I don't know how Chomsky "has been proved devastatingly wrong about Venezuela". Do you think these two reactions he had to events in Venezuela were incorrect?
Insofar as human rights, Chomsky saw respect for them beginning to dip six years ago, and reacted accordingly. I should note that eight years ago, Honduras had its first left-leaning president in living memory ousted by a coup from US-trained, US-funded military officers, after which, the US stood alone being supportive of the coup against virtually all other Latin American nations. Actually Wikileaks cables show the US knew what was going on and how they supported this. Elections were scheduled for 2013 and dozens of candidates and supporters were killed. The murder rate of Honduras has exploded, as has immigration from it. You never hear it in the US news though, unless unaccompanied Honduran chidlren appear at the border, and then you never hear why, just arguments between the Trumpites and anti-Trumpites about what to do with them.
Insofar as Venezuela's economy, it has been similar to other economies heavily dependent on energy. Including the energy-dependent areas of the US economy that voted heavily for Trump. It is why Venezuelan minister Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo helped found OPEC in 1960. Venezuela had decades of an up and down economy along with the price of oil before Chavez came along.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/5/chomsky_leftist_latin_...
-Preventing markets and prices from working and substituting with centralized economic planning.
https://fee.org/articles/you-cant-deny-that-venezuela-is-a-s...
Instead, we see there is still wage labour. Thrre is still money, which as Engels reminds us contains the law of value in embryo, there is still private property, both state owned and private (as we saw in the USSR and Cuba and more obviously in China).
The very fact we are discussing prices shows the proof is in the pudding - there is no Socialism, there is a government attempting to control a capitalist (fitting all of Marx's conditions for a capitalist mode of production as outlined in Capital) economy, the fact that the free market has been limited, or that the state owns private property rather than McDonald's or Microsoft is frankly irrelevant.
"State socialism is a classification for any socialist political and economic perspective advocating state ownership of the means of production either as a temporary measure in the transition from capitalism to socialism, or as characteristic of socialism itself..."
and: "State socialism was traditionally advocated as a means for achieving public ownership of the means of production through nationalization of industry. This was intended to be a transitional phase in the process of building a socialist economy. The goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists and consolidate industry so that profit would go toward public finance rather than private fortune. Nationalization would be the first step in a long-term process of socializing production..."
So there still may be private capital, prices, money, and other things like redistribution in a state socialist country. Even if they eventually want to transition to pure socialism.
I agree that this can exist and has the potential to exist, and the usage of the state temporarily to secure the power of the proletariat (their dictatorship) was something espoused by Marx and Engels. The issue is that it requires the proletariat as a whole to be in control of this state; at the moment, the state is run not by workers but by people who are acting as bourgeois on a global scale - buying and selling in a capitalist economy, trading commodities. They employ wage labour. As such, Venezuela does not operate a state Socialist system.
There is some confusion around the meaning of Socialism; in Marx's day, the word 'Socialism' and 'Communism' were synonymous, though Marx distinguished between lower and higher stages of Communism. The idea that Socialism is a form of state in the first place I am willing to concede, though this is largely a Leninist invention.
>So there still may be private capital, prices, money, and other things like redistribution in a state socialist country.
I don't know if I agree; the key component of a Socialist economy is outlined by what doesn't exist in the capitalist economy, namely in particular the absence of the law of value, which prescribes that commodities have both exchange and use value; if production is predominantly focused such that use values, but not exchange value is being produced (i.e we have products rather than the specific form of product, commodity) then it can be said that the workers own the means of production, that they are not paid wages in order to exchange products. Socialism is the breaking of Marx's chain of exchange (M-C-M').
The nationalisation of industry is conducted in the transition of power from the bourgeois state to the proletarian state (which necessarily incorporates proletarian democracy); however as soon as this transfer of power is complete, the state should start dismantling, withering away is Engels put it.
And we do not see this happening in Venezuela. The state continues to trade on a global scale (oil etc.), employing wage labour (showing that the state is not in the control of the workers) and is thus not Socialist. If you can find any major Socialist theorist who is in support of wage labour within a Socialist economy, I'd be surprised.
Ah, the never-ending cycle of socialist revolution, followed by establishing socialism, and finally followed by a string of desperate attempts to pin the effects of socialism because no true socialists would ever do any wrong.
Don't go lecture me about how bad "capitalist Venezuela" was. I have family members living in Venezuela, and not only did they saw their property and livelihood seized by Maduro's thugs, one family member also died due to restrictions imposed on access to basic medical care by your pet socialist utopia.
