Why Nations Fail was such a good damn document of history and the nature of human behavior.
* 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
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRAkz13cpsk
[3] https://smile.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity...
How?
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).
So not necessarily ethnic or religious -- but political.
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.
Populism and good economic policies repel each other.
They see person problems instead of system problems. They want to solve issues one by one instead of using general principles.
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.
A) nobody is able to discern whether or not something is true without an astronomical amount of effort and resources therefore we resort to deeply flawed heuristics
B) We are not rational creatures. Logic is mostly wasted on us. All decisions are ultimately emotional and often it's made by unconsciously substituting an easier question and deciding based off your answer to that.
C) Incentives are extremely powerful motivators. They can cause us to do bad, nasty things to get a reward.
D) A person sufficiently motivated by the incentives of being the sole person in control of all the resources can and will routinely use the flaws in our psychology against us to their advantage.
Humans basically don't stand a chance. The fact that England and the US happened is freaking miracle. Interestingly in all cases where they system of humanity converged on a democracy was when there was a broad coalition of people with different interests who would all benefit from opposing the ruler. The scary thing is that it can all go back the other way. Even the US can collapse and fall into this kind of nightmare. I think from 2000 to 2015 was the golden era of humanity and we are now on a slow and steady descent into madness.
The poor policies resulted from first an elite ignoring the poor and then the poor deciding they wanted majority rule. Majority rule devolved into anti-intellectualism and reduced respect for property rights, which in turn led to falling production. Populism isn't the root cause, but it's damn close.
(This story rhymes with the fall of the Roman Republic.)
You're taking about someone who claims Hugo Chavez appeared to him as a "little bird". Really https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/nicolas-maduro-hug...
Will of the people don't exist as starting point. It is the end result of complex democratic process and interaction with democratic institutions.
The proper end result is not what any interest group wants but hopefully a negotiated result that represents a deal that most people can accept. We should try to improve this process, not to make it streamlined and as short as possible.
Any insightful local Venezuelans for any comments except template-based mundane political statements?
What's the reverse of populism in the case of Venezuela? Going easy and decreasing tensions with US and allies and reverting sanctions and attracting foreign investments, like some other south American countries? Or what? any insights?
- pay all of the alleged debts without discuss
- accept US military and political counselors
- Allow an alien actor to open multiple military bases in your country
- Stop exporting and start importing everything you can from America
Typical populist belief is that popular sovereignty is expressed in elections and with grand referendums. At the same time they wall over other institutions needed for liberal democracy. They also work to delegitimize their opponents and make them enemies. As a result, they pack all other institutions with loyalists.
What they should have done, is to acknowledge that supporters of the old system are also Venezuelans. They must be incorporated in the system relative to their support. They should have enacted laws and improved legals system that is independent no matter who is in charge and harder to corrupt.
The whole "populism" / "socialists" thing is the American media projecting its fury at US oil companies getting kicked out in the 90s. There were many things they did to economically mismanage the country but that wasn't one of them and neither was building hospitals, schools and housing with wealth wrested from economic elites and American oil companies.
The best thing that could happen to them would be for oil to lose its geopolitical importance. Then the rest of the economy could rexover and the proxy fighting between can end and the Dutch disease can end.
Meanwhile, they probably will put the opposition in power next election, which American media will approve of, but it won't make things any better.
So basically Switzerland is doomed is what you're saying
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.
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.
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?
That's a funny euphemism for "ruinously managed totalitarian hellhole".
Please provide a credible source for this claim.
The situation for the populism send simple. I've listened and asked many questions and from what I've heard from her parents as well is this:
1. Chavez gained power as a populist movement for to the fact that whole the poor may get medical services and basic education they didn't appear to have any chance to participate in further education. This kept them poor. Born poor and then you stay poor. 2. Second big thing is that labour made very little money. If you were lucky enough to get a job in the oil industry maybe you could get enough to lead your family out of poverty, but even then it's only marginally possible.
Noteworthy definition of poor here is like shanty town type poor. Not like Canada type poor where your kids have 100% the same access to university as the rich kids.
This set the stage for the populism. Apparently her father used to drive his employees during voting day and encourage them to vote. So he'd hear what they were thinking and so on along the way. Chavez was definitely their guy, but in the beginning even middle class people were divided about whether he would be bad due their concerns about corruption. I guess the hope was that he'd remove it decrease corruption and that would be a win for everyone.
