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Comment by DominikR | Hacker News Reader

And so Venezuela goes down the predictable path that Socialism is always leading to.

Do they already have forced labor camps in Venezuela? There's already cases of Cannibalism in Venezuelan prisons so they must be close to the final Socialist stage.

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> Do they already have forced labor camps in Venezuela?

Yes. http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/29/news/economy/venezuela-decre...

Just like, say, Norway. Oh wait, Norway has the highest standard of living in the world.

You guys are using different definitions of socialism. Norway has a market economy with a strong welfare state. Venezuela follows a central planning model where the currency exchange rate and commodity prices are set and enforced by the government. What is happening to Venezuela is not surprising to anyone. It's Economics 101. The fix is to give up control and let prices float freely. It will be painful in the short-term, because they dug themselves into this hole, but it will get better.

Norway isn't particularly socialist at all. Where did you get that idea?

For example, according to the Heritage economic freedom ranking, Norway is 70.8. For comparison the US has 75.4, Singapore 87.8 and Venezuela 33.7.

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

The Fraser institute has similar results: http://www.freetheworld.com/2015/economic-freedom-of-the-wor...

Quick note; economic freedom is expected to reach %100 in socialism too, as the necessity of planning should reduce over time. Even if it is an obivious indicator, I recommend against using it as a "socialism detector".

The Heritage Foundation is conservative, and so it has a radically different definition of economic freedom than your socialist one.

But I bet you already knew that.

Yeah, I'm still advicing against using it on its own in general.

Very small society with high social and ethnic cohesion and trust and guaranteed oil income is able to make welfarism work. I don't think you can derive many broader lessons from that.

Not the lessons your worldview wants anyway

Since the late 20th century, Norway has been quite multicultural.

Uh, who was it they brought in to manage their oil fund? Was it <drumroll> an Iraqi? Yes it was!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9673157

hmm. i dont see how that contradicts parent post. one iraqi doesnt change a nations demographics.

Does the state own the means of production in Norway?

Yes, to some degree.

Statoil ownership according to Wikipedia:

Government of Norway (67%) Government Pension Fund of Norway (3%) Others (30%)

So by your measure, the United States is also socialist too because it owns certain companies in certain sectors?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Government-owned_co...

The government controls 70% of production.

It's also a very well administered government.

Are you referring to Statoil only or the entire Norwegian economy? Are you implying that the vast majority of supermarkets and restaurants in Norway are owned by the government?

The government controls 70% of the entire economy's production?

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