Maybe worse is overstepping, things under the capitalist government were often fairly rotten as well. Blaming it all on socialism needs more proof than I've seen provided
I was born in the middle of a crisis, but never lacked anything important. Nowadays I can say with certainty that my family is poorer than when I was a kid.
Chavez left a country with a deeply broken economy before he died.
That's irrelevant to my question.
Doesn't the problems with state socialism result from being attack by state capitalism which tend to be much stronger nations?
The US and europe attacking venezuela and blaming their failures on state socialism is like blaming democracy for ukraine's loss of crimea. When larger nations bully smaller nations, smaller nations suffer.
We can never truly ascertain the merits of socialism, capitalism or any other ism really because it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
The chinese and their state socialism has been the most successful nation the past 40 years after the US decided to play nice with them.
Venezuela has nearly 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, so I think it makes sense to ask why they have done so much worse than other countries. It can't just be due to US meddling.
Speaking as a Venezuelan, what the bloody hell are you talking about?
"...and blaming their failures on state socialism..."
Venezuela's failures are the failure of state socialism. Price controls, capital controls, expropriations, redistribution policies, central planning, disregard for property rights, and other insane economic policies tanked the country. High oil prices were the only thing hiding the structural damage these policies were creating for years.
Using that logic, the US isn't a capitalist nation and venezuela isn't a socialist nation. And the guy's assertion that venezuela is suffereing because of state socialism is pointless.
China and venezuela are both socialist countries. You can't just decide to accept one because it fits into your worldview and reject the other because it doesn't.
Yes there is. All nations on earth adhere to the capitalist mode of production, entailing the following: primacy of wage labour, capital accumulation by the owners of the means of production, majority capitalist control over the means of production, the existence of private property and the fact that commodities (which have use and exchange value) are produced rather than simple good (which have only use value).
This is what Marxists mean when they talk about the difference between capitalism and Socialism.
>China and venezuela are both socialist countries.
Why? What precisely makes them socialist, and by whose definition? North Korea calls itself "democratic".
No they're not. Production isn't controlled by the public. China doesn't even classic social-democratic policies like free health care, free higher education or a strong welfare system. It's much more a cut-throat proto-capitalist state, which happens to also also a not a democracy.
China is an autocracy, which is a form of government associated with the east block that used to call itself socialist and communist. Socialism is an economic system that China doesn't have.
At what level of government control over the economy do you draw the line between socialism and capitalism? It can't be 100%, that's called communism. If you draw it at 50% for socialism, a very good argument exists that we are there right now, just establish that the government controls anywhere near 20% of the decisions private businesses make.
No level, where do you get this idea that Socialism and capitalism exist on a scale between government control over the economy and no control over the economy? I can't imagine what would arouse such an opinion. Marx never said "Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the more Socialist it is". That's complete rubbish.
>It can't be 100%, that's called communism.
No, it's not. Communism, like other anarhcist ideologies, has no "government control", and this is painfully obvious by reading Marx's discussion on the self-regulating sphere of activity.
And this is of course ignoring the fact that in Marx's time, Socialism and Communism had the same meaning. Their distinction is almost entirely a Leninist one.
Here's the thing: Socialism isn't about government control over a capitalist economy, and it's not about acting like a capitalist but on a global scale. That's called state capitalism.
The real world definition of socialism is government control of economic activities. And there has never been a "socialist" economy without dictatorship and fascism. Socialism is a mandatory step on the road to fascism.
Socialism isn't ever absolute...as if the Nordic Model isn't "socialist" either.
Chomsky is intelligent and points real problems in USA and capitalism, but he is not infinitely intelligent and should not put the weight of his name in things that he does not have any first-hand experience, because it is damaging. Already some hard-left local people cite Chomsky and call it a day, along with the young lefties that think that Brazil was a paradise until the 1980s.
On the aspect of privatization, some of that was necessary, but the main criticism is not about the privatization per se, but the way it was handled, giving strategic companies for almost nothing.
If you want to criticize the left, please don't resort to lies just because most of the HN aren't brazilians.
And to be honest, a lot of young right wingers are the ones that miss the dictatorship and say that the country was better in that time, in which case what you said couldn't be more distant from the reality.