Where we are today is actually very much different than what any geopolitical conspiracy theorist boosting for the US client state story would have wanted. Currently China is taking control over the country, they are treating it more and more like a client state. It's basically criminal what's happening with oil for money deals being agreed that undervalue the oil immensely. China then imports their workers to work on the extraction of the oil further decreasing the value to the country. It's a horrific downward cycle that is putting them into China's hands not the US, so if the US were to have been involved then it's really backfired on them.
Where are we today on the ground? 1. Imagine waiting all day to walk into a grocery store and find you can't get tooth paste it the only thing you can buy for breakfast is fruit loops? On Instagram there are hundreds of photos of nearly empty grocery stores. These are not exaggerations. We get those pictures from her family directly.
2. ALL (and it's just about meant literally) educated people under the age of 40 have left. I'd say better that 50% of those in their 40-50s are also gone now or trying desperately to leave. This has compounded problems further because universities don't have the staff to train the next generation. They don't have engineers to run or manage the industry. They don't have entrepreneurs or businessmen to run basic stuff from cafes to car dealerships.
3. Medicine is so scarce she has lost already one family member due to a medical condition that was treatable. I don't recall (honestly) what it was but I'm not going to ask her to tell me for HN. Right now she has one Uncle struggling with a minor heart condition, but he can't get the medicine that would allow him to live happily and heathy in a country life Canada. Another Aunt is going to lose a chunk of her foot; the debate currently is how much they will amputate. I shit you not. This is also due to the fact that her diabetes is unmanageable without medicine.
What's happening today in Venezuela Is probably one of the worst ongoing humanitarian crisis's in the world today. It was self-inflicted initially, but now people are dying daily for no good reason, dogs and babies are being left in the street to die and diseases that shouldn't be tolerated are coming back. I won't mention the one she said she heard, because I don't want to be a fear monger without facts, but the shit is crazy.
It's too the point where we (Western societies) should do what we do when things get too crazy and with the support of Latin America we need to bring in relief with a plan together with region partners in how to reconstitute the nation. Anything less is basically uncivilized at this point IMO.
Long way to go before we become a truly intelligent and civilized planet than can absorb crisises like this without any problems. we need to have excellent resource allocation programs and policies that work for everyone. This is a really really hard problem to solve.
The earth has enough to satisfy thirst, hunger, put a roof, have enough energy/electricity etc for everyone. We just haven’t been able to crack the problem of maximizing basic happiness.
Perhaps this is a fundamental human flaw? I don’t know. I think about this all the time.
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.
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 (and slightly better article 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.
China has moved away from the socialist economic models for 4 decades. They thrive because they have capitalist/capitalism model.
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.
I can’t imagine how this could even be compared to market economies such as Denmark or Sweden.
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.
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”.
California. They control the price of electricity in the state.
And yes, these are laws. If you break them, you go to prison.
Do you honestly believe Norway, the UK and California are anything like that?
For another example of a country that has wide-ranging price controls on basic foodstuffs, look to the 2008 situation in mexico.
Venezuela is socialist because it combines destructive economic measures with collectivist ideology, takeover of institutions like the Supreme Court by Party supporters, violent government-backed militias, fraudulent elections, cult of personality, etc.
In summary, all the usual traits of a totalitarian left wing government.
In fact I would say those things you said perfectly describe a country that is a Dictatorship - but there are lots of those that are not socialist.
I assumed that you thought they were communist because you disagreed with my original post which claimed that they were not.
Except for the phrase “collectivist ideology”, none of that has anything to do with socialism at all.
Correlation does not imply causation. It also doesn't mean they are literally the same thing.
Consider zimbabwe or libya or syria - they all have these things and I don't imagine you consider them all communist.
No, they haven't. There's a whole lot of places that have had socialism will without any of them (and lots of non-socialist regimes with all of them.)
It's an extention of the absolutism in politics that has grown more and more, especially I think since 2008.
In political dialog, too often "socialism" and "communism" are equated together in this country incorrectly. Venezuela and Sweden usually aren't directly compared together, but what happens is that failed authoritarian central-planned nations like Venezuela are often used as boogeymen against "socialism" in general, including socialist policies (like, say, a universal healthcare -- which is not socialist per se, but has some elements if there is large central planning) that have nothing to do with why Venezuela failed, and are implemented with some decent success in other countries.
Heck our own current president even used Venezuela as a boogeyman against "socialism" in general fairly recently. (https://www.newsweek.com/trump-was-laughed-world-leaders-dis...)
I don't dispute that the country has been run badly but calling states that do these things communist makes almost every state communist.
