There’s a big difference between social democracies (Denmark) and socialism (Cuba, Venezuela). My personal take is that those who were instrumental in the creation of these had very different ideas about the desirable endpoints. Certainly, hearing my local “democratic socialists” (Seattle), I get a strong impression that Scandinavia is not their model.
Why can’t we respect Clement Attlee more than Comrade Gonzalo?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
And by the way, why does equality for all mean this ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-...
Apparently, can't have socialism without Justin Bieber. Not for sharing, of course.
Extreme poverty halved under Chavez. The most vulnerable citizens in Venezuela (poor, indigenous Venezuelans) are the strongest supporters of the socialist government.
Venezuela has had economic problems, relating to their over-reliance on oil revenue (which has always been a problem and has nothing to do with socialism), and bad monetary policy (which again, is not at all related to socialism)
Meanwhile, the US continues to levy harsher sanctions aimed at forcing regime change (ie, so their country is run by a puppet state friendly to US capital), which only makes the crisis worse.
Same happened in the Soviet Union, but of course giving total power to the state (def. of socialism) never leads to the people that are the state (all states are nothing but a group of people) abusing that power to get away with bullying, rape and murder.
Especially once, inevitably, a socialist state runs out of other ways to pay them. They can't survive without them.
But noooo, it's outside sabotage, as if capitalist states don't sabotage each other too....