Let's not forget that local left worships Getúlio Vargas, which was a right-wing dictator and a full-fledged fascist (a true fascist that fortunately was not a Nazi puppet, which made a lot of difference!). Also, the local military regime belonged firmly to the right, but borrowed some ideas from the left (strong presence of the state in economy, auto-sufficiency in manufacturing). Many times the impeached Dilma was compared to General Geisel; they even committed the same errors regarding the economy.
Anyway I am not sure if you want to debate or just calling people liars.
Source needed, credible sources about lefties that loved our military dictatorship would be greatly appreciated.
I can agree with you on Getulio Vargas, but I disagree in everything else and would love to see you support your arguments with sources.
I call things what they are, and saying that the left has fond memories of the dictatorship in the same way that the right has is a false equivalence.
I won't say that we don't have a few lefties that admire Stalinism and left-wing dictatorships, but I find very hard to believe that the left is fond of our dictatorship, would gladly read some sources that corroborate your arguments.
He praises the Venezuela's state socialist policies, but manages to blame the problems on private capital.
This probably didn't need saying, but what an obnoxious generalization to make.
Chomsky supported initially Chavez, (who, by the way, and not as your link insinuate, was democratically elected), because his government initially improved the conditions of the most humble people in the country. People that lived in misery in one of the most resources rich countries in the world, elected what was then, a new hope.
As frequently happen, the new elite was incompetent, and get corrupted fast. Consequently, Chomsky criticized them.
Here there is video of Chomsky criticizing the Venezuela government:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maHgtLp21Iw
And, for completion sake, here there is a video of the government of Venezuela criticizing Chomsky's criticism of them (in Spanish only, sorry):
That doesn't just happen "frequently", it has happened in 100% of socialist countries after the "revolution". The "critics" then get silenced or killed, unless they happen to (ironically) be sitting in a comfortable chair in an imperialist capitalist country such as the USA, like Chomsky.
You'd think that with this track record, a smart guy like Chomsky would begin to see that there must be something fundamentally wrong with socialist political theory. Yet, he keeps retreating into the "No True Scotsman" fallacy whenever the next socialist experiment fails.
Now riddle me this. Name me one failed socialist country that failed (as I believe all will) without massive Western intervention to ruin their economy. We're kinda pricks, aren't we?
Venezuela's situation main blame should go, in my opinion, to the people in charge in Venezuela. My impression, is that they really don't know what they are doing. Never liked Chavez, but compared to the current one, the guy was a genius.
Other countries have showed that you can work discretely and apply politics that help the vast majority of the population instead of a few elites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Correa#General_Balance_...
We tried to steal the Bolivian elections that got Morales in power. By then the American brand was so tarnished the ambassador got run out of the country.
So most of the blames does go to Chavez. But can we please pretend we're anything other than pricks?
The world used to be much much worse. The world is getting better and better. Statistically speaking. We literally live in a golden age. For a good portion it seriously seriously sucks. But that ratio is getting lower and lower yes? 500 million people raised out of poverty in china alone over the past 30 years. That's gotta count for something, doesn't it?
Read Chomsky, he'll give you references (from the likes of the declassified CIA documents, ect)
For example
Russian Civil War. That's well before they "ruled half the world's economy". Btw, the side we picked were real pricks. The only ones who could make the Bolsheviks the better alternative.
Greek civil war. Here we started sweeping away the commies (who actually liberated Greece) while we stil at war with the Nazis.
Cuba, nasty embargo. Numerous terrorist act committed by our proxies. The point here is to demonstrate to L. America the punishment of going red.
Cambodia. Bombed them to the stone age destroying all their capital. We were so through, people predicted that millions would die even if the Khmer Rouge hadn't (the predictions, btw, predate the Khmer Rouge taking power).
Cambodian side note: by the 1980s we were siding with the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam. Politics and bed fellows and all of that.
Vietnam. We dumped so much Agent Orange that they can't grow non-poisonous produce if they tried. We destroyed all their industrial capital.
N. Korea. We bombed them so throughly that we ran out of civilian* targets. We bombed them for things we hung Nazis for (irrigation damns). Needless to say they had no capital.
Read more Chomsky for more fun (and references) !
* Did you really mean economy or landmass, or population? I don't think the combined socialist countries, at their height in the late 70s, got close to third the world economy, nevermind half. To be clear, i don't expect socialism to work. I just don't get why we bomb those who try it.
Now, wherever you start, a functioning economic system should be able to lift even a destroyed country up eventually. Just look at what Germany accomplished after WW1 (too bad they went for another war with what they gained).