The nationalization referred to in Venezuela, is someone invests their own resources in building something, legally with the approval of the government. After they have built it, the government comes with people with guns, and says, "this belongs to us now" and either the owners go away, or go to jail, or get shot. Is that what they do in Norway? Do you think smart, capable people with access to capital want to work in Venezuela? Or maybe all those people left and provide their services to other countries.
And by the way, this Venezuelan kind of nationalization sounds too me like the kind that Marx was advocating, it's real socialism too.
For examples of already-existing companies being nationalised, see RBS in the UK, or Cardiff Airport in wales. After the 9/11 attacks in the US, all airport security firms were forcibly nationalised.
If you are claiming that the definition of socialist requires it to be done with guns instead of money, I don't know what to say. However be aware that if somebody did create an oil company in norway against the law then I imagine that some nice people from the government would have to come and ask them not to. If they refused despite that - they may actually have to make use of the state monopoly of violence.
I don't think most people here have a problem with a democratic country with socialist leanings, which maintain a largely market economy. People have a problem with populist leaders who promise to enrich the poor by forcefully taking the means of production away from "capitalist pigs" and using the wealthy and the West as a scapegoat for all their problems. No one complains about Sweden and Norway, but the propaganda that goes around in Latin America is the more violent kind. And I don't see how that doesn't fall under the umbrella of socialism.
From my viewpoint (I'm Norwegian), Venezuela doesn't look leftist at all. Chavez and Maduro look like just regular dimwit autocrats, they don't look like Einar Gerhardsen, Tage Erlander, Olof Palme or Poul Nyrup Rasmussen at all. Chavez/Maduro look more like those horribles the US tends to prop up around Latin America, except that their veneer of rhetoric uses unusual vocabulary.
Maduro is the kind of leftist who'll rather repay PVDSA debts than feed the poor.
But from bufferoverflow's viewpoint it's different. Maduro uses leftist vocabulary and fucks up, therefore.
Are you serious? Do you know anything about the beloved "Bolivarian Revolution" and its policies?
South America had had a lot of regimes that handed out state funds to this group and that. The Bolivarian Revolution has that. But to which group? From what I've read Mission Habitat housing has gone mostly to Chavez/Maduro voters, for example. Friends of the local party functionaries.
I suppose you might say that's still better than letting the rich and corrupt help themselves to public resources.
http://theconversation.com/brazilian-candidate-still-crushin...
What's your evidence for this outrageous claim?
You mean an illegitimate president: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_presidential_electi....
> Brazil ousted a honest one
You mean a corrupt one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Dilma_Rousseff#....
> through a coup d'etat
Through impeachment by a supermajority of the lower house and the upper house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Dilma_Rousseff#....
> what Maduro and Venezuela will never do
Yeah, he's too busy expropriating what's left of Venezuela's wealth for himself.
> as their "political" prisoners were responsible for more than a hundred of deaths
Where the fuck are you getting this from? Stop pulling lies out of your ass.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. The rules are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Thanks for making my day, that's the funniest thing I read today.
It would have been funnier if it weren't for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan's fleeing the country to neighboring countries. And people needing to smuggle toilet paper. And inflation with more than 4 digits
However, the definition of communist is not 'a poorly run country'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez#Bolivarianism
They have also imposed several left-wing actions, like nationalization of oil companies (and your comparison is with Norway is again without merit as Chavez nationalized several industries - including oil - without significant compensation and put his incompetent cronies to run it, which means they don't produce as much as when they were privately run)
So the argument that you are trying to make is that a state is communist when it nationalises industries (not only one industry) and those industries are not: Oil (Norway, Saudi arabia, UK) Aerospace (Canada, UK) Cement (Pakistan) Food (Zimbabwe, Croatia) Mining (Sweden)
The only company Venezuela has nationalized that does not fit one of these criteria is a glass producing company. To be honest if I looked hard enough, I could probably find an example of such an action in another country.
Maybe Denmark and Sweden have high taxes and price controls on a small percentage of goods, but the degree to which capital can freely compete is still far greater than in Venezuela.
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).
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...
(EDIT: fixed the typo 1992 -> 1922)
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.
If you look at the list of countries that tried to build socialism/communism, most of them went through hyperinflation, and all (as far as I know) destroyed their economy. With the exception of China, which isn't 100% socialist yet (as in, the means of production 100% controlled by the government). No country ever achieved communism.
Btw, Cuba is slowly starting to move away from socialism:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/22/world/americas/cuba-const...