a showcase about why market driven capitalist governments with "trickle down economics" delusions are a failure?

nailer 8y ago

Both Chavez and Maduro still receive praise from the far left opposition leader in the UK - while the government are pretty damn incompetent too, so the opposition actually has a chance of getting into power. https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992 https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> rampant government ineptness The fascinating thing to me is how stability has been maintained. Usually nations have two stable modes. Ones where the peasants are too hungry and illiterate to organize. And ones where enough people are productive and happy to make revolting a bad bet. Venezuelans are educated. Yet they've devolved to failed statehood without much fuss from the population.

atombender 8y ago
Depends on how you define "much": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2018_Venezuelan_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2018_Venezue....
meiraleal 8y ago
More than half of the country support the government and their current struggle. Venezuelans are educated, and a lot of them knows were they stand in the world. Most of them don't have time nor interest to be in the internet fighting "meme wars".
- hisnameismanuel 8y ago
  I've lived in Colombia and Chile, close to 4 years between the two countries. I left Chile at the end of December. Venezuelan economic refugees are all over the place. In both countries. I've worked with, hired, been friends with, been driven by (etc), dozens of Venezuelans and they always talk about this subject. What the above commenter is saying is totally false. I think most YCers could see quite easily through this and realise that this is a government troll but in case you're wondering, this is your confirmation.
  - meiraleal 8y ago
    More often than not, Europeans flood Brazil with immigrants. It happened in 1800, in the end of 1800 and beginning of 1900, again around 1930, and yet again around 1950-1960. After the crash of 2008, Brazil was thriving and again, the influx of Europeans moving here grew, specially Portuguese and Spanish running from their collapsed economy. Of course there are Venezuelans trying to find a better life, the same way every Brazilian is leaving or thinking about leave the country. Why would Venezuela be different? I'm not a government troll, but aren't you?

nabla9 8y ago

People chose populism in 1999. This is the end of this path. Populism has the message that the elites are corrupt and we can solve issues by just selecting the right people to lead us. Populism assumes that there is a such thing as "will of the people" and the job of the government is to simply implement this will.

samdoidge 8y ago
Why conflate this with populism? This is the result of poor economic policies.
- nabla9 8y ago
  It was the root cause. Populism and good economic policies repel each other.
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    Because your basic asumption is, that people are stupid?
    - linkmotif 8y ago
      Yes, especially popular things and popular people. If it’s popular, it’s stupid.
    - nabla9 8y ago
      People have incorrect intuitions of how the government and democracy works. They respond positively to solutions that are overly simplified. They see person problems instead of system problems. They want to solve issues one by one instead of using general principles.
      - hutzlibu 8y ago
        I actually do agree. But does this not conflict with our current concept of democracy in general? Because democracy is supposed to implement the will of the people .. so populism? But I don't think we should abandom democracy, but maybe make the system simpler, smaller - easier for people to understand. So more power back to the local communitys, instead of up and zentralized.

andrenth 8y ago

I’m not sure his policy is “idiotic” in the sense that he just made mistakes running the country. This is history repeating itself for the nth time, so it can’t be a “mistake”. This is in fact socialism working as designed. Maduro and the rest of his political bureaucracy elite are doing very well, than you, at the cost of the rest of the country.

meiraleal 8y ago

> Worse still is Maduro’s continued insistence that it’s a conspiracy against Venezuela Coincidence or not, Venezuela is sitting in the world's biggest oil reserves. And there are really some foreign companies trying to get it for free (the same they are doing without effort in Brazil and Argentina, which will open 3 US military bases now that the president is "aligned" with the US).

waffle_ss 8y ago
Yet things got a lot worse after Chavez's continued nationalization of industries, kicking out those foreign companies and replacing workers with Chavistas.
- diminish 8y ago
  Who are Chavistas? An ethnic or religious group in the country or are they ordinary citizens who voted for the government?
  - stevenjohns 8y ago
    I believe it's a reference to people who are strong supporters of Chavez or the ideology[0]. So not necessarily ethnic or religious -- but political. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavismo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavismo

grecy 8y ago

Identical story to Zimbabwe.

i_made_a_booboo 8y ago

It's not ineptness. It never was, never is and never has been. It's deliberate. This is a textbook example of how power has been weilded throughout history. Your angry because you assume the goal should be to make everyones lives better. Maduro's goal is to make his life better and to keep the ability to do so for as long as he can. To that end his policies have been effective. The consequences have been horrific for the people, but he doesn't give a fuck. He's only in it for himself. Why Nations Fail was such a good damn document of history and the nature of human behavior.

mtgx 8y ago
Your comment reminds me of Rules for Rulers by CGP Grey. Great video and relevant to this discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
- i_made_a_booboo 8y ago
  If you like that video Why Nations Fail is basically 100x deeper explanation through examples of the last 12,000 years of history.
  - coryfklein 8y ago
    Are you referring to: * James Robinson's 18m TED Talk [1] * Daron Acemoglu's 90m lecture [2] * Daron and James's 550 page book [3] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZDlBU36n0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsZDlBU36n0 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRAkz13cpsk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRAkz13cpsk [3] https://smile.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B0058Z4NR8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532452011&sr=8-1&keywords=why+nations+fail+daron https://smile.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity...
Bromskloss 8y ago
> To that end his policies have been effective. How?