What about all the Eastern European countries that abandoned socialism without a single bullet fired? What about all the former African socialist countries that few people ever talk about?
> Did you really mean economy or landmass, or population?
I'm talking about roughly half the world (people). I may be off with that figure, but suffice it to say it should be big enough to work autonomously.
How did we intervene in the USSR, the largest county in the world, to destabilize it. And how could we, given socialism is so efficient and they had all the massive resources they'd ever need, right?
If you care about the welfare of people is fair to ask why a minority live like kings when the vast majority live in misery in a resource rich country. And, I think, is fair to ask for changes and try to support those changes even if you know that probably you will get disappointed finally or you will get mixed results.
The true is that, unsurprisingly, and independently of how you call those policies, spending resources in the poor improve the life of the poor.
The fact that some autocratic countries also employ capitalism doesn't change that. Capitalism doesn't magically cure corruption, it's merely a superior economic system. Poverty isn't a function of wealth inequality, it's function of economic development. In a socialist system, the poor may be less poor in relative terms, but they're more poor in absolute terms, because socialist economics eventually fail.
Pure capitalism has never existed neither, so we have a spectrum of possibilities. I would argue that the better system is the one that improve the lives or the people and, that should be the measure.
Even if capitalism was the definitive answer, that doesn't mean that we should stop criticizing it.
If you have a system where, in the middle of the most advanced age of humanity, most of the people have not even the most basic needs covered, like was (and it's) the case of Venezuela, some criticism is needed.
I'm not going to argue that socialism is a good system, I agree with you that we have not good examples, but that doesn't automatically, leave us with a system where all resources have to be allocated by the market. In fact, if something has been proved for now, is that is a very bad idea.
So, when you criticism socialism, remember that a lot of countries in the world redistribute resources in a not market way very successfully. Call that whatever you want.
No socialist state that called itself a socialist state has been a success. None. Zero. There are democratic countries that may at some point have "social democrats" or even "socialists" in power. These countries may have passed some laws that are "socialist" in spirit, but virtually all of those countries employ a capitalist free enterprise market. Then you have countries like China that call itself communist and still employ capitalism.
Yet, socialist thinkers are pre-occupied with the perceived evils of capitalism (and finding means to abolish it), even though it has outperformed any socialist economic model thus far conceived. Capitalism is blamed for practically every ill, including the failure of socialism itself.
> So, when you criticism socialism, remember that a lot of countries in the world redistribute resources in a not market way very successfully. Call that whatever you want.
Like which? I'm not going to call any form of redistribution "socialism", like some people like to do.
>>"Like which? I'm not going to call any form of redistribution "socialism", like some people like to do."
I suppose you agree that there are not pure capitalist states. What we see in the world is normally called "mixed economy".
In your opinion, what is this mix composed of?
Anyway, I think we are discussing about semantics.
China is still very much communist in every way but economically. I don't mind calling them communist, it's just that if we're talking about an economic system and I'm looking for success story of socialism, you can't bring up China. Ever since China abandoned planned economy and employed capitalism, its economy has grown by leaps and bounds.
> I suppose you agree that there are not pure capitalist states. What we see in the world is normally called "mixed economy".
Whatever you want to call it, does "more socialism" or "more capitalism" correlate strongly with wealth? What about individual freedom?
It seems to me that critics of the government in non-democratic countries are the ones in danger, while the ones in democracies aren't, even in socialist democracies (eg, Scandinavia).
If you don't consider these countries socialist that's ok, but the danger government critics are in within non-socialist dictatorships is something worth considering.
Apparently, anything that fails eventually is not socialist. Hence, "No True Scotsman".
> If you don't consider these countries socialist that's ok, but the danger government critics are in within non-socialist dictatorships is something worth considering.
I don't consider these countries socialist. They're not "socialist democracies" (no such thing exists as far as I can see). They're commonly called "social democracies", but that's because the word "social" is political capital. The word "socialist" on the other hand is rather toxic, so most of the mainstream left parties call themselves "social democratic". They may have a bit of "socialist" policy, but not much more so than e.g. the US. Their economic system is fundamentally capitalist.
The fact that social democratic countries in Latin America have overall had better development than extreme free market societies like haiti or pre-socialist Brazil is pretty widely accepted, dutch disease inflicted Venezuela notwithstanding.
For instance,the poverty headcount:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC?locations=BR
Specially against this one, a growing population:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=BR
From then he has criticised them frequently.
